Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Literary Fiction

As a young girl in Miller's Valley, an ordinary farming town that may be facing its final days, Mimi is observing adults, selling corn, growing up and changing, and watching the world around her change, too. As the years go by, the unthinkable starts to seem inevitable. Anna Quindlen's novel takes us through the changing eras of Mimi and her family, as secrets are revealed, and the heartbreaks of growing up and falling in love with the wrong man are overcome.

In 1794, Johnny Watkins returns to America from Barbados, intent on becoming a great statesman. Even his hero, John Adams, believes the gifted boy will go far. There's just one catch: Johnny must learn to pass for white. He finds a spirited and lovely confidante in Kate, one of the few who knows that Johnny's father had been born a slave. But as he moves closer toward the new city of Washington, Johnny leaves Kate behind, falling instead for a prominent Maryland heiress who may not have his best interests at heart.

What do you say when you know you don’t have forever? Ruth has been Ann’s closest friend for years - her confidante, her solace, her comic relief, her tutor in life’s mysterious ways. So when Ruth becomes ill, Ann is there for her without question. After all, it is Ruth who encouraged Ann to become who she is, Ruth whose rebellious, eccentric spirit provided the perfect counterpoint to Ann’s conventional, safe outlook. And so the friends go on as they always have…gossiping, consoling, and sharing intimate secrets.

In the wake of the Crusades, Wilfred of Ivanhoe vows to return Richard the Lion Heart to the throne. But the Saxon son’s allegiance to the Norman king, and his forbidden love for Lady Rowena, leave Ivanhoe disinherited from his father. To set his mission on course, he returns to England in disguise and quickly finds himself entrenched in an epic battle for power. As destinies entwine, Ivanhoe fights to restore the crown and marry his queen with help from the healer Rebecca; Robin Hood and his Merry Men; and the Black Knight, the Saxon’s mysterious ally.

Eve and Leah are identical twins - but beyond that, they’re polar opposites. Struggling journalist Leah envies Eve’s seemingly perfect life - the loyal husband, the beautiful twin daughters, the stellar career - little knowing that what Eve longs for most is Leah’s independence. When a shocking event upends their world, one woman seizes a split-second chance to change everything and follow her sister down a different life path.

Jack had two dying wishes: that his wife scatter his ashes somewhere "exotic", and that she not give up on life once he was gone. He intended to spur her on to new adventures, but despite clinging to her red suitcase, Geraldine Verne hasn’t left the house for three months. It takes an accident for Geri to accept help from her friends, but when Meals on Wheels arrive she is mortified. Yet heartbroken volunteer Lottie brings with her more than cottage pie and custard. Like Geri, she too is struggling to cut loose.

The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his native language and the crowning achievement of that period in his literary career. It is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the works of Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative: the story of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished émigré poet living in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write - a book very much like The Gift itself.

One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899.

When fifteen-year-old American Hailey Portman goes missing in Switzerland, her desperate parents seek the help of their neighbor, Finn Harrington, a seemingly quiet historian rumored to be a former spy. Sensing the story runs deeper than anyone yet knows, Finn reluctantly agrees to make some enquiries. He has little to go on other than his instincts, and his instincts have been wrong in the past - sometimes spectacularly wrong.

Thirty-two-year-old Jess Abbot has lost everything: her job, her apartment, and - most heart-wrenching - her eight-year-old son, Chance, to a tragic accident. Haunted by memories and grief, Jess packs what’s left and heads for the small mountain town of Pine Lake, where she takes a position as caregiver to an eccentric old woman. A rumored clairvoyant, Lucy is strange but welcoming and immediately intuits Jess as a “loose end” in need of closure. But Jess isn’t the only guest in Lucy’s large Victorian home.

Following the death of their matriarch, the lives of Chye Hoon's family are turned upside down. Now that the British have fled and the Japanese have conquered, their once-benign world changes overnight. Amid the turmoil, Chye Hoon's daughter-in-law, Mei Foong, must fend for her family as her husband, Weng Yu, becomes increasingly embittered. Challenged in ways she never could have imagined and forced into hiding, Mei Foong finds a deep reservoir of resilience she did not know she had and soon draws the attentions of another man.

They are the Season sisters, bound by blood, driven apart by a tragedy. Now they are about to embark on a bittersweet journey into the unknown — an odyssey of promise and forgiveness, of loss and rediscovery.

In New York City, Joanna Marshall is an aspiring singer obsessed with success, determined to overcome the racism and sexism that stand in her way. Her childhood friends Maggie Ellersley and Peter Bye confront similar barriers but with different goals in mind: Maggie is focused on finding love; Peter, on becoming a surgeon. But as their interests overlap and their ambitions collide, the course of Joanna and Maggie’s lives seems destined to change forever. Written in response to the dominant stereotypes of the time, There Is Confusion paints a revelatory portrait....

Days before her wedding, Julia Walsh is blindsided twice: once by the sudden death of her estranged father...and again when he appears on her doorstep after his funeral, ready to make amends, right his past mistakes, and prevent her from making new ones. Surprised, to say the least, Julia reluctantly agrees to turn what should have been her honeymoon into a spontaneous road trip with her father to make up for lost time.

The year is 1967. Malcolm Pomerantz is twelve, geeky and socially awkward, while his seriously bright sister, Amalia, is spirited and beautiful. Each is the other's best friend, united by a boundless interest in the world beyond their dysfunctional parents' unhappy home. But even the troubled Pomerantz household will seem to be a haven compared to the house next door, after an enigmatic and very secretive new neighbor takes up residence in the darkest hours of the night.

At nine years of age, Logan Weber knows the routine. Keep quiet, make the food last, and don’t ever cause trouble. He’ll do what it takes to evade the rages of his troubled, violent father. Even though he’s only a child, Logan already knows too much - has seen too much. So when the opportunity presents itself, Logan runs. He has no idea where his journey will lead, or that the grandmother he’s been told is dead is desperately searching for him. Alone with no home of his own, Logan looks for a safe place to hide.

Life in the windswept village of Rantum in the North Sea is fraught with peril and hardship. Most families must rely on arranged marriage just to survive. But free-spirited Maren Luersen doesn't care for riches - her heart belongs to handsome but poor Thies Heinen. He may not have prospects or fortune to offer, but Maren knows their intense love can overcome any obstacle, and she is determined to be his bride.

After Phoebe Kitzke's kind heart gets her suspended from her job in LA, she swears off doing favors - until her best friend begs for help on the family ranch in Fool's Gold. Unfortunately, sexy cowboy Zane Nicholson isn't exactly thrilled by the city girl's arrival.

In 1930s Berlin, young Henrik, the son of a Jewish father and Aryan mother, watches the world around him crumbling: people are rioting in the streets, a strange yellow star begins appearing in shop windows, and friends are forced to move - or they simply disappear.

Prudence Cotton has recently lost her husband and is desperate to find her daughter, captured by the Nipmuk tribe during King Philip's war. She's convinced her daughter is alive but cannot track her into the wilderness alone. Help arrives in the form of James Bailey, an agent of the crown sent to Boston to investigate the murder of Prudence's husband and to covertly cause a disturbance that would give the king just cause to install royal governors.

In the mid-19th century, Leonie Russell works alongside her husband, Junius, an oysterman in the Washington Territory. At night she continues her father’s lifelong obsession - collecting artifacts and studying the native culture that once thrived in the area. On her 37th birthday, Leonie discovers a mummy protruding from a riverbank - a mummy that by all evidence shouldn’t exist. As Leonie searches for clues to the mummy’s origins, she begins to feel a strangely mystical connection to it. When Junius’s long-lost son, Daniel, appears one day, a native elder insists that Leonie wear a special shell bracelet for protection.