Showing results by publisher "Harlequin Audio" in World Literature

Vivid and compelling, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel. Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist—and confidante—to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own. Years later, she is confronted by her husband who has tracked her down.

Sixteen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier and being forced to give up her baby. She lives above a small rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep. When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the child that was taken from her. And in a moment that will change the course of her life, she snatches one of the babies and flees into the snowy night.

One morning while passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, Grace Healey finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs - each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station. Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a network of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war.

Kamilah Vega is desperate to convince her family to update their Puerto Rican restaurant and enter it into the Fall Foodie Tour. With the gentrification of their Chicago neighborhood, it's the only way to save the place. The fly in her mofongo—her blackmailing abuelo says if she wants to change anything in his restaurant, she'll have to marry the one man she can't stand: his best friend’s grandson.

Sara King has nothing, save for her secrets and the baby in her belly, as she boards the bus to Memphis, hoping to outrun her past in Chicago. She is welcomed with open arms by Mama Sugar, a kindly matriarch and owner of the popular boardinghouse The Scarlet Poplar. Like many cities in early 1960s America, Memphis is still segregated, but change is in the air. News spreads of the Freedom Riders. Across the country, people like Martin Luther King Jr. are leading the fight for equal rights.

Years ago, Saint walked away from the girl he loved to fulfill his duty. Now he’s struggling to build bridges between his drifting family, take on more responsibilities at his uncle’s construction company, figure out why his daughter refuses to talk at school and curtail his mischievous abuelo’s escalating pranks. Then she walks back into his life.

The Plan was simple: find a cure for the cancer that nearly took her sister’s life. But for Zoey Fong, something about The Plan isn’t working anymore. Maybe it’s her unsuccessful research, maybe it’s burnout. But when a crucial tissue sample accidentally winds up in the hands of a very distracting—and disarmingly handsome—visitor, Zoey jumps at the chance to follow him home to retrieve it.

Life in Blossom Branch hasn’t always been sweet for Leah Marks. Growing up in the shadow of her overachieving siblings, the shy psychology grad has struggled to find her own place in the world. So when she inherits a long-forgotten summer camp, Leah sees an opportunity to help other kids who are struggling—and maybe find happiness for herself. Her plan takes an unexpected turn, however, after a scorching encounter with the local fire chief, Lucas Carter. He’s brave, he’s kind…and he’s not quite ready to settle down.

Simi Desai is thirty years old and her husband is dying of cancer. He has two last wishes in his final months: first, that she'll have his baby so that a piece of him lives on, and second, that she'll reconcile with her old flame, who just happens to be their mutual best friend. And so over the course of their last summer together, Simi's husband plans a series of big and small adventures for this unlikely trio, designed to help them say goodbye to each other and prove to Simi that it's okay to move on without him—and even find love again.

Jamie is a Florida Woman. She grew up on the beach, thrives in humidity, has weathered more hurricanes than she can count, and now, after going viral for an outrageous crime she never meant to commit in the first place, she has the requisite headline to her name. But when the chance comes for her to escape viral infamy and imminent jail time by taking a community service placement at Atlas, a shelter for rescued monkeys, it seems like just the fresh start Jamie needs to finally get her life back on track — until it’s not.

Avital Cohen isn’t wearing underpants—woefully, for unsexy reasons. Chronic pelvic pain has forced her to sideline her photography dreams and her love life. It’s all she can do to manage her family’s kosher bakery, Best Babka in Brooklyn, without collapsing. She needs hired help. And distractingly handsome Ethan Lippmann seems the perfect fit. Except Ethan isn’t there to work—he’s undercover, at the behest of his ironfisted grandfather. Though Lippmann’s is a household name when it comes to mass-produced kosher baked goods, they don’t have the charm of Avital’s bakery.

Faye Kaplan used to be engaged. She also used to have a successful legal practice. But she much prefers her new life as a potter in Woodstock, New York. The only thing missing is the perfect guy. Not that she needs one. She’s definitely happy alone. That is, until she finds her town papered with anti-Semitic flyers after yet another failed singles event at the synagogue. Desperate for comfort, Faye drunkenly turns to the only thing guaranteed to soothe her—pottery. A golem protector is just what her town needs…and adding all the little details to make him her ideal man can’t hurt, right?

Jyoti is the “perfect” Indian American daughter: She stayed out of trouble, looked after her younger sisters, and married a man her parents approved of. So when her husband, Ashok, pushes her to quit her dream job as head chef to focus on conceiving, she obliges, knowing this will please her parents—only for Ashok to leave her when she cannot carry to term. Now unemployed, childless, and divorced, a disgrace to her Gujarati family, Jyoti books a ticket to Tuscany for the summer to visit her best friend (and fellow social outcast), Karishma.

When called upon, she can talