Showing results by narrator "Natalie" in All Categories

Balto stole me from Lucian without raising a finger. I thought I would finally be free, finally get my life back. But Balto has other plans for me. Now I'm his prisoner. He'll keep me and enjoy me as long as he wants. Until Lucian gives him back the skull diamond. I never want to return to Lucian again, not after being with a man like Balto. The only chance I have is to become more valuable than that diamond, to have Balto want me enough not to trade me back to Lucian. But can I ever compete with a diamond worth billions?

Would you rather get a root canal than face a group of strangers? Does the phrase “working a room” make you want to retreat to yours? Devora Zack, an avowed introvert and successful consultant who gives presentations to thousands of people at dozens of events annually, feels your pain. She found that other networking books assume that to succeed, you have to act like an extrovert. Not at all. There is another way.

Summer and Leo would do anything for each other. Inspired by the way each has had to carve her place in a hostile and unforgiving world, and united by the call of the open road, they travel around sunny California in Summer’s tricked-out Land Cruiser. It’s not a glamorous life, but it gives them the freedom they crave from the painful pasts they’ve left behind. But even free spirits have bills to pay. Luckily, Summer is a skilled pickpocket, a small-time thief, and a con artist—and Leo, determined to pay her own way, has learned a trick or two.

When her Taboo Magazine assignment uncovers a modern Italian crime family operating scams and killing their victims inside the US, Jess Kimball joins forces with FBI Special Agent Henry Morris to stop the ruthless killers. This job may be her last. Jess rushes against time from Dallas to New Orleans to Florida and New York to find and stop Luigi Ficarra and save the elderly parents of the man he holds hostage.

Lexa Thomas has never quite fit in. Having grown up in a family of blondes while more closely resembling Constance Wu, she's neither White enough nor Asian enough. Visiting her father in Taiwan as a child, Lexa thought she'd finally found a place where she belonged. But that was years ago, and even there, some never truly considered her to be a part of the family. When her estranged father dies unexpectedly, leaving the fate of his Taiwanese family in Lexa's hands, she is faced with the choice to return to Taiwan and claim her place in her heritage.

Arcadia descends into chaos as old villains return to town and new ones are born! While X faces down suicidal psychos, superstitious mobsters, and thrill-junkie assassins, Leigh uncovers the secrets of his past . . . before he locked on his mask and became X!

Hilarious best friends Cat and Nat created a massive online community of moms by sharing their ultra-real and just a bit R-rated dispatches from the mom trenches. From what not to eat a few days after giving birth (chicken wings) to the most effective ways to dodge post-partum sex, Cat & Nat’s Mom Truths shares everything no one will tell you about having kids.

The challenge we face as writers, Natalie Goldberg says, begins with the process of turning inward and then trying to communicate what we find. From the secret of letting characters and stories "write themselves" to finding mentor sources and responding to criticism to writing's one essential ingredient, which is the mind - here are all-new Zen-based lessons and reflections, refined and proven at Natalie's acclaimed national writers' workshops.

One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money. Finding work at a coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days—until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes.

Thank you for joining us at Gertrude Hunt, the nicest bed-and-breakfast in Red Deer, Texas, during the Treaty Stay. As you know, we are honor-bound to accept all guests during this oldest of innkeeper holidays, and we are expecting a dangerous guest. Or several. But have no fear. Your safety and comfort is our first priority. The inn and your hosts - Dina Demille and Sean Evans - will defend you at all costs. But we hope we don’t have to.

From the creator of the beloved and universally acclaimed television series BoJack Horseman, a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love - the best and worst thing in the universe. Equally at home with the surreal and the painfully relatable (and both at once), Bob-Waksberg delivers a killer combination of humor, romance, whimsy, cultural commentary, and crushing emotional vulnerability.

As an expert thief from a minor moon, Cass knows a good mark when she sees one. The emperor’s ball is her chance to steal a fortune for herself, her ailing father, and her scrappy crew of thieves and market vendors. Her plan is simple: 1. Hitch a ride to the planet of Ouris, the dazzling heart of the empire. 2. Sneak onto the imperial palace station to attend the emperor’s ball. 3. Steal from the rich, the royal, and the insufferable. But on the station, things quickly go awry. When the emperor is found dead, everyone in the palace is a suspect—and someone is setting Cass up to take the fall.

The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd―spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist―accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past―riddled with grief and shame―has never seemed so far away. But then Ada begins to witness strange and grisly phenomena: a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun.

Instead of handing me back to Lucian so Balto can get everything he wants, he keeps me. He pledges to fight for me until I'm free. But as the weeks pass, freedom isn't as appealing as it used to be. This place has become my home. This man is my home. I'm not sure if I'd ever want to leave...even if Lucian was dead.

Discover Aly Raisman's inspiring story of dedication, perseverance, and learning to think positive even in the toughest times on her path to gold medal success in two Olympic Games - and beyond. Aly Raisman first stepped onto a gymnastics mat as a toddler in a "mommy and me" gymnastics class. No one could have predicted then that 16 years later, she'd be standing on an Olympic podium, having achieved her dreams.

Caitlin Prescott was only a baby when her parents disappeared. Adopted by a wealthy Texas oil family, she became Kate Montgomery, and grew up with no memory of her parents or her two older sisters and brother, who have been searching for her, hoping to right a terrible wrong that was committed 22 years ago in a small Texas town.

The Fogg River Seminary, a girls’ school in a small Illinois town, is supposed to be just another stop on Maryse and Vasyl’s endless travels. They’ve made lucrative use of Maryse’s “foreign” looks in their melodramatic séance act—and an act is all it is. Then, during their performance, a blizzard sweeps in and cuts them off from town completely. In the freezing halls, there’s a voice speaking the secrets of the dead, and Maryse has no choice but to listen…because this time, the voice is real.

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society - she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her. But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

Are you still playing a role you learned in childhood to please others, such as the Good Girl/Boy, the Overachiever, or the Helper? Though these kinds of roles may have gained us attention and affection, they prohibited us from becoming our true selves. People-pleasing—putting others ahead of ourselves to avoid something negative or to get something we want or need—runs rampant in our society. Saying yes when we should say no leaves us stuck in frustrating patterns.

Clover: The man may be my brother's new second in command, but to me, Joshua's just the bossy pain in the ass who's way too good at getting under my skin. To be fair, I suppose my less-than-sunny disposition when he's around can take some of the credit for provoking him. I can't help it. He's the pack's alpha cat—a hulking, hot mountain lion shifter, and thus the bane of my existence on principle. Cats and I, we don't mix.