Showing results by narrator "Sands Xe" in All Categories

When the famed photographer Miranda Brand died mysteriously at the height of her career, it sent shock waves through Callinas, California. Decades later, old wounds are reopened when her son Theo hires the ex-journalist Kate Aitken to archive of his mother's work and personal effects. As Kate sorts through the vast maze of material and contends with the vicious rumors and shocking details of Miranda's private life, she pieces together a portrait of a vibrant artist buckling under the pressures of ambition, motherhood, and marriage.

Whether you’re simply browsing, talking to friends, or trying to stay focused in an important meeting, you can’t seem to manage to hang on to your attention. No matter how hard you try, you’re somewhere else. The consequence is that you miss out on 50 percent of your life - including the most important moments.

Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group's ringleaders - including Eve, who narrates the story - decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.

Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting - a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum - in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire's studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery. Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late 19th century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.

Hollis and Matt met on Tomales Bay the summer they both turned 12, and during the summers that followed, they grew up and fell in love. One night, after an unexpected test, they fell apart. Now, 12 years later, Hollis, who seeks refuge at her uncle’s seaside cottages to ride out a storm of her own making and Matt, weighed down by obligation to his parents, both return to Tomales Bay. Forced to share another summer in the small town that brought them together, will Hollis and Matt be able to move beyond the echo of their past and into a future filled with ever after?

Mel Turner can't resist the chance to bring the Crockett Theater, a decrepit San Francisco art nouveau movie palace, back to life. But there's a catch for Turner Construction: Several artists are currently squatting in the building, and they aren't the only ones haunting the once-grand halls of the historic theater.... When one of the squatters is found dead, the police department has a long list of suspects to investigate.

Pen Yas ben Min’s cousin was one of the legendary heroes of the wars against the giants until her untimely death. Pen has grown up in her famous cousin’s shadow, but when she’s given a quest to plant the seed of the magical Fourth Tree, she has a chance to step into the light—and usher in a new age for her country.

When she was young, Steffie Wyler always knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life: 1. Make ice cream. 2. Marry the coolest boy in town. 3. Live happily ever after. These days, Steffie is the proud owner of One Scoop or Two, a wildly popular ice cream parlor. But the cool guy left town right after high school, before they could scratch the surface of their mutual attraction to see what, if anything, lay beneath.

It’s 1956, and working-mother Ava Lark and her son, Lewis, have rented a house in a less-than-welcoming Boston suburb. There, Lewis finds he is only able to befriend the other fatherless kids on the block, Jimmy and Rose. But when Jimmy goes missing, neighborhood paranoia ramps to new heights, further ostracizing Ava and Lewis.

Before Jennifer Egan, Louise Erdrich, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Jonathan Lethem became revered authors, they were readers. In this ebullient book, America’s favorite librarian Nancy Pearl and noted-playwright Jeff Schwager interview a diverse range of America's most notable and influential writers about the books that shaped them and inspired them to leave their own literary mark. The Writer’s Library is a revelatory exploration of the studies, libraries, and bookstores of today’s favorite authors.

Ever since the Bommarito sisters were little girls, their mother, River, has written them a letter on pink paper when she has something especially important to impart. And this time, the message is urgent and impossible to ignore - River requires open-heart surgery, and Isabelle and her sisters are needed at home to run the family bakery and take care of their brother and ailing grandmother.

Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an attractive man in uniform drafting her into a secret government project—especially when Major Jackson makes it clear that he isn’t bothered by her questionable past. But when her labs come back with decidedly odd results, the Major is forced to come clean over who the government is actually studying. Renee is shocked to learn her subjects are demonic-looking beings who call themselves “Neighbors”—refugees from a dying world, who arrived during the nation-wide solar eclipse.

“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories — she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family.

The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories. In the never-before-published “Just One More,” a married couple—longing for that old romantic spark—creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences.

Jordan Cullen is a nineteen-year-old sophomore at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She invites her grandmother and best friend, Ellie, to visit for Parents' Weekend and meet her favorite professor and adviser, Dr. Hay. Ellie never imagined that Dr. Hay is none other than Jean Hay, her former flame, and first love. Ellie left many things unsaid when they parted, leaving Jean to mend the pieces of a broken heart. Fifty-four years later, the two stand in front of each other, feeling mixed emotions.

Joni Mitchell is a cultural touchstone for generations of Americans. In her heyday she released 10 experimental, challenging, and revealing albums; her lyrics captivated people with the beauty of their language and the rawness of their emotions, both deeply personal to Mitchell and universally relatable to her audience. In this intimate biography, composed of dozens of in-person interviews with Mitchell, David Yaffe reveals the backstory behind the famous songs.

After years of braving the Arctic’s frigid temperatures or endless hours tracking the Spirit Bear to capture the perfect shot for National Geographic, Meg Jeffries decides to move back to the city — San Francisco. Westin Drake is famous for fast cars and box office sales. When the public mistakes a simple kiss on the cheek for a budding romance, Meg and West are caught in a media frenzy. Somewhere amid the backseat getaways and plastered smiles, Meg discovers the man behind the glossy photographs, and West wonders how he’ll ever let her go once the cameras stop rolling.

The work-family conflict that mothers experience today is a national crisis. Women struggle to balance breadwinning with the bulk of parenting, and stress is constant. Social policies don't help. Of all Western industrialized countries, the US ranks dead last for supportive work-family policies: No federal paid parental leave. The highest gender wage gap. No minimum standard for vacation and sick days. Can American women look to European policies for solutions?

A wealthy and notorious clan, the Bellefleurs live in a region not unlike the Adirondacks, in an enormous mansion on the shores of mythic Lake Noir. They own vast lands and profitable businesses, they employ their neighbors, and they influence the government. A prolific and eccentric group, they include several millionaires, a mass murderer, a spiritual seeker who climbs into the mountains looking for God, a wealthy noctambulist who dies of a chicken scratch.

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster. As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before—and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise.