Showing results by narrator "Hollis McCarthy" in All Categories

Sadie and Max fell in love while training to be classical pianists in music school, and they’ve been chasing their dreams together ever since. Now they’ve gotten engaged and are on the verge of a bright future—until an unexpected twist throws them out of harmony. When they’re both finalists in the prestigious Van Cage piano competition, they go from being each other’s biggest fans to fierce rivals. The winner will be launched into a meteoric career as a concert pianist, but only one can take first place. 

Princess Jayne Frost and Prince Consort Sinclair Crowe have been called back to Nocturne Falls for Christmas so that Jayne can help out at the short-staffed Santa’s Workshop. Being back means seeing some old friends, but also finding new trouble that Jayne just can’t stop thinking about. Are the random break-ins really someone trying to ruin Christmas? Because as Santa Claus’s niece, that feels personal to her.

Bay Winchester is newly married and happy. Things have been quiet since she returned from her honeymoon, which means trouble is just around the corner. When it comes, it takes the form of a despondent man on a bridge. Despite her best efforts, Bay and the hostage negotiator can’t save him, and death is swift. That should’ve been the end of it, but a weird symbol on the dead man’s hand piques Bay’s interest, and when the negotiator turns up sick with the same symptoms, she knows that they have a problem on their hands.

Claire Turner finally has everything she wants. A successful business, a small bungalow near the beach, and the camaraderie of her two best friends. She's successful and independent - something she would have never thought possible before her husband's mid-life crisis and their subsequent divorce. When a rival business opens across the street, Claire worries that she could lose everything she's worked for.

A gripping and empathetic work of reportage, Free reveals what awaits them and the hundreds of thousands of others who are released from prison every year: the first rush of freedom followed quickly by institutionalized obstacles and logistical roadblocks, grinding bureaucracies, lack of resources, societal stigmas and damning self-perceptions, and the sometimes overwhelming psychological challenges. Veteran reporter Lauren Kessler, both clear-eyed and compassionate, follows six people whose diverse stories paint an intimate portrait of struggle, persistence, and resilience.

Going to Hell has never been on my bucket list...until now. The fact that I can speak that sentence without laughing or losing my mind is absurd. However, my life has veered into a very tricky tale that rivals any of my books. The villain has been banished. I’ve written her right into an infernal doom. Unfortunately, a few of my very dear friends, fictional and real, have been caught up in the horror story, and they’ve taken the trip down under as well. It’s my fault, and I can only see one way out...a plot twist of epic proportions. 

The big day is finally here. Bay and Landon’s wedding day has arrived. Unfortunately, a tragedy stands in the way of their happily ever after, and it comes in the form of reports of an armed gunman at the local high school. Bay, ghosts at her side, braves the scene to save the kids...and uncovers something horrific.

In this age of lunchtime lifts, wrinkle-erasing injections, furrow fillers, and lip plumpers, there’s no question that anyone who aims to look younger easily can. But Lauren Kessler wants something more than to follow the cosmetic path to youthfulness. She wants to live with energy, stamina, vitality, resilience, and health for a very, very long time. Her goal: to reverse her biological age from the inside out.

When her ex took her family from California to live in the small town of Magdalene in Maine, Amelia decided it was time to sort herself out. In order to do that and win her children back, she moves to Cliff Blue, an architectural masterpiece on the rocky coast of Magdalene. Her boxes aren’t even unpacked when she meets Mickey Donovan, a man who lives across the street, a man so beautiful Amelia takes one look at him and knows she wants it all from him.

Early in her life, Josephine Malone learned the hard way that there was only one person she could love and trust: her grandmother, Lydia Malone. Out of necessity, unconsciously and very successfully, Josephine donned a disguise to keep all others at bay. She led a globetrotting lifestyle on the fringes of the fashion and music elite, but she kept herself distant. While Josephine was trotting the globe, retired boxer Jake Spear was living in the same small town as Lydia.

