Showing results by narrator "Stephanie Willis" in All Categories

Any couple who spends the night in the Christmas cottage shall have love everlasting.... Lacey Quinn did not believe in happily ever after or the legend of the Christmas cottage. As maid of honor for her best friend, Ava, her duties included decorating the cottage for the newlyweds. It was a simple enough task, but she hadn't counted on sexy Ean Callahan, the bride-to-be's brother, assisting her.

In the 2050s, Earth has begun to empty. Those with the means and the privilege have departed the great cities of the United States for the more comfortable confines of space colonies. Those left behind salvage what they can from the collapsing infrastructure. As they eke out an existence, their neighborhoods are being cannibalized. Brick by brick, their houses are sent to the colonies, what was once a home now a quaint reminder for the colonists of the world that they wrecked.

Zoey loves spending the summer with her Aunt Alice, and her aunt's new house is the perfect place to cozy up with a good book. But she's unnerved by the overgrown forest next door, which is creepy even in the daytime and full of eerie sounds at night. Worse, there are rumors in town of a dark force in those woods. And Zoey can't deny that the wild black cats who live there seem to be watching her. When she encounters a mean old woman who claims to be their owner, Zoey realizes there's more to the cats than meets the eye.

Lizzie's dream of teaching school has finally come true. She loves the brand-new school building, the sound of the children singing, and the independence she has in the classroom. Even the occasionally unruly boys can't ruin the excitement she feels each morning when she starts the school day. But at home things are in turmoil again. What do Dat's sudden health problems mean for the future of their farm? And what about Lizzie's future?

Sadie Way Scott has been avoiding her family and hometown of Sugarberry Cove, Alabama, since she nearly drowned in the lake just outside her mother’s B&B. Eight years later, Sadie is the host of a much-loved show about Southern cooking and family, but despite her success, she wonders why she was saved. What is she supposed to do? Sadie’s sister, Leala Clare, is still haunted by the guilt she feels over the night her sister almost died. Now, at a crossroads in her marriage, Leala has everything she ever thought she wanted - so why is she so unhappy?

Helen Lambert has lived several lives-a young piano virtuoso in 1890s Paris, an actress in 1930s Hollywood, a rock star in 1970s Los Angeles - only she doesn't know it. Until she meets a strange man who claims he's watched over her for centuries, bound to her from the beginning. At first, Helen doesn't believe him. Her life is as normal as any other modern career woman's. Then she begins having vivid dreams about ill-fated love and lives cut short. Caught in a curse, Helen will be forced to relive the same tragic events that ruined her previous lives.

Emme Wynn has wanted nothing more her whole life than to feel like part of a family. Having grown up on the run with her con artist mother, she’s been shuffled from town to town, drawn into bad situations, and has learned some unsavory habits that she’s tried hard to overcome. When her estranged grandmother tracks her down out of the blue and extends a job offer—helping to run her booth at an open-air marketplace in small-town Sweetgrass, Alabama—Emme is hopeful that she’ll finally be able to plant the roots she’s always dreamed of.

First Contact has not been going well. The nations of Earth are rapidly militarizing against the arrival of the Superorganism, an alien civilization that promises to destroy humanity before it can develop into a real threat. The Superorganism has done it before–to their distant transient relatives–and they could easily do it again. But the alien Ampersand and his human interpreter Cora Sabino are done with trying to save humanity from both the Superorganism and itself; to them, this is a civilization that does not deserve to be saved.

Lydia is a scholar, but books are her downfall when she meddles in the plots of the most powerful man in the Celendor Empire. Her life in danger; she flees west to the far side of the Endless Seas and finds herself entangled in a foreign war where her burgeoning powers are sought by both sides. Killian is Marked by the God of War, but his gifts fail him when the realm under the dominion of the Corrupter invades Mudamora. Disgraced, he swears his sword to the kingdom’s only hope: the crown princess.

Blue Bishop has a knack for finding lost things. While growing up in charming small-town Buttonwood, Alabama, she’s happened across lost wallets, jewelry, pets, her wandering neighbor, and sometimes, trouble. No one is more surprised than Blue, however, when she comes across an abandoned newborn baby in the woods, just south of a very special buttonwood tree. Sarah Grace Landreneau Fulton is at a crossroads. She has always tried so hard to do the right thing, but her own mother would disown her if she ever learned half of Sarah Grace’s secrets.

She walked away from her fairy-tale wedding in search of her true happily ever after. She hadn't counted on it coming searching for her first. Eight months after canceling her wedding, Ava Callahan finally has her life in order and sees nothing but blue skies ahead. A chance encounter with the man responsible for ruining her wedding has her newly organized world in chaos. Brian McCabe had persevered for eight long months seeking the woman he loves, and his patience was about to expire.

On a December night in 1938, a 10-year-old girl named Lore is put on the Kinder transport, a train carrying hundreds of Jewish children out of Austria to safety from Hitler's increasingly alarming oppression. Temporarily housed at the Dover Court Camp on England's east coast, Lore will find herself living in other people's houses for the next seven years: the Orthodox Levines, the Hoopers, the working-class Grimsleys, and the wealthy Miss Douglas and Mrs. Dillon.

Jane Prescott is taking a break from her duties as lady's maid for a week, and plans to begin it with attending the hottest and most scandalous show in town: The opening of an art exhibition, showcasing the cubists, that is shocking New York City. 1913 is also the 50th anniversary of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation speech, and the city's great and good are determined to celebrate in style.

Alice, a fierce and respected Parisian cop, wakes up on a Central Park bench with no memory of the night before, handcuffed to a complete stranger - a musician named Gabriel. Disoriented, dazed, and with someone else’s blood on her shirt, Alice works furiously to reconnect the dots. She remembers clubbing with her friends the night before on the Champs-Élysées. Gabriel claims he was playing a gig in Dublin. Was she drugged? Kidnapped? Why is the gun in her jacket pocket missing a bullet? And whose blood is on her clothes?

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most - a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian's heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever.

Thirteen award-winning fantasy and science fiction writers offer up their versions of these classic fairy tales as well as other favorites, including The Ugly Duckling, Ali Baba, Hansel and Gretel, and more. Some of the stories are funny, some are strange, and others are dark and disturbing - but each offers something as unexpected as a wolf at the door.

After realizing her coworkers at L'Ombre, a high-profile restaurant in NYC, will never appreciate or respect her, Charlie Garrett allows her ex-boyfriend, Avery Michaels, to convince her to work for him as executive pastry chef at his new Seattle hotspot, Thrill. She'll have her own kitchen, her own staff - everything she ever wanted professionally. When she arrives at Thrill, however, she realizes that Avery wanted more than a pastry chef for his restaurant - he wanted a costar for the reality show they're filming about the restaurant and its staff.

After their world-famous actor mother disappeared under mysterious circumstances, Manon and Thaïs left their remote Mediterranean island home — sent away by their pharma-tech tycoon father. Opposites in every way, the sisters drifted apart in their grief. Yet their mother's unfinished story still haunts them both, and they can't put to rest the possibility that she is still alive.

Becky Powell faced the unthinkable on May 16, 2013. Her husband, Mark, called and said, "I've done something terrible." Within hours, she learned that he had taken his own life and, over a period of several years, millions of dollars from friends and colleagues. Everything she believed to be true, the very fiber of her marriage, was called into question. Yet from that first horrific moment, God was there. Awful Beautiful Life is Becky's journey through the two years surrounding Mark's death and how she overcame.

One unusually sultry spring night, Jane is woken by a scream from the nursery - and rushes in to find the Tyler children's nanny murdered and the carefully locked window flung open.