Showing results by narrator "Abby Craden" in All Categories

Liz Thorne has suppressed her impulsive nature for the last four years because her one reckless weekend ended in heartache. Now, the dangerous, sexy man who tempts her inner bad girl is back, and he's trying his damnedest to bring the wild child out to play. Since the day Rafe Xuereb was recalled for his Witches' Council duties, he's lived with regret. Despite his magical skills, he's been unable to find the one woman who turned his world on its head. Through a twist of fate, Liz lands on his doorstep with his termination papers, and Rafe can't be more delighted.

Still battling each other and the blue wall, NYPD detectives Chiara Corelli and P. J. Parker catch a new murder case. The victim, a gay man, is posed with a rosary in his hands, the smell of incense in the air, and Gregorian chants playing in the background. While Corelli and Parker search for leads, Kate Burke, the lesbian speaker of the city council, asks for an update on the investigation. Thinking Burke is playing politics, Corelli ignores the request. In the meantime, two more bodies are found, both laid out in the same way.

Eighteen-year-old Charlee Parker met the love of her life in a parking lot-a leggy brunette with a valedictorian medal hanging from her rear-view mirror and an attitude as biting as a Boston winter. Alexandra Woodson was guarded, a 19-year-old orphan set on a bright future in hospitality administration. She never imagined an art student with a penchant for cheesy pick-up lines and stealing parking spaces would crack her rigid exterior and claim her heart. For four years, theirs was an enviable love - evergreen and growing. Unbreakable... until it broke.

With the ring of sorrows still missing, and the covenant between othernaturals and mortals broken, Chrysabelle and Malkolm's problems are just beginning. Chrysabelle still owes Malkolm for his help, but fulfilling that debt means returning to Corvinestri, the hidden vampire city neither of them is welcome in. The discovery that Chrysabelle has a brother could mean reneging on her promise to Malkolm, something that might make him angry enough to loose the beast living inside him. And fulfilling her vow could prove devastating for Chrysabelle.

Weston Conrad is the best headhunter in the business. That handsome smile goes a long way toward convincing most people to trust him with their future. I'm not most people. I'm his direct competition. And it doesn't hurt to be just the kind of woman he's been looking for.

The United States is obsessed with virginity from the media to schools to government agencies. In The Purity Myth Jessica Valenti argues that the country’s intense focus on chastity is damaging to young women. Through in-depth cultural and social analysis, Valenti reveals that powerful messaging on both extremes ranging from abstinence curriculum to Girls Gone Wild infomercials place a young woman’s worth entirely on her sexuality. Morals are therefore linked purely to sexual behavior, rather than values like honesty, kindness, and altruism.

Meg Tallmadge is a veterinarian at a clinic in Laramie, Wyoming. She’s got a great job, great friends, deep ties to the family ranch, and big plans for her vet future. Sure, there are bumps in the road, like her mom’s continued denial about who Meg is and her painful and infuriating attempts to make Meg a “proper” woman. Then there’s Meg’s recent breakup with a girlfriend, which has her wondering why she can’t seem to open up to relationships.

In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence. Because everyone is equally smart, discrimination against purportedly dumb people is ""the last great civil rights fight."" Tests, grades, and employment qualifications are all discarded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word (“stupid”) and encouraged to report parents who use it at home.

Secret Service Agent Cameron Roberts made a promise to Blair Powell, the President's daughter - not to place her own life in danger protecting Blair - but a request from the Commander in Chief forces her to break her word. In this sequel to Above All, Honor, Cameron places duty before love and accepts reassignment as the chief of Blair's security detail, despite knowing that this decision may destroy their tenuous new relationship. As the rift between them widens, more than one woman is happy to offer Blair the company that Cam cannot.

Attorney Liz Ramsey thought she had everything - a devoted partner, a challenging job, and plans for a family in the making. Unfortunately her life takes a turn, and she ends up alone and in the kind of trouble she never dreamed of. Then she bumps into - literally - young surgeon Reilly Danvers, and life gets even more complicated.