I've been taking down drug dealers for so long, playing bodyguard to a woman named Shoshanna Lehump sounds like nothing more than a giant pain in my ass - and being partnered with the gorgeous egotistical jerk I never should have slept with in the first place just makes a bad situation even harder - especially when he pursues me as diligently as we're supposed to be chasing the bad guys.... What's a girl have to do to get a happy ending anyway?

I'm a nice girl - really I am. I'm just a typical computer-hacking, knife-throwing, Star Trek-obsessed, overeducated Werewolf nerd who can't seem to get her love life to compute. However, it's time to grow up and face the music or, more accurately, the man I'm in love with...Junior, aka Jacob Wilson - the Alpha of the Georgia Pack. First I'll have to stand up to some nasty gals whose pants are so tight I can see their religion. Then I'll claim my man.

Bay thought the worst was behind her when she modified the memories of four tempestuous teenagers bent on stealing magic and wielding it in a tyrannical manner. Unfortunately for her, when one of those teenagers ends up dead behind the inn her father owns, things start to spiral. The girl’s death is ritual in fashion, bloody runes painted on the trees, and Bay can’t wrap her head around exactly what has happened. Then things get worse.

With the darkness on the horizon, I need to clear my name and get to work. Forming a Goodness Army is on the top of the list. Shockingly, my army consists of my wacky-tabacky-smoking aunt, my high school counselor who can shift into a house cat, the town gossip who turns invisible after downing five beers, and a few fabulous others with nefarious talents. And of course, a cast of fictional characters...who I created and definitely have an opinion on how I should proceed.

Four months of wallowing in embarrassed depression should be enough. I’m beginning to realize that no one is who they seem to be, and my life story might be spinning out of my control. It’s time to take a shower, put on a bra, and wear something other than sweatpants. Difficult, but doable. With my friends - real and imaginary - by my side, I need to edit my life before the elusive darkness comes for all of us. 

Ever-turbulent humanity has reached out to the stars and found itself challenged by several “exosapient” species whose motivations are as unusual as their physical forms. But no world is defined just by the characters who occupy center stage. Lost Signals digs deep into the lives - and struggles - of those beyond the spotlight by bringing together 20 new voices and new stories.

The day I was drafted into the army of the gods, all I knew about being a MASH surgeon was what I’d learned from Hawkeye Pierce and Hot Lips Houlihan. Now here I am, Dr. Petra Robichaud, in the middle of an immortal war, assigned to a MASH camp with a nosy sphinx, a vegetarian werewolf, and an uptight vampire who really needs to get a life. At least they’re all too busy with their own dramas to discover my secret: I can see the dead. It’s a forbidden gift, one that can get me killed, so I haven’t told a soul. 

In this new Jayne Frost and Sinclair Crowe mystery, a royal road trip takes the Princess and Prince Consort of the North Pole all the way to Las Vegas. And even though they’re in Sin City on official business, it doesn’t take long for trouble to find them. Trouble that’s very close to home. In fact, Sinclair’s entire family is gambling on him and Jayne figuring out what’s gone dangerously wrong with the cool new magic trick at the end of his parents’ show.

It was a day like any other day for Marina Trahan...until she caught her husband in bed with another woman. Before that eye-opening wake-up call, Marina would have described her life as average or uneventful, maybe even boring. But now, chaos and confusion reign supreme. She’d expected to slide through midlife with her unwanted extra pounds, chin hair, and hot flashes and move somewhat gracefully into elastic-waist pants and having no verbal filter.

Lady Penelope Sherbourne is not - absolutely not - going to fall in love with Thaddius MacLauren, Laird of Caithness, even if he is a big, handsome Scottish brute and ridiculously protective of her. But now that the Book of Love has fallen into her hands, Thad is the only one she trusts to test out the sensations she must explore in order to find the perfect husband. She wants a mild-mannered English earl, one who lives near her family, and who will not make her heart leap or her bones melt as Thad does every time he looks at her.