Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Literature & Fiction

After war veteran Kennedy O’Brien returned home from Afghanistan and caught her husband in bed with the nanny, she lost her faith in all things male. So she started Fool Me Once Investigations to stick it to the man — because there’s no better bounty hunter than a woman scorned. Her latest job is a wild dog-chase to slap cuffs on a bail jumper turned Chihuahua thief, but thanks to her meddling family, Kennedy will have to put up with a partner. And it’s about the last man she’d ever pick: Her cheating ex-husband’s best friend, Griffin Crawford.

Oliver Clock has everything arranged just so. A steady job running the family funeral parlour. A fridge stocked with ready meals. A drawer full of colour-coded socks. A plan (of sorts) to stay trim enough for a standard-sized coffin. And in florist Marie, he’s even found the love of his life - not that she’s aware of it. When a terrible tragedy takes Marie out of his life but leaves him with her private journal, he discovers too late that she secretly loved him back. Faced now with a fast-approaching fortieth birthday, Oliver resolves to open himself up to love.

Fifteen years ago, Axel, Gretchen, and Kurt Ucker lost their father. At the same time, they learned that he had secretly been a thief their whole lives - and left a fortune unaccounted for. Since then, the Uckers have lived a precarious existence. Their small town shunned and shamed them. Their mother, Bertha, retreated into her religion and her favorite televangelist, Brother Tobin Floom. Axel got a dead-end job. Gretchen turned to petty crime. And Kurt stayed with his mom and his garage band.

As intricate as a house of mirrors, Nabokov’s last novel is an ironic play on the Janus-like relationship between fiction and reality. It is the autobiography of the eminent Russian-American author Vadim Vadimovich N. (b. 1899), whose life bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, though the two are not to be confused (?).

The year is 1018 and the war with England is finally over, but the unified kingdom ruled by Cnut of Denmark is far from peaceful. Halfdan has lost everything to the war but his sense of humor. Once a proud nobleman, now he wanders the country aimlessly powered only by his considerable charm and some petty theft. When he finds an unlikely ally in Winston, a bookish former monk, the two set out together for Oxford, the seat of the new king.

For Clementine Haas, finding herself is more than a nice idea. Ever since she woke up in an Irish hospital with complete amnesia, self-discovery has become her mission. They tell her she's the lone survivor of a plane crash. They tell her she's lucky to be alive. But she doesn't feel lucky. She feels...lost. With the relentless Irish press bearing down on her, and a father she may not even recognize on his way from America to take her home, Clementine assumes a new identity and enlists a blue-eyed Irish stranger, Kieran O'Connell, to help her escape.

Valencia, a timid debt collector with crippling OCD, is afraid of many things, but the two that scare her most are flying and turning thirty-five. To confront those fears, Valencia’s therapist suggests that she fly somewhere - anywhere - before her upcoming birthday. And as Valencia begins a telephone romance with a man from New York, she suddenly has a destination in mind. There’s only one problem - he might not actually exist.

Home has always been a temporary arrangement for Samara Mansingh, a wayfaring wedding photographer and the daughter of a diplomat. When her father is uprooted once again, Samara needs a place to stay in Delhi. Next stop: the Khanna family. Samara’s memories of the Khannas are vague at best, but she doesn’t remember their home feeling so much like a war zone. And the last thing their surly eldest son, Sharav, wants is a houseguest eavesdropping on the chaos.

It seems lately that Poppy Lively is invisible to everyone but the IRS. After her accountant absconded with her life savings, newly bankrupt Poppy is on the verge of losing her home when an old flame, now a hotshot producer, gives her a surprising way out: a job in costumes on a Hollywood film set. It’s a bold move to pack her bags, keep secrets from her daughter, and head to Los Angeles, but Poppy's a capable person—how hard can a job in wardrobe be?

Available to listeners for the first time, Sucker’s Portfolio showcases a collection of seven never-before-published works from Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Short, sardonic, and dark, these six brief fiction stories and one non-fiction piece are consummate Vonnegut with piercing satire and an eye for life’s obscene inanity. Also available for the first time is an unfinished science-fiction short story, included in the appendix.

My name is Hunter O’Shea and I have a confession to make…I’ve met a girl who consumes me. I know that makes me sound completely whipped, but Mary “Lamb” Mitts has the power to bring me to my knees…it’s just too bad she hates my guts. But that’s okay, because I hate hers, too. The redhead stirs something in me that I can’t explain. This temporary insanity could be due to the fact my best friend, who used to be a bigger player than me, is getting married. That must be it. I’m caught up in an Oprah moment. The only solution is to get back in the game and forget her.

Set in the capital city of the world's happiest country, a comedy of manners about depression, the pressures of marriage, and the possibility of falling in love again, from the bestselling author of A House for Happy Mothers.

Freshly graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, Veridian Sterling is ready to hang her work in any of the countless New York galleries that are sure to give her a show. The problem is only one will, and they’re not interested in her art so much as her personal assistant skills. No glitz, no glam, and definitely none of the money she needs to help her struggling mother finally realize her dream of starting her own business after having sacrificed everything for Veri to go to art school.

Fifteen years ago in the colourful bustle of Vietnam, Celine and Patrick met and shared four blissful days together. It felt like true love, but soon reality tore them apart and Celine moved on. But now, when she sees him unexpectedly on a busy London street, suddenly nothing else matters. As she deals with the mixed emotions of an amicable divorce, Celine becomes preoccupied with her daughter and the dating agency she founded - not least when her ex-husband, Mike, asks her to find him someone new.

To satisfy a public that longs for a savior, Vidal’s eponymous hero of Kalki, born and bred in America’s Midwest, establishes himself in Nepal, puts out the word that he is the last incarnation of the god Vishnu, and predicts an imminent apocalypse meant to cleanse the planet.

Lisa’s dated a series of disastrous men; Simon’s loved and lost the girl of his dreams. She’s hoping fate might intervene in her love life; he’d prefer that it stopped meddling with his. Today, they’re meeting, courtesy of the local paper’s ‘Blind Date’ feature - but while Lisa’s looking for that elusive ‘spark’, Simon’s sure lightning doesn’t strike twice. Will theirs be a love that’s written in the stars, or merely another mismatch written up in the Gazette?

Eleanor Merritt, a do-gooding American family-planning worker, was drawn to Kenya to improve the lot of the poor. Unnervingly, she finds herself falling in love with the beguiling Calvin Piper despite, or perhaps because of, his misanthropic theories about population control and the future of the human race. Surely, Calvin whispers seductively in Eleanor's ear, if the poor are a responsibility they are also an imposition.

Ex-model Paige McCarty is fed up with being just a pretty face. After her ex-husband’s gambling problem left her royally screwed and tragically shoeless, she started Fool Me Once Investigations with her best friends, Lorlei and Kennedy, to prevent other women from being similarly played and dismayed.

Trashy-romance writer Gerri has it all - an overbearing family, a dead-end job, and no man but a ton of pressure to get married and have kids. Frustrated and hopeless that things will ever change, she decides it’s time to transition from “tragic loser” to “tragic loss”. Armed with a shoebox full of sleeping pills and a big bottle of vodka, she’s ready to end it all. First, she writes “honest” farewell notes to everyone she knows…

Best friends Annie and Sarah need cash - fast. Sarah, a beautiful, successful lawyer, wants nothing more than to have a baby. But balancing IVF treatments with a grueling eighty-hour workweek is no walk in the park. Meanwhile, Annie, a Harvard-grad chemist recently transplanted to Southern California, is cutting coupons to afford her young autistic son's expensive therapy.