Showing results by narrator "Cassandra Cassandra" in All Categories

In this short story collection of courage, adventure, and magic, heroes—ordinary people who do the right thing—bravely step forward. But running toward danger might cost them everything.

In the late 2000s, Molly Bloom, a 20-something petite brunette from Loveland, Colorado, ran the highest stakes, most exclusive poker game in existence. Hundreds of millions of dollars were won and lost at her table. Molly's game became the game for those in the know - celebrities, business moguls and millionaires. Molly staged her games in palatial suites with beautiful views and exquisite amenities. She flew privately, dined at exquisite restaurants, hobnobbed with the heads of Hollywood studios, was courted by handsome leading men....

Holden Salinger is a pediatric oncologist, and for the last two years, I've been cleaning his swanky New York apartment. I know every intimate detail about him, from his overly large shoe size to his toothpaste tube rolling obsession. But he doesn't even know I exist. The man couldn't pick me out in a police lineup.

What makes some people continue to eat when they are not hungry? Why are they unable to stick to a diet despite warnings from doctors and their own understanding of health and nutrition? Most people are familiar with the concept of alcoholism and drug addiction, but the idea that certain foods and quantities of foods can be addictive is only slowly gaining acceptance. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous is for anyone who wants to learn more about food addiction and the solution offered by Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous (FA).

Out running an errand, Valeria Cossati gives in to a sudden impulse - she buys a shiny black notebook. She starts keeping a diary in secret, recording her concerns about her daughter, the constant churn of the domestic routine and her fears that her husband will discover her new habit. With each entry Valeria plunges deeper into her interior life, uncovering profound dissatisfaction and restlessness. As she finds her own voice, the roles that have come to define her-as wife, as mother, as daughter-begin to break apart.

You know that post-vacation glow? Where you’re all sun-kissed and optimistic and determined to make changes in your life? Well, mine lasted for about five minutes. Until I walked into the office and saw Myles Salinger sitting in my boss’s chair. One look at his scowling face was enough to make me want to fly straight back to Europe. And no, he’s not getting any of the donuts I brought in for the team. He doesn’t deserve them. You see, on paper, he’s my contemporary. In reality, he’s been my workplace nemesis for the last two years.

1918: As the Great War rages, Jessie Carson takes a leave of absence from the New York Public Library to work for the American Committee for Devastated France, a group of women determined to rebuild devastated French communities just miles from the front. Upon arrival, Jessie strives to establish something that the French have never seen - children's libraries. She turns ambulances into bookmobiles and trains the first French female librarians. Then she disappears.

Vix Leonard is twelve when she meets dazzling, reckless Caitlin Somers. Invited to spend holidays on Martha's Vineyard with Caitlin and her eccentric, mysterious family, Vix is welcomed into a life totally unlike her own. As days of bold adventure give way to nights of shy discovery, she and Caitlin come together in the complications of growing up; the refuge of belonging; the pact to Never Be Ordinary . . . Until one devastating summer when a local boy changes everything.

Miranda Reynolds has lost her home, her job and her husband - all thanks to an economic collapse that has brought America to its knees. The shops are empty; the streets no longer safe. Miranda and her daughter, Emma, have nowhere left to turn. There is one final hope, a self-sufficient haven for women who want to live a life free from men. Femlandia. For Miranda, the secluded Femlandia is a last resort. Life outside the gates is fraught with danger, but there’s something just as sinister going on within.

“What’s yours is mine…” Those are the words I spit like poison at Nico, Killian, and Atlas as we stood in front of their burning clubhouse. They’re the same words he said to me after Silas dropped the bombshell none of us saw coming: that I’m valuable somehow. I have no idea what Silas was talking about, but it doesn’t matter. My husband and the two dark-souled bikers I was starting to fall for have vowed that I’m going to pay for what I took from them—in blood, if it comes to that.

On the surface, Emerson, Massachusetts, is just like any other affluent New England suburb. But when a young woman is found dead in the nicest part of town, the powerful neighbors close ranks to keep their families safe. In this searing novel, Eden Perry’s death kicks off an investigation into the three teenagers who were partying with her that night, each a suspect. Hannah, a sweet girl with an unstable history. Jack, the popular kid with a mean streak. Christopher, an outsider desperate to fit in.

When 17-year-old Laurel Harper decides to go live with her estranged father and step-family, she's unaware of the fact that her fate was already sealed the day she was born. She is now exactly where some higher power wants her to be. But it's not until she meets the proud and mysterious Sam Laurens that she feels something strange is going on. And when she learns the dark truth about her own future, a sinister secret that will change everything as soon as she turns 19, she wants to run and hide, but soon realizes that there is no hiding from fate.

Ken and Abby Gardner were raised in a remote home on Cape Cod. As adults, their relationship is strained, but their lives are still deeply intertwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family, but when his wife walks in on him in an internet chatroom, she demands they go to therapy. Abby is a talented artist who depends on her brother's goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works.

Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star.

Renowned psychologist and best-selling author of The Dance of Anger sheds new light on the two most important words in the English language - I'm sorry - and offers a unique perspective on the challenge of healing broken connections and restoring trust.

Graham Cavanaugh's second wife, Audra, is everything his first wife was not. She considers herself privileged to live in the age of the hair towel; talks nonstop through her epidural, labour and delivery; invites the doorman to move in and the eccentric members of their son's Origami Club to Thanksgiving. She is charming and spontaneous and fun, but life with her can be exhausting. In the midst of the day-to-day difficulties and delights of marriage and raising a child with Asperger's, his first wife, Elspeth, reenters Graham's life.

In the woodland community of Shady Hollow, you'll discover a secret. Moose and mice, owls and bears live side by side in civilized harmony. Shady Hollow has a coffee shop and a bookshop, a haberdasher and a bank. All is well...until the town's querulous toad shows up dead. It's something this village haven't seen before: a murder.

After spending years feeling like I never fit in anywhere, I thought I had found a place where I might truly belong. With the Voronin brothers. By their sides. In their beds. A part of their lives. But none of it was real. Malice, Victor, and Ransom showed me a side of myself I never knew existed, taught me to embrace the darkness I once tried to hide from….and then proved that they see me the same way everyone else does.

From the internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies comes an exquisitely crafted work of fiction. Jhumpa Lahiri sets her gaze on the eternally beautiful city, illuminating the frailties of the human condition and dissecting lives lived on the margins.

West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, 19-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary....