Showing results by narrator "Marie Gideon" in All Categories

Jemma Nox has learned that she is not the only witch in the family, but it's far from a prestigious pedigree. And she's not the only one whose past is coming to call. Mama B has been many things, guardian and mentor being foremost, but perfect isn't one of them. Since her tutelage began, Jemma has learned that Mama B's history is streaked like a polecat with tragedy, but things are about to get quite a bit more interesting. The sins of the father may be visited upon the third and fourth generation, but what about the sins of the mother?

Esther Pinnett has a two-year-long crush on the billionaire pineapple plantation owner she drives to and from work every day. But when she decides to give him a puzzle book for his birthday, he starts to see her as more than his chauffeur. Marshall Robison has been running the Hawaiian pineapple empire for years, and it will become his in just two more. After a marriage that ended badly eight years ago, he's closed himself off to dating or finding love...until Esther's birthday gift literally lands in his lap.

After Jemma Nox's mother left, what was left of her family's world fell apart. Jemma knew she and her dad needed a change, but really? Jemma would follow her dad anywhere. She never would have guessed that anywhere included the likes of Kalhoun County. Planted squarely in the heart of Appalachia, this new home feels like anything but. Jemma is strong, adaptable, and smart. She's not going to let a little culture shock scare her. But this place is different.

In Always the Baker, Never the Bride, listeners fell in love with Emma Rae and Jackson, and they've gotten more acquainted with them in the two books that followed. But now it's time for the diamond to meet the road as Jackson fields an offer to sell The Tanglewood, a move that will uproot this high-flying family act once and for all. Get reacquainted with all of the lovable and quirky characters from the first three books as your favorite diabetic baker figures out if she'll achieve her greatest goal of all.

Frankie Lane knows what’s best for just about everyone but herself. Her divorced sister, Stef, who is too young to give up on love; her shy employee, Elinor; and her daughter, Natalie, who works in Frankie’s shop, Holiday Happiness, and really needs to start her own business selling the delectable chocolates she makes at home; even her best friend, Viola, who is trying to renovate her old Victorian. Frankie knows she could help all of them, if they’d just let her—and if all of her help didn’t end in utter disaster.

This metaphysical novel incorporates mystery and problem-solving, but also adds a dash of spice. The prologue introduces an era just before Hitler has just been made the ruler of Germany, when Queen Mary of Teck christens her ship of the same name, and where a baby born in Louisiana faces an uncertain future without her mother. Fast forward to 2020, in the first chapter, some hours before a predicted apocalypse, when kindergartner Alana Miceli falls into a trance for the first time. In her vision, she's wrenched out of her familiar school setting and into the ship's Secret Spice Cafe.

Despite the dishonorable circumstances of his own birth, Adam Faulkner has never begrudged his half-brother Sebastian's legitimate position as the Viscount Willowthorpe. Having a title and everything that goes with it never mattered to Adam—until “everything” became the hand of Miss Eliza Southwick. Adam knows, as the stable manager at Hooke Manor, he shouldn’t hope to wed a well-born miss. After all, enchanting such a lady’s heart would take a true gentleman…something he is not.

Juliet Townsend is used to losing. Back in high school, she lost every track team race to her best friend, Madeleine Bell. Ten years later, she’s still running behind, stuck in a dead-end job cleaning rooms at the Mid-Night Inn, a one-star motel that attracts only the cheap or the desperate. But what life won’t provide, Juliet takes. Then one night, Maddy checks in. Well-dressed, flashing a huge diamond ring, and as beautiful as ever, Maddy has it all. By the next morning, though, Juliet is no longer jealous of Maddy - she’s the chief suspect in her murder.

When Rachel was taken to live in a tower by a woman she calls Mama, she was excited. She felt like a princess in a castle. But many years later, Rachel knows her palace is really a prison, and begins to plan her escape. She is encouraged by the speed that her golden hair has been growing. It’s gotten long enough to reach the ground. And she’s begun dreaming of a green-eyed man. Could he be out there in the world? Is he coming to save her? Or will she find a way to save herself?

In 1932, New York City, top reporter Lorena "Hick" Hickok starts each day with a front page byline - and finishes it swigging bourbon and planning her next big scoop. But an assignment to cover FDR's campaign - and write a feature on his wife, Eleanor - turns Hick's hard-won independent life on its ear. Soon, her work, and the secret entanglement with the new first lady, will take her from New York and Washington to Scotts Run, West Virginia, where impoverished coal miners' families wait in fear that the New Deal's promised hope will pass them by.

Julie has an obsession with fire that began after her parents died when she was 12 years old. Her pyromania leads her to take an unlikely job as a forest firefighter on an elite, Type 1 "Hotshot" crew of forest firefighters who travel the American West battling wildfires. The only woman on the 20-person crew, Julie struggles both to prove her worth and find a place of belonging in the dangerous, insular, and very masculine world of fire.

Jane Morris makes a living cleaning the houses of the wealthy residents of Pine Valley, and she tries hard not to judge their extravagant lifestyles. But when one of her clients goes through a devastating breakup with his fiancee, Jane finds herself in the middle of his emotional mess. She wants to help him, but Cameron Vance is a man to whom she could easily lose her heart. Yet, Jane agrees to be his date to the charity event of the year, organized by Cameron's mother. The magical night shows Jane that if she's a Cinderella, then Cameron is definitely a candidate for Prince Charming.

In the far-future aftermath of a genetic plague that separated human society into two different groups—sickly yet super-intelligent Subterraneans and healthy but weak-minded Omniterraneans—a brilliant Subter girl is tasked with fixing the broken genetic code to reunite the two groups in the next generation. But when a newer plague turns fatal for the surface-dwelling Omnits, the only group able to reproduce (giving birth to both Subter and Omnit children), Zuzan must find a cure or humanity won't simply remain divided, it will become extinct.

Amina Cain's unique wandering sensibility, her attention to the small and the surprising, finds a profound new expression in her first nonfiction book, a sustained meditation on writers. Driven by primary questions of authenticity and freedom in the shadow of ecological and social collapse, Cain moves associatively through a personal canon of authors—including Marguerite Duras, Elena Ferrante, Renee Gladman, and Virginia Woolf—and topics as timely and various as female friendships, zazen meditation, neighborhood coyotes, landscape painting, book titles, and the politics of excess.

Tyler Rigby left his ritzy nightlife in New York City when he sold his half of the Online poker company for more than six billion dollars. When he needs a date for a high society function, he looks no further than the beach yoga instructor his dog has led him to several times. But Tawny Loveless isn't impressed with Tyler's lack of social skills - even if he did bring her favorite drink as a peace offering. When her dangerous ex-boyfriend shows up at the gala, she introduces Tyler as her fiance, much to his surprise.

When speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger first came home with her puppy, Stella, it didn't take long for her to start drawing connections between her job and her new pet. During the day, she worked with toddlers with significant delays in language development and used augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices to help them communicate. At night, she wondered: if dogs can understand words we say to them, shouldn't they be able to say words to us? Can dogs use AAC to communicate with humans?

Katherine, an attentive mother to her teenagers, comfortably married to her strapping provider of a husband, longs to overcome her dark thoughts and intermittent fears of sexual intimacy. This brisk, mesmerizing version of her life is told in alternating short chapters by Truitt, Star, and Smooshed Bug—her inner children, each with their particular strategy for coping with Katherine’s past at the hands of a hopeless mother and a terrifying, seductive father.

Becc was the good girl. A dedicated student. Aspiring reporter. Always where she was supposed to be. Until a secret affair with the charming Cal one summer in college cost her everything she held dear: her journalism dreams; her relationship with her best friend, Eric; and her carefully imagined future. Now, Becc’s past is back front and center as she travels up the scenic California coast to a wedding - with a man she hasn’t seen in a decade. As each mile flies by, Becc can’t help but feel the thrilling push and pull of memories.

It's three weeks until Christmas, and Lucy Gable is not in the holiday spirit. She’s the assistant to bestselling romance author Brynn Dixon, who’s been suffering from major burnout. Hoping to reduce Brynn’s stress, Lucy’s organized an intimate book tour—one that includes a charming little Christmas tree farm. And they're still hoping that no one discovers that Lucy was the one who finished writing Brynn’s last book…

A Vegas cocktail waitress. An Indian herbalist. A British chemistry professor. An Italian-American widow. Four unique women with one thing in common: Each is haunted by a tragedy from her past. Cynthia, Rohini, Jane, and Angela meet on a food blogging site and bond over recipes. On impulse, they decide to open The Secret Spice, an elegant cafe on the magnificent ocean liner, the RMS Queen Mary, currently a floating hotel in Long Beach, California. Rich in history and tales of supernatural occurrences, the ship hides her own dark secrets.