Showing results by narrator "And Arndt." in All Categories

Rule number one: Don't get hit by your own arrow.... I'm a professional Cyrano - minus the honking great nose. Need a love note, raunchy sext, or apology letter so epic that your other half will forget you hesitated a beat too long when you asked, "does this make me look fat?"? I've got you covered. But when my most frequent client, the annoyingly charming (or is that charmingly annoying?) Dylan Griffin comes to me with an unconventional new job, I discovers that three little words can add up to one big complication.

There is a growing crisis in our oceans as rates of infectious disease outbreaks are on the rise. A warmer world is a sicker world for humans and wild biota. Marine epidemics have caused mass die-offs of wildlife from the bottom to the top of the food chains, impacting the health of ocean ecosystems as well as lives on land. Fueled by a warming ocean and accelerated by sewage dumping, unregulated aquaculture, and drifting plastic, ocean outbreaks are sentinels of impending global environmental disaster.

Out of work for months, Lussi Meyer is desperate to work anywhere in publishing. Prestigious Blackwood-Patterson isn’t the perfect fit, but a bizarre set of circumstances leads to her hire and a firm mandate: Lussi must find the next horror superstar to compete with Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Peter Straub. It’s the ’80s, after all, and horror is the hottest genre. But as soon as she arrives, Lussi finds herself the target of her coworkers’ mean-spirited pranks.

Fredrik Gustavsson never considered the possibility of love, or that anyone could ever understand or accept his dark and bloody lifestyle - until he met Seraphina, a woman as vicious and blood-thirsty as Fredrik himself. They spent two short but unforgettable years together, full of lust and killing and the darkest kind of love that two people can share. And then Seraphina was gone. It's been six years since Fredrik's lover and sadistic partner in crime turned his world upside-down.

It all started with the bereavement flowers with my name on them. Not the best way to wake up, right? I work in a flower shop. I know a funeral arrangement when I see one. I know a killer when I see one, too. And one is standing in my hospital room right now, straight behind the man who saved my life. I can’t tell anyone the truth, because that’s the fastest way to really die. So I do the next best thing. I “lose” my memory. I fake my amnesia. Pretending not to remember a brutal attempted murder has its perks.

When you’re born without a trace, no one knows you’re a weapon. I lie for her. I hunt for her. I kill for her. And above all, I betray my mission for her. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t care why. I do. Treason comes in many forms. Love is one of them. Our training taught me to be a sociopath. A machine. A pawn. Nothing more than a tool for a larger goal, without attachments or feelings. Our teachers forgot one important detail: Pawns shouldn’t have hearts. Yet we do.

I proposed on our first date. She laughed and told me I was insane. Less than a day later, she said yes. It was a whirlwind, but we were happy. Until we got greedy and wanted a family. It was a life I couldn't give her, not for lack of trying. Fertility just wasn't on our side.

The only person more damaged than I am is Axel de Vries, the drummer for the Road Kings. He’s a rock star, my new neighbor, and a blond god with tattoos. The eye candy from my window is crazy. But he’s just pulled himself out of addiction, and I’ve just escaped a devastating relationship. We’re both too scarred to handle getting involved. So we make an agreement: We’re just friends.

One story. Two couples. I fell in love with a man who didn't exist. What started out as romance ended in hell. His words turned to razor blades. His kisses converted to fists. His embrace became my cage. His body transformed into a weapon, stealing parts of me until ultimately...I broke. I hated him. My sole job in life became to protect our daughter. I wasn't sure I'd ever escape the prison he'd skillfully crafted from my fears. Until the day our savior arrived. This is the story of how I escaped the man who thought he owned me.

Some secrets are meant to be revealed...or so you'll discover in three sexy, unforgettable Valentine's Day stories from New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Jennifer Ryan and contemporary romance stars Candis Terry and Jennifer Seasons.

You ever really think that you'll win the lottery? Meet Mr. Right? How about two Mr. Rights? Somehow the universe is handing me everything I want (except for that lottery part...), and I don't like it. Not one little bit. Because just when you get all your dreams handed to you on a silver platter, that's when an airplane dumps its sewage on your house. Or your mama's diabetes takes a bad turn. Or your mobile phone gets stuck in your hoohaw. (What? It happens...)

As a child, Abby had the same recurring nightmare night after night, in which she wandered through a field ridden with human skulls and bones. Now an adult, Abby thinks she's outgrown her demons, until, the evening before her wedding, the terrible dream returns and forces her to confront the dark secrets from her past she has kept from her new husband, Willem. The following day - less than 24 hours after exchanging vows - Abby steps out into traffic.

What happens when your rental cabin ends up being a scam and you’re forced to stay with a sexy lumberjack? You try to avoid him and his annoying Christmas spirit because the last thing you have time for is love.

Have you ever been walking home from work and unexpectedly took a different path just to learn more about your neighborhood? Or have you been on a vacation and walked around a new city just to take it all in? Then chances are, you’re a flaneur and you didn’t even know it! Originally used to describe well-to-do French men who would stroll city streets in the 19th century, flaneur has evolved to generally mean someone who wanders with intention. Even if you’ve already embraced being a flaneur, did you know that flaneuring has benefits beyond satisfying your craving for wanderlust?

In the title story, set five minutes in the future where you not only have a credit score but also a dating score, a woman who’s been banished from all dating apps attends a weekly help group with others who have been “banned for life,” and finds herself falling in love. In “Backwards,” a twist on Benjamin Button, a woman reconnects with her estranged father as he de-ages ten years each day they spend together. In “Welcome to Oxhead,” all the parents in a gated community “shut off” when the power goes out.

I swear I am not the kind of person who gets her cell phone caught in places that require an ER trip and an OBGYN. But apparently, I am. I’m also not the kind of person who spends all her time thinking about the guy who got away. But apparently, I am, too. Starting a new life in Boston isn’t supposed to include repeatedly embarrassing myself in public, meeting a crazy blond woman who has ties to the band Random Acts of Crazy, and definitely isn’t supposed to include wallowing in a past I thought I’d left behind four years ago.

A recklessly idealistic girl dares to test the perimeters of her tightly controlled (future) world and is punished by being sent back in time to a region of North America - “Wainscotia, Wisconsin” - that existed 80 years before. Cast adrift in time in this idyllic Midwestern town, she is set upon a course of “rehabilitation” - but cannot resist falling in love with a fellow exile and questioning the constrains of the Wainscotia world with results that are both devastating and liberating.

In Will Africa Feed China?, Deborah Brautigam, one of the world's leading experts on China and Africa, probes the myths and realities behind the media headlines. Her careful research challenges the conventional wisdom; as she shows, Chinese farming investments are in fact surprisingly limited, and land acquisitions modest. Defying expectations, China actually exports more food to Africa than it imports. Is this picture likely to change?

It's the start of a new era in Rivers Wilde. High on their obstacle-defying happily-ever-afters, our favorite couples are looking ahead. Determined to start new traditions and make new memories, Confidence and Hayes are hosting Christmas Eve at their house. But as the day approaches, surprise guests and shocking announcements are as plentiful as the good cheer. Thank goodness this newly formed alliance has something stronger than scandal on its side: love. But getting this family of rivals to gather around the same table might prove to be their biggest challenge yet.

Juliana Burton needs a medal at Speakeasy’s beer festival to push her brand-new brewery into the spotlight. She thinks she knows how to do it, too - with a beer made exclusively from Vermont hops, barley, and the best honey in the state. Too bad the only thing standing in her way is a six feet tall, smokin’ sexy secret high school crush.