Showing results by narrator "Emily Durante" in All Categories

It's not every day that you get to move to New York City and reinvent yourself. I was tired of being boring, predictable Emma Mills. I was convinced that my life would be totally different in the Big Apple. And I was right. Jackson Reynard was irresistible and I had no plans on resisting him. Jackson was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome and I was more than happy to let him sweep me off my feet. I expected a summer fling but instead I got a heart-stopping romance. I realized that I had met the love of my life. I just didn't realize that sometimes love isn't enough.

Grad student Imogen Wilson realizes she's hit on the perfect thesis for her sociology degree. If she follows the so-called "rules" on how to get a man, can she steer her way into the world and hearts of stock-race-car drivers, and establish their dating - and mating - patterns? Although sexy and reckless racer Ty McCordle is the ideal test subject, Imogen knows that for the sake of science, she can't give in to her growing attraction for him. Yet he's the one who's chasing after her, and Imogen realizes that she actually wants to be caught.

As the daughter of the wildly successful inspirational singer-author Skye - who died in a plane crash when Marnie was young - Marnie Skyedottir stands to inherit great wealth. But until she is old enough, she must survive a dreary life in private boarding school. She endures by escaping into an online role-playing game as much as possible, and steering well clear of the other girls. So when Marnie is kidnapped by someone who also claims to be Skye's daughter, she is terrified.

A holiday costume party in the sleepy coastal town of Santa Sofia could be just the boost Ivy needs for her fledgling photography business. At the party, Ivy enters a Victorian fantasy come to life, all courtesy of the fabulous Ms. Eliza Fox. Ivy gets to play shutterbug while hanging with Scrooge, Marley, the Cratchits, and other classic Dickens characters.

Molly has arrived home from Vassar to reveal that she has an important announcement to make. Her mother, Suzanne, is convinced that Molly’s news is history repeating herself and that she’s about to become a 36-year-old grandmother. Suzanne’s mother, Ava, develops a case of impending great-grandmother fever - that is, when she’s not spying on the new next-door neighbor, Buddy McKinley, who turns out to be a blast from her past.

Panic has seized New York City. Someone is brutally murdering women, a killer the media dubs the "Sickle Man" thanks to the way he disfigures his victims. People think he's the next Son of Sam, but because the Sickle Man's viscerally seductive voice forms one strand of Love Is Red, we know how he thinks and how he feels...and that the city has never seen anything like him.

When Ohio newspapers published the story of Alice Chenoweth's affair with a married man, she changed her name to Helen Hamilton Gardener, moved to New York, and devoted her life to championing women's rights and decrying the sexual double standard. She became one of the most sought-after speakers on the 19th-century lecture circuit, published seven books and countless essays, supported herself, hobnobbed with the most interesting thinkers of her era, visited 22 countries, and was celebrated for her audacious ideas and keen wit.

One of the great science and health revelations of our time is the danger posed by meat-eating. Every day, it seems, we are warned about the harm producing and consuming meat can do to the environment and our bodies. Many of us have tried to limit how much meat we consume, and many of us have tried to give it up altogether. But it is not easy to resist the smoky, cured, barbecued, and fried delights that tempt us.

She was of American blood, born in the islands. He was a native islander. Their love bridged two worlds that would one day threaten to tear them apart. As a child, Jana Rutherford played barefoot on the sparkling Hawaiian beaches with her friend, Akela, and Akela's handsome cousin, Kimo. But that carefreeness would change as Jana grew... and the quality of her and Kimo's friendship grew as well into something deeper, stronger.

After the success of the first edition of Learn by Reading, we decided to bring you the second volume. This book uses the second volume in the Sorcery Code series as the underlying text. If you haven't heard volume one, we recommend you start there. Though you could still get the educational benefits by starting from this volume, you will be missing critical information required for enjoyment of the story - and, in our opinion, enjoyment is critical to the learning process.

Chloe hasn't had the easiest childhood. With a mother who was absent most of the time, she practically had to raise herself. Determined to start a new life and leave her demons behind, she heads to West Virginia University with her best friends Amber and Logan. On the first day of classes, she spots a student who takes her breath away. Drake is a pierced, tattooed bad boy, and no matter how hard she tries to fight it, he's all she can think about.

It’s 1944, and Hazel’s father has agreed to help the U.S. government develop a secret weapon that will win World War II. His decision turns Hazel’s world upside-down - soon, she and her mother move out west to be with him, to a strange town with no name that everyone calls “the Hill.” The Hill is surrounded by a chain-link fence and barbed wire. Armed guards patrol its perimeter night and day.

In the early 19th century, the United States turned its idealistic gaze southward, imagining a legacy of revolution and republicanism it hoped would dominate the American hemisphere. From pulsing port cities to Midwestern farms and Southern plantations, an adolescent nation hailed Latin America's independence movements as glorious tropical reprises of 1776.

A girl. A coma. A life she can't remember. When Emma Walker wakes up in the hospital with no knowledge of how she got there, she learns that she's been in a coma for six months. Strangers show up and claim to be her parents, but she can't remember them. She can't remember anyone. Not her friends, not even her boyfriend. Even though she can't remember, everyone wants her to just pick up where she left off, but what she learns about the 'old her' makes her start to wish she'd never woken up.

How often have you seen a teenage girl pretend to be perturbed, but secretly smile, when she is told that she acts or looks just like her mother? Fathers, brothers, and friends sometimes shake their heads in wonder as girls "turn into their mothers". This new collection from Chicken Soup represents the best stories from Chicken Soup's library on the special bond between mothers and daughters, and the magical, mysterious similarities between them.

When Ruby returns to the small coastal town she'd left twenty years ago, she's overwhelmed with melancholy. After all, it's where her fiance dumped her at the altar. That's why all Ruby wants to do while in town is settle up and leave. But things get dangerous when Ruby's ex-fiance is found dead in his office. Ruby is the prime suspect and must solve the case in order to clear her name. Fortunately, she's not alone. Her feline familiar Rumpus is there to back Ruby up to the hilt. If only he could avoid making snarky comments and one liners while they do it!

Whether valorized as the heartland or derided as flyover country, the Midwest became instantly notorious when COVID-19 infections skyrocketed among workers in meatpacking plants - and Americans feared for their meat supply. But the Midwest is not simply the place where animals are fed corn and then butchered. Native Midwesterner Kristy Nabhan-Warren spent years interviewing Iowans who work in the meatpacking industry, both native-born residents and recent migrants from Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Apprentice baker Ivy Culpepper sees art cars everywhere she turns. Besides helping prepare the bread and pastry for Santa Sofia’s annual spring event, she’s the official photographer, documenting the elaborate cars, outspoken artists, and riotous celebrations. Her brother Billy has been runner-up in the competition several times. Then Billy’s rival, Max Litman, is found dead, positioned as a prop in his own art car. The whole town knows there’s no love lost between the two men, and Billy is the prime suspect.

For once, Ivy Culpepper feels fulfilled. An apprenticeship at Yeast of Eden has opened her world to time-honored baking techniques under owner Olaya Solis’s guidance - as well as the freshest small-town gossip, courtesy of chatty regulars known as the Blackbird Ladies. Ivy even begins accepting that she and restaurateur Miguel Baptista may never again rekindle their romance - despite the undeniable tension between them. But she’s tied to Miguel again when his trusted produce supplier goes missing.

Johanna Shelby could never have anticipated where that 'fateful encounter' would lead her. She could not have known then how love for the young, rough-hewn, mountain doctor would cause her to turn her back on her privileged lifestyle, threaten to estrange her from her family, and bring her to the wild mountains of Appalachia. If she had known... But no! Nothing could hold her back. Not her adoring, worried parents. Not her snooty, so-called 'friends.' Not even her own flashes of doubt and fear. No, this love would not be denied.