Former Navy master-at-arms Jason Clements is down on his luck and calling in one last favor. His cousin has secured him a job opportunity as a cowboy working at Price Ranch in Wyoming. Too bad Jason has never even saddled a horse. If he can keep this job without his PTSD getting in the way, it'll be a Christmas miracle. Local busybody Sage Cooper loves Painted Barrel something fierce, but it's time for her to move on. Since her father passed away, the family ranch feels too big for just her, and there's no chance of finding a husband in this small town.

Agent Geena Fox is counting down the days to her retirement. On one bittersweet day six years ago, her team of superheroes defeated Jewel, the world's most evil villain - but Geena's secret lover died in the process. Now her boss has assigned her a rookie partner, Leigh Walker, and that's the last thing Geena needs. She sends the woman off on a wild-goose chase searching for a long-lost missing person to get her out of her sight. However, what Leigh finds will turn Agent Fox's world upside down.

All across the country, people are waking up to lives different than the ones they fell asleep to. Are they suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a mysterious, new disease that afflicts people with vivid memories of a life they never lived? Or is something far more sinister behind the fracturing of reality all around him? Miles away, neuroscientist Helena Smith is developing a technology that allows us to preserve our most intense memories and relive them. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.

Anita Topaz, Queen of the Bodice Rippers, is deliberately a woman of mystery. But pressure is mounting for Anita to reveal herself to her clamoring public. It's scrutiny that writer Paris Ellison can't allow, especially since the glamorous "Anita" is a work of pure fiction. Lady Diana Beckinsale excels at disappearing into a good role. Especially if that role gets her close to certain objects she desires. When Diana proposes the perfect solution to Paris' predicament, Paris is less than enthusiastic. She can't let someone as unsettling and observant as Diana get too close.

Los Angeles Police Detective Margaret Nolan and her partner have worked a lot of different cases, ones where things aren’t always as they appear. And it’s Nolan’s job to find the truth in the darkness around her. When they’re called to the scene of what looks like a fatal car-jacking, Nolan soon realizes her victim was a founder of a company about to sell for millions, and within a day of his death, his partner’s wife is abducted. As Nolan learns more about the victim and his life, she gets pulled into a disturbing world of sex, violence, and big business.

Bianca Black lives a privileged but sheltered existence. The youngest daughter of the wealthiest family in Seattle, she yearns to spread her wings and gain her independence. So when her mother insists she get a personal bodyguard to protect her from a threat she refuses to explain, Bianca isn't happy. Until she meets her protector.

After nearly a decade as a professional drummer, Diana Petrell leaves her rock-star life behind to continue her residency in emergency medicine. She's determined not to let anything stop her - not even falling in love with her aloof mentor, Dr. Emily Barnes. Emily has only ever focused on her career as a senior attending in the emergency department, and she isn't happy about having to babysit a resident with a 10-year gap in her resume, no matter how intriguing she is. But every time they work together, it's not just their patients' heartbeat that gets a little irregular.

Smart and athletic, Amy Kimball should have it all, but her life's in a tailspin. She's working two menial jobs to make ends meet, barely a paycheck away from financial disaster, and women aren't exactly lining up at her door. Enter soccer star Diego Torres, who's keeping a big secret: he's gay. His manager fears that if he's found out, his endorsements and his chance to play for the national team will evaporate into the wind.

Elizabeth Myers is a politician passionate about LGBT rights. When her personal safety is threatened she knows she needs a bodyguard. She immediately disagrees with her new ex military bodyguard Alex Jameson who is just trying to ensure her safety. The chemistry between them is heated. When lines become crossed between them, Elizabeth knows that it needs to be kept secret for the sake of her career—she isn't ready to come out yet. But will their secret fling ever really be enough for either of them? And will secrets ever really stay secret?

When wolf-shifter Kelsey Yates discovers that Danny, a 14-year-old shape-shifter, is living with an adoptive human mother, she is sent to protect the pup and get him away from the woman. Successful CEO Rue Harding has no idea of her son's true nature or that Kelsey, the beautiful, mysterious private tutor she hires for him, isn't really there to teach him algebra. But when the deaf teen runs away, Kelsey and Rue frantically work together to find him before his first transformation sets in and reveals the shape-shifters' secret existence to the world.