Showing results by narrator "Karissa Vacker" in All Categories

Born on Christmas, Angela Stark has always hated the holiday. Bad things always seem to happen and this year is no exception when she is fired and evicted on the first day of December. She was living and working as a maid in San Francisco. Who will hire her at this time of year, especially if they learn why she was fired? Her only option is to stay temporarily with her best friend Jane, but she is extremely allergic to cats. It's not ideal, but it doesn't look like she has a choice, until a certified letter arrives that changes everything.

Elisa Wright is a mom and wife, living a nice, quiet life in a nice, quiet town. She’s also convinced her brother-in-law is a murderer. Josh has one dead wife and one missing fiancée, and though he grieved for them he starts dating someone new. Elisa fears for that woman’s safety, and she desperately wants to know what happened to her friend, Josh’s missing fiancée.

Twins Ava and Mira Goodwin defy the Rule of One simply by existing. The single-child law, ruthlessly enforced by Texas’s Governor Roth, has made the sisters famous fugitives and inspirations for the resurgent rebellion known as the Common. But the relentless governor and his implacable Texas State Guard threaten that fragile hope, as Roth consolidates his power in a bid for ultimate authority.

Set in our world, spanning the near to distant future, the author, Arwen Elys Dayton, explores the possible consequences of advanced medical breakthroughs and how they may shape and reshape humanity. From organ donation to plastic surgery to full bodily reconstruction, these stories take you by your (for now, organic) hand and lead you into a future where the line between person and machine becomes increasingly blurred. Deeply thoughtful, poignant, horrifying and action-packed, this novel strikes new ground while also seeming so strangely...likely. Just try to disconnect.

Nora November is alive—but she wasn't always. She was once clinically dead, having spent several minutes under water after a terrible surfing accident she doesn't remember. What she does remember from her time in a coma is her grandfather, who passed away over a year ago. And a beautiful garden. And the most delicious tomato she ever tasted. Now that she's awake again her life has been cleaved in two. In the Before, Nora lived like a ghost, drowning under the weight of her parents' expectations. In the After, she's determined to accomplish the things she left undone before she died.

Brooklyn Hewett hasn't set foot in Cape Harbor for fifteen years - not since an accident claimed the love of her life, Austin Woods. Desperate to move forward, Brooklyn has focused on raising her daughter for the past fourteen years. But when the opportunity comes along to renovate the old Driftwood Inn, Brooklyn knows it's time to go home. But it won't be easy. For one, Austin's best friend, Bowie Holmes, still lives in Cape Harbor. Brooklyn hasn't quite been able to forget him: not since the night they spent together

Motherhood is tough. But then, so is daughterhood. When we first meet Claire, she’s living in Sedona, Arizona, with her boyfriend Cal and ducking calls from her mother. Her mom is a world class psychic on the East Coast, and Claire doesn’t want her to discover the truth. Claire works in the family business and calls herself a psychic, but she doesn’t really have “the gift” and hasn’t for a long time. She’s a fraud.

Jen Hansen, Kittie Spears, and Cynthia Nichols have been friends since childhood. They are now approaching 40 and their lives have changed, but their insular East Texas town has not. They stay sane by drinking wine in the afternoons, dishing about other women in the neighborhood, and bonding over the heartache of their own encroaching middle age and raising ungrateful teens.

Mia Maxwell used to have her dream job. She is a sought after wedding planner on Nantucket, with no shortage of business. But she is struggling a bit to get back to loving her job. It has been bittersweet to plan other people's weddings - ever since her own fiance died two weeks before their wedding. That was a year ago and she was just starting to feel better, when she came back from a vacation to find her house burned down. So she will be staying with Lisa at the Beach Plum Cove Inn for a while, until her house is renovated.

As Cady struggles under the enormous pressure at Harvard, she investigates her brother’s final year, armed only with a blue notebook of Eric’s cryptic scribblings. She knew he had been struggling with paranoia, delusions, and illusory enemies - but what tipped him over the edge? Voices fill her head, seemingly belonging to three ghosts who passed through the university in life, or death, and whose voices, dreams, and terrors still echo the halls. Among them is a person whose name has been buried for centuries, and another whose name mankind will never forget.

The job comes with a lot of perks–a mysterious new boss is one of them–and his deep pockets don’t hurt. In her first week, Gillian finds a note on her desk with two boxes and a question: Will you have dinner with me? Check yes or no. It was easily the best night of her whole young life. The second note arrived looking very much the same, only different. Do you have what it takes to be in my world? Gillian has been asked to handle a lot of tasks in her work. But covering up a murder might be the strangest one yet.

What do a crooked detective, an upstanding psychiatrist, and a teenager who can’t remember killing her parents all have in common? Nine years of lies.

Jasmine Thurman is desperate. If someone doesn't answer her Help Wanted sign soon, her struggling café in the heart of Texas won't be open much longer. But when a handsome traveler pops in for a country-fried steak, her luck begins to turn around. Hiring Flint Walker is the solution she's been looking for, and if her business can have a second chance, then maybe her love life can too.

Seventeen-year-old Tempe was born into a world of water. When the Great Waves destroyed her planet 500 years ago, its people had to learn to survive living on the water, but the ruins of the cities below still called. Tempe dives daily, scavenging the ruins of a bygone era, searching for anything of value to trade for Notes. It isn't food or clothing that she wants to buy, but her dead sister's life.

Vagablonde is a darkly humorous, rollercoaster ride through the Los Angeles music scene about a woman who wants two things, the first is to live without psychotropic medication, and the second is to experience success as an artist. A cautionary tale about viral fame, Vagablonde speaks directly to our time in biting detail.

Estranged for a decade, sisters Leslie and Robin must reunite if they are to claim the fortune their father left them. Leslie desperately needs that money, but when she arrives at her sister's apartment, she finds her body instead. Leslie needs another plan. Without Robin, she won't see a penny. Mary, an aspiring actress, spends her nights slinging beers at a seedy restaurant. She'd do anything to start her life over. When Leslie offers her a huge sum of money and the chance to be someone else - to be Robin - she takes it.

In Gwenda Bond's The Date from Hell, the hilarious, romantic sequel to Not Your Average Hot Guy, Callie and Luke’s date is thwarted when Lucifer gives them three days to redeem a soul....

Feminine traits that were once disparaged as weaknesses—such as sensitivity, intuition, and feeling emotional—are reclaimed as powerful strengths that can be embraced as the keys to a happier life for everyone.

Lila Bennett's bad choices have finally caught up with her. And one of those decisions has split her life in two. Literally. In one life, she's taken hostage by someone who appears to be a stranger but knows too much. As she's trapped in a concrete cell, her kidnapper forces her to face what she's done or be killed. In an alternate life, she eludes her captor but is hunted by someone who is dismantling her happiness, exposing one secret at a time.

And Gabe isn't taking it well. With a baby on the way, they have to figure out how to make their marriage work, but after all the lies, the trust is gone. Can Gabe find it in his heart to forgive her, or will their brand new marriage crumble before it even gets off the ground?