Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Literature & Fiction

Lauren Voss has a nice, quiet, orderly life running her grandmother’s Heron Bay Resort on the Texas coast. Three years removed from a break-up that left her ex - and her life - behind in San Diego, she’s adjusted to the slow pace in Rockport, seeking out neither new friends nor lovers. Vandalism at the resort’s clubhouse - and a cryptic message written in blood - brings Detective Harley Shepherd, with her obnoxious Hawaiian shirts, into her life.

Silas Mason has no illusions about himself. He's not lovable or even likable. He's an overbearing idealist, a radical bookseller and pamphleteer who lives for revolution...and for Wednesday nights. Every week he meets anonymously with the same man, in whom Silas has discovered the ideal meld of intellectual companionship and absolute obedience to his sexual commands. But, unbeknownst to Silas, his closest friend is also his greatest enemy, with the power to see him hanged - or spare his life.

In 1975, coach Harlan Brown is hiding from his past at an obscure New York college, after he was fired from Penn State University on suspicion of being gay. A tough, lonely ex-Marine of 39, Harlan has never allowed himself to love another man. Then Billy Sive, a brilliant young runner, shows up on his doorstep. He and his two comrades were just thrown off a major team for admitting they are gay. Harlan agrees to coach the three boys under strict conditions that thwart Billy's growing attraction for his mature but compelling mentor.

Living a lie, Matthew 'Mattie' Alexander is exhausted. It's not easy to keep up the pretense, the deceit, but it's safer. Coming out to a world that so easily hates takes a courage he's yet to find, so he pretends - pretends to be into women - pretends to love being a part of the university's football team. It keeps him safe, hidden. Until he meets Julian. From the moment they first meet, Mattie knows life is about to change. He's yet to determine if it is for the better or worse.

Laurie and Sasha have built a bright new world together. Sasha is working for the Immigration Guidance Council, and Laurie is landing theatre roles he could once only have dreamed of. Best of all, they've spent the past two years enjoying the love they snatched from the jaws of Sasha's violent, dangerous past. But Laurie has a history too. He's on edge, his talents increasing beyond his ability to deal with them.

Eleven months after discovering a brutal double murder in a sleepy Northumbrian town, Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels is still haunted by her failure to solve the case. Then the brutal killing of a man on Newcastle’s Quayside gives Daniels another chance to get it right, and her first case as Senior Investigating Officer. When Daniels recognises the corpse but fails to disclose the fact, her personal life swerves dangerously into her professional life. But much worse, she is now being watched. As Daniels steps closer to finding a killer, a killer is only a breath away from claiming his next victim....

Gillian "Gem" Martin is the lead biologist at a wildlife sanctuary on the Northeast coast and head of the Wildlife Emergency Response Team called in when catastrophes, man-made or natural, threaten the endangered species she studies. Austin Germaine is a troubleshooter, the hired gun for a big oil company, whose job is to help contain leaks and prevent media coverage of a pending disaster until the danger can be eliminated. If it can be.

On the treacherous streets of Riverside, a man lives and dies by the sword. Even the nobles on the Hill turn to duels to settle their disputes. Within this elite, dangerous world, Richard St. Vier is the undisputed master, as skilled as he is ruthless--until a death by the sword is met with outrage instead of awe, and the city discovers that the line between hero and villain can be altered in the blink of an eye.

On the surface Ben seems to have it all: money, influence, good looks. He smiles and jokes in all the right places, but it's all a façade. Inside he's a wreck, and it's only getting worse. With his congressman father using Ben's recent kidnapping for his own political agenda and Ben still struggling to get over the only guy he's ever loved, he feels like he's losing his grip on reality, and he's quickly spiraling out of control. Then he meets Dante, an enigma of a man with as much self-hatred as Ben has.

Moving from a Midwestern college to the Stonewall Tavern on the night of the first gay uprising - and populated by eloquent queens, butch poseurs, and a fearfully incompetent shrink - The Beautiful Room is Empty conflates the acts of coming out and coming of age.

The Tarot Sequence imagines a modern-day Atlantis off the coast of Massachusetts, governed by powerful Courts based on the traditional Tarot deck. Rune Saint John, last child of the fallen Sun Throne, is backed into a fight of high court magic and political appetites in a desperate bid to protect his ward, Max, from a forced marital alliance with the Hanged Man. Rune's resistance will take him to the island's dankest corners, including a red light district made of moored ghost ships and the floor of the ruling Convocation, where a gathering of Arcana will change Rune's life forever.

Gun runner Pablo Castillo has cemented his reputation in the gun trade as callous and cold-hearted. Personal feelings no longer matter, not with everyone out to make him a sacrifice on their way to the top. He remains untouchable, until a meeting with a rival gang leader and a new deal brings him face-to-face with temptation. Dev is the right hand to a sadistic bastard out for blood and glory. He hides his true feelings of distaste for his boss, not the least of his many secrets.

Tim Donovan is a Catholic priest with a guilty conscience - though not in the way you’d guess. And Katherine Donne is a Parisian socialite who long ago kicked her self-respect to the curb - for good and for ill. And much closer, we have a group of men whose fortunes, graying temples, and positions in life are distinguished and enviable. But their morals? Anything but. And that’s where Evan Reed comes in.

Wynter Thompson, divorced with a young child, struggles to balance the demands of her surgical residency with the responsibilities of motherhood - and between the two, discovers there is little time left for anything else. She manages to convince herself that she has everything she needs, because another chance at love is definitely not in her game plan. Pearce Rifkin is a woman with a plan, and it doesn’t include a serious relationship. Chief Surgical Resident is just a stepping stone to her lifelong goal.

What do you do when you fall through the loopholes in the system and all you have to rely on are your own wits? Lois and Sophie have scrambled and saved for years, planning for their retirement in Florida. But now they've lost it all, and Lois' sniper training from her long-ago service as an Army nurse leads to a desperate career choice. When Detective Morgan Holiday is assigned to investigate a spate of sniper killings, it's just one more stress point in her already overburdened life.

Pamela Wright will never forgive her sister for dying in the Afghanistan war or the army for Laura's death or anyone else for making it okay for Laura to go halfway around the world to fight for reasons Pam has never fathomed. Numb with grief, she buries her sister but not her rage. Among the mourners is Trish Tomlinson, who loved Laura long ago and has found the news of Laura's death sharply painful.

Aimee Turner is a country girl, living and working on her family's sheep station in rural Australia. Life is easy and full of hard, dusty work, but when her brother Joseph decides to become a contestant in a reality TV dating show, Romancing the Farmer, everything goes to hell. The station gets overrun by city women and stuck-up producers right in the middle of shearing season. Justine Cason, the ringleader of the circus Aimee instantly detests is an irritating, arrogant presence that she is forced to chaperone around the massive property.

Frank O'Hara was a pioneering modern American poet and playwright - an art critic, a musician, and a curator at the Museum of Modern Art - who defined New York City in its post-WWII heyday. For many these poems defined the city's midcentury zeitgeist.

Grace Warner spends her days teaching four sections of Beowulf for Cretins to bored students at one of New England's “hidden ivy” colleges. Not long after she is dumped by her longtime girlfriend, Grace meets the engaging and mysterious Abbie on a cross-country flight. Sparks fly on and off the plane as the two strangers give in to one night of reckless passion with no strings attached and no contact information exchanged.

Lee would gladly trade all his psychic gifts for a chance at ordinary life with his husband and his little girl. Three years into their marriage, they're settled in their new home - but the House of Joy can't shield them from an oncoming threat with the power to uproot their whole world. Lee can't define it further, and even his beloved Gideon can't unmask a monster with no face at all. Gideon is mired in problems and secrets of his own as he struggles to adjust to his new rank and the complexities of plainclothes police work with CID.