Showing results by narrator "Kate Rudd" in All Categories

The desert is no place for ocean-dwelling Kampii like Aluna and Hoku, especially now that Aluna has secretly started growing her tail. But the maniacal Karl Strand is out to conquer the Above World, and the horselike Equians are next on his list. Aluna, Hoku, and their friends - winged Calli and Equian exile Dash - race to the desert city of Mirage, intent on warning the Equians and forming an alliance. Unfortunately, Strand’s clone, Scorch, has gotten there first. Now the Equian leader has vowed to take all his people to war as part of Strand’s army.

Thirteen-year-old Aluna has lived her entire life under the ocean, just like all of the Coral Kampii in the City of Shifting Tides. But after remaining hidden from the Above World for centuries, her colony is in trouble, its survival in doubt :  the tech that allows the Kampii to breathe underwater is beginning to fail, and many Kampii have already died. Yet the colony’s elders, including Aluna’s father, are unwilling to venture to the dry and dangerous Above World to search for answers. So it’s up to Aluna and her friend Hoku to face the terrors of land to find a solution.

Adam Drake was determined to clear his name of the false charges that ruined his career at Montgomery Inns – and if that meant deceiving the hotelier’s beloved daughter, Marnie Montgomery, and even stowing away on her boat, so be it. If she had secrets, he would discover every single one….

"Sail Away": Adam Drake was determined to clear his name of the false charges that ruined his career at Montgomery Inns - and if that meant deceiving the hotelier’s beloved daughter, Marnie Montgomery, and even stowing away on her boat, so be it. "Million Dollar Baby": When Chandra Hill is awakened by a cry in the night, she is shocked to discover an abandoned newborn in her barn. Emergency room doctor Dallas O’Rourke finds himself bonding instantly with the baby - and the intriguing woman who brought him in.

Welcome to Echo Ridge, New York, where romance finds its way into the hearts and lives of the people who walk the streets of the close-knit community. In these five novellas, listeners will experience the power a book has to change a life, make dreams come true, and bring two hearts together as the characters work to fill the classics section of the library. Filled with charm, wit, secrets, and hope, each story is a sweet romance that will keep you listening into the night.

Jenna James’ life has been smooth-sailing since she left the high-powered law firm of Marbury Marfan. She’s happily ensconced as a professor at a prestigious law school, where she’s well liked by her students, coupled up with a handsome colleague, and on track for tenure. But things take a shocking turn one morning when a student, Primo, comes to Jenna’s office seeking her advice about a treasure map he recently inherited. When Primo turns up dead and Jenna is suddenly the prime suspect in a murder investigation, everyone turns on her.

When coed Ally Monroe literally falls into the arms of a tattooed bad-boy one summer night, she can’t seem to let go. Morgan Jordan is everything Ally doesn’t want — he’s a playboy from a blue-collar background, and Ally’s looking for upper-class stability. Though their relationship starts off as a one-night stand, once Ally learns Morgan is her best friend’s brother, there’s no escaping him…or the growing fire between them.

On a hot summer night in a midwestern town, a high school teenage prank goes horrifically awry. Alcohol, guns, and a dare. Within minutes, as events collide, innocents becomes victims - with tragic outcomes altering lives forever, a grisly and unfortunate scenario all too familiar from current real-life headlines. But victims can also become survivors, and as we come to know each character through his/her own distinctive voice and their interactions with one another, we see how, despite pain and guilt, they can reach out to one another, find a new equilibrium, and survive.

Theirs is a world of opposites. The privileged live in sky manors held aloft by a secretive magic known only as the Mysteries. Below, the earthbound poor are forced into factory work to maintain the engine of commerce. Only the wealthy can afford to learn the Mysteries, and they use their knowledge to further lock their hold on society. Cettie Pratt is a waif doomed to the world below, until an admiral attempts to adopt her. But in her new home in the clouds, not everyone treats her as one of the family.

They are four different people with four separate lives: Sue, a young woman distanced from her native roots; David, a traveler in search of a dream; Laura, a student seeking her parents’ understanding; and Peter, a rock star struggling to create a perfect sound. One looming fate threatens them...

It's January 1943 when Rita Vincenzo receives her first letter from Glory Whitehall. Glory is an effervescent young mother, impulsive and free as a bird. Rita is a sensible professor's wife with a love of gardening and a generous, old soul. Glory comes from New England society; Rita lives in Iowa, trying to make ends meet. They have nothing in common except one powerful bond: The men they love are fighting in a war a world away from home. Brought together by an unlikely twist of fate, Glory and Rita begin a remarkable correspondence.

By all accounts, Abby Holden has it all. She's the mother of a beautiful teenager and the wife of a beloved high school football coach. And all it took to achieve her charmed life was her greatest act of betrayal. Coach Ryan can coax his team to victory, but he can't seem to make his wife, Abby, happy. Her struggles with depression have marred their marriage and taken a toll on their daughter, Juliana. Although this isn't the life he's dreamed of, he's determined to heal the rifts in his family.

Patty Murphy is facing that pivotal point in a woman's life when her biological clock ticks as insistently as a beating heart. Will she find Mr. Right and start a family? But Patty is in love - with a man who is not only attractive and financially sound, but sensitive and warmhearted. There's just one small problem: He is also gay.

Julia Gooden remembers nothing about the worst night of her life. Thirty years ago, her nine-year-old brother, Ben, was abducted from the room they shared. Now a crime reporter at a Detroit newspaper, Julia tries to give others the closure she's never found. But guilt and grief over Ben's disappearance have left her fearful that whoever took her brother is going to come back. And then, on the anniversary of Ben's disappearance, Julia's worst fears are realized when her two-year-old son, Will, is snatched from his bed.

It's 1939, and Canada is on the cusp of entering World War II. Seventeen-year-old farm girl Cornelia is heartbroken when she learns that her beloved soldier, Henry, has been killed in a train wreck. Alone and carrying a heavy secret, she makes the desperate choice that will haunt her for years to come. Never telling a soul, Cornelia pours out the painful events of the war in her diary.

35 Stories of Fitting In, Consequences, and Following Your Dreams for Older Teens Fitting In... or Not That Was Embarrassing Consequences Going for...

Dark, sexy, and dangerous, young Ben Powell could steal kisses as deep and stormy as Whitefire Lake. But when he cruelly accused Carlie Surrett of unthinkable sins, he left her in the dust of her shattered dreams. Now, steelier than ever after his stint in the army, Ben is back - making Carlie curse the love that all but destroyed her...and the volcanic passion that still sears her soul.

For two years, Megan, Peter, and their two older daughters, Alexis and Hannah, dream of nothing but being reunited with the family’s youngest child, Emma, who was kidnapped just before her third birthday. When Emma is miraculously found living with an elderly couple just miles from the family’s home, they are hopeful that her return will heal the wounds her disappearance created. But Emma is vastly different from the sunny toddler they remember. She barely remembers her parents or her older sisters. She is quiet and withdrawn, and, worst of all, longs for the very people who kidnapped her.

County investigator Seth Harding intends to spend the holidays with his newly reconciled family, but a few days before Christmas, a homicide thwarts his plan. Seth arrives at the scene and makes a painful discovery: the victim is his brother-in-law's girlfriend. Her apartment has been ransacked and her toddler left motherless. To make matters worse, Seth's brother-in-law, Bruce, is missing. With Solitude locked in a rare, deadly deep freeze and the temperature plummeting, the residents launch a desperate search.

A national best seller upon its publication, Anywhere but Here is a moving, often comic portrait of wise child Ann August and her mother, Adele, a larger-than-life American dreamer. As they travel through the landscape of their often conflicting ambitions, Ann and Adele bring to life a novel that is a brilliant exploration of the perennial urge to keep moving, even at the risk of profound disorientation. Simpson's first novel is ultimately a heart-rending tale of a mother and daughter's invaluable relationship.