Showing results by narrator "Rubinate Amy" in All Categories

When Laine Forrester travels overseas to attend her best friend’s vineyard wedding, she expects to find the bride on the brink of a fairy-tale life. But after a series of unforeseen setbacks, it seems the storybook lives they’d imagined are suddenly ripping apart. With hopes of resurrecting a happy ending, Laine agrees to accompany the newlyweds to the groom’s home in Ireland—never expecting she’d be the one drawn in by its wide-open moors, backroads bordering the Irish Sea, and a mysterious castle that dares to keep its secrets hidden.

Just step out your door today, and you will notice that poise is a rarity in our wired, fast-paced, and unmannerly world. As uncivil behaviors like flip-flops at Broadway shows and digital oversharing proliferate, this timely book reminds us of the quiet power of behaving with dignity, kindness, and grace. Jennifer L. Scott's Parisian mentor, Madame Chic, embodied poise and not just with the good posture, stylish attire, and natural manners that made her extraordinarily elegant.

In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother's home. Mamie is the nearest thing to family Starla has. After being put on restriction yet again for her sassy mouth, Starla is caught sneaking out. She fears Mamie will make good on her threat to send Starla to reform school, so Starla walks to the outskirts of town, and just keeps walking.

Since inheriting her mother's sandwich shop, Nora Charles is more about hot grilled paninis than cold-blooded murder - until her sister, Lacey, is arrested. The victim, an esteemed art collector and Lacey's bullying professor, was stabbed in the heart. Apparently, all over a lousy grade. Off campus, things were just as dicey. The prof had an ex with secrets, a trophy wife set to inherit a fortune in masterworks, and a scorned student mistress.

Several hundred years ago, Ship, a sentient starship, settled humans on the planet Home before leaving to colonize other worlds, promising to return one day. Over time, the colony on Home divided into those who live in the original domed buildings of the colony, who maintain the library and technology of Ship, and those who live by the river, farming and hunting to survive.

Lily is the ultimate poor little rich girl, abandoned by her parents and sent to the best Swiss boarding school money could buy. Her parents have a society wedding in mind for her but then Lily meets Harry Kohle, an ambitious young writer.

Lindsey Hilliard flees her charmed life in New York, searching for answers after her fiancé's betrayal fills her with self-doubt. Unfortunately, her rented Malibu home is next door to Levi Hardy, the sexy but insufferable man who humiliated her years ago.

This edition of Spell Disaster is enhanced with a musical soundtrack from Booktrack! When elderly witch Enid Pettywood unwittingly summons a demon to Silver Hollow, it's up to Issy Quinn and her cousins to send it back before the committee finds out. Summoning a demon is a serious offense and no one wants to see Enid suffer the punishment the committee is sure to hand down. But a simple plan of vanquishing the pesky demon before anyone notices goes awry when the demon makes the leap from wreaking havoc with the town's electrical circuits to possessing a human.

Home to the Better Off Bed-and-Breakfast, the Eat Your Heart Out bakery, and the Whinery bar, Black Dog Bay offers a haven for the suddenly single. Flight attendant Summer Benson lives by two rules: Don't stay with the same man for too long, and never stay in one place. She's about to break rule number one by considering accepting her boyfriend's proposal - then disaster strikes, and her world is shattered in an instant.

Prodigal son Lucas Dempsey reluctantly returns home to Anchor Island. Following his father’s heart attack, the whole Dempsey clan has to step up to keep the family restaurant afloat. For Lucas this means putting family first and his quest to make partner at his high-powered law firm on hold. Tough-as-nails boat mechanic Sid Navarro is happy to trade her tools for an apron to help the Dempseys in their time of need - until she realizes she’ll be spending her days alongside Lucas, the man she’s loved from afar since high school.

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned - to her old life, her family, her boyfriend - before she’s banished back to the underworld... this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists. Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance - and the one person she loves more than anything.

Years before synchronized sound became the norm, projected moving images were shown to musical accompaniment, whether performed by a lone piano player or a hundred-piece orchestra. Today film music has become its own industry, indispensable to the marketability of movies around the world. Film Music: A Very Short Introduction is a compact, lucid, and thoroughly engaging overview written by one of the leading authorities on the subject.

The Harrington sisters have never gotten along. Sara is a type A, career-focused event planner, and her younger sister, Mariel, is the opposite: bohemian, semi-employed, and recently engaged. When Sara's mother lures her back to Connecticut under false pretenses, she is perturbed to discover Mariel waiting for her, eager to reconcile their relationship - and get some help with the final arrangements before her big day. The two sisters haven't spoken since the night Sara realized something was going on between Mariel and Sara's boyfriend, Carter. And now Mariel is about to marry Carter.

Levi might be hot and strong and have a cool set of wings, but it's not enough to make up for keeping Allie in the dark. Allie's tired of being left with more questions than answers. She's tired of loving a guy who refuses to level with her. Most of all she's tired of her life spinning out of control.

The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common - they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out.

After solving her first murder and leaving the Helsinki Police Department behind, Maria Kallio thought that a move to the neighboring city of Espoo would signal a fresh start - a chance to not only put her new law degree to use but to nurture her budding romance with Antti Sarkela. But when she discovers the strangled body of a new acquaintance, old habits die hard for the redheaded sleuth - especially since the accused is not only the victim's fiancé but a member of Antti's family. Though she works as a legal counselor, Kallio soon finds herself unofficially investigating the murder, now labeled a sex crime.

Imagining the best way to destroy a person’s happiness is Crystal Love’s favorite game. Devious and unpolished, the plus-sized loan analyst couldn’t be more out of place in her new town of Santa Barbara, where the beautifully manicured women never age and the ocean views stretch farther than the million-dollar lawns. And yet her eye for the power dynamics at play in this tony community is dead accurate. Kathi Wright, on the other hand, has made it her life’s work to fit in with the plastic people who surround her. But when her husband - a wealthy bank president - dies suddenly, she’s left with nothing.

When Tammy Jo's misfiring magic attracts the attention of the World Association of Magic, a wand-wielding wizard and a menacing fire warlock show up to train her for a dangerous, mandatory challenge. But is there more to their arrival than they claim? The town comes unglued when a curse leads to a toxic spill of pixie dust, and the doors between the human and faerie worlds begin to open.

When a nighttime soap opera comes to town to film an episode, no one's more excited than Nora Charles, who's landed the contract for catering the shoot. But if she thought the show's plotlines were full of drama and intrigue, that's nothing compared to what she witnesses among the cast and crew. With half of them sneaking off for secret liaisons one minute and at each other's throats the next, it's all a titillating behind-the-scenes look for Nora—until she stumbles across the body of the show's slain director.

It's spring break, and Stink is faced with a difficult choice: hang out at home with his sister, Judy, or become a Shakespeare Sprite with his friend Sophie of the Elves. Hanged be! When Sophie tells Stink that there will be swordplay and cursing at Shakespeare camp, his choice is made. But wait! How now? The eager young thespian hadn't counted on Riley Rottenberger being a Sprite, too. And he positively had not counted on being the only boy! Fie upon't!