Showing results by narrator "Allyson Ryan" in All Categories

Blending the piercing humor of Alexandra Kleeman and the jagged satire of Black Mirror, an audacious, eerily prescient debut novel that chronicles the rise and fall of a massive high-rise housing complex, and the lives it affected before - and after - its demise. Standing nearly 500 stories tall, Los Verticalés once bustled with life and excitement. Now this marvel of modern architecture and nontraditional urban planning has collapsed into a pile of rubble known as the Heap.

Ben and Caroline Tierney and their two young boys are hoping to start over. Ben has hit a dead end with his new novel, Caroline has lost her banking job, and eight-year-old Charlie is being bullied at his Manhattan school.

From elite marathoner and Olympic hopeful Becky Wade comes the story of her yearlong exploration of diverse global running communities from England to Ethiopia - nine countries, 72 host families, and over 3,500 miles of running - investigating unique cultural approaches to the sport and revealing the secrets to the success of runners all over the world.

Leilani and her family on the Big Island of Hawai'i face the challenge of survival in the world of the Emerald Orchid: a green presence that appeared in the sky after a global blackout. As the Hawaiian Islands go back to traditional ways of living, people must grow their own food and ration everything from gas to bullets.

Activists from Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi to the Movement for Black Lives have long recognized that there are times when, rather than having a duty to obey the law, we have a duty to disobey it. Taking seriously the history of this activism, A Duty to Resist wrestles with the problem of political obligation in real world societies that harbor injustice. Candice Delmas argues that the duty of justice, the principle of fairness, the Samaritan duty, and political association impose responsibility to resist under conditions of injustice.

During the darkest period of her life, Landry Wells found solace in a group of bloggers who had been in her shoes and lived to tell the tale. She's shared things with her online friends that even her husband and children didn't know. Things that now, looking back, make her uneasy. One of the bloggers is dead, victim of a random crime - or was it? Did she trust too easily; reveal too much? At the funeral a thousand miles from home, Landry is about to come face to face at last with the others.

From bourgeois facial-hair trends to parental sleep deprivation, Joseph O’Neill closely observes the mores of his characters, whose vacillations and second thoughts expose the mysterious pettiness, underlying violence, and, sometimes, surprising beauty of ordinary life in the early 21st century. A lonely wedding guest talks to a goose; two poets struggle over whether to participate in a “pardon Edward Snowden” verse petition; a cowardly husband lets his wife face a possible intruder in their home; a potential co-op renter in NYC can’t find anyone to give him a character reference.

I know who you are. When Elizabeth Baxter reads these words, her world crashes. Five years ago, she was Hollywood superstar Mallory Eden - until a mysterious stalker turned her life into a nightmare. Now she hides in the small town of Windmere Cove, Rhode Island, living in fear, constantly looking over her shoulder.... Then her house is ransacked. The phone rings, and no one is on the other end.... And very soon Elizabeth realizes she's being hunted again.

Hair neatly braided, hands serenely clasped, eyes closed, the young woman appeared to be sound asleep. But the peaceful tableau was a madman's handiwork. Beneath the covers her white nightgown was spattered with blood. At daybreak a horrified family would discover her corpse tucked in to their guest room. The cunning killer would strike again...and again...before vanishing into the mists of time.

Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano (later to become the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jennie Jerome (later to become the mother of Winston Churchill) refused to settle into predictable, sheltered lives as little-known wives to prominent men. Instead, both women concentrated their energies on enabling their sons to reach the epicenter of political power on two continents. Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons is a captivating dual biography of two famous women whose sons would change the course of the 20th century.

Three women have come to the Bramble Rose Inn. Sandy Cavelli longs to find romance through a personal ad. Liza Danning hopes to land a publishing deal with a reclusive author. And Jennie Towne, masquerading as her own twin, seeks a getaway weekend. They have nothing in common - or so it seems. Then a storm bears down on the eerie, isolated inn, and the three women are plunged into a terrifying fight for survival. Because someone consumed with revenge has chosen them - for better, for worse...'til death do them part.

At 37, Stevie Green has had it with binge drinking and sleeping with strange men. She’s confused about her sexuality and her purpose in life. When her mother asks her to return to her hometown of La Jolla to help her move into a new house, she’s desperate enough to say yes. The move goes so well that Stevie decides to start her own decluttering business. She stops drinking. She hires her formerly estranged sister, Bonnie, to be her business partner. Things are better than ever - except for the complicated past that Stevie can’t seem to outrun.

After surviving a horrific attack as a teenager, Ava has never been able to truly overcome her fears. The incident was covered up by her family so she wouldn't have to deal with it publicly, and only one person understands what she had to endure in private: her brother's best friend, MacKinley Powers, who found her the night of the attack. But even he doesn't know everything - and she's afraid to open up to him.

Suzy Denton thought she had it all: a great job as an event planner for Danvers International and a committed relationship to her high school sweetheart.... But now her life has gone to hell in a handbasket. Not only did she discover her fiancé cheating, but a recent corporate merger is making her job very difficult - mostly due to Grayson Merimon, wealthy CEO. Gray is a man who goes after what he wants. And, after their first meeting, he wants Suzy.

In New York Times best-selling author Wendy Corsi Staub's electrifying new thriller, a mother races to save her daughter before her darkest nightmare comes true. Sacred Sisters Catholic girls' school has hardly changed since Jen Archer was a student. Jen hoped her older daughter would thrive here. Instead, shy and studious Carley becomes the target of vicious bullies. But the real danger at Sacred Sisters goes much deeper.

In a fantastical tale set in the world of the critically acclaimed Unquenchable Fire, Ellen Pierson experiences a fateful, world-changing encounter with a Malignant One.

No star burned more ferociously than Judy Garland. And nobody witnessed Garland's fierce talent at closer range than Stevie Phillips. During the Mad Men era, Stevie Philips was a young woman muscling her way into the manscape of Manhattan's glittering office towers. After a stint as a secretary, she began working for Freddie Fields and David Begelman at Music Corporation of America (MCA) under the glare of legendary über-agent Lew Wasserman. When MCA blew apart, Fields and Begelman created Creative Management Associates (CMA), and Stevie went along.

Margo Fletcher, eight months pregnant, is traveling by train from Chicago to Spokane, her childhood home. While passing through an isolated portion of the Rockies in blizzard conditions, the train unexpectedly brakes. Up ahead, deadly snow from a massive avalanche plummets down the mountain. Despite the conductor’s order for the passengers to stay seated, former Army Ranger Nick Eliot insists that survival depends on moving to the back of the train. Only Margo believes him. They take refuge in the last train car, which Nick heroically uncouples in time to avoid the avalanche.

Gwen Bailey has been busy taking care of everyone but herself. After a tragedy tore her family apart, she put her dreams aside to be with family. Now that her life is getting back on track and her new Chocolaterie is open, she can concentrate on snagging the handsome, mysterious customer who has her dreaming about her own happily-ever-after....

The fascinating stories featured in Inventing the Abbotts explore the treacherously shifting ground of erotic and family relationships. In the title story, a young man takes up successively with three daughters of the most fashionable family in town. Others concern a young girl in the first blush of sexual curiosity, and a stricken dowager whose seizures release a brutal and sometimes obscene candor. In story after story, Sue Miller presents a remarkable gallery of characters, offering insight into contemporary men and women with their hungry hearts and dismayed consciences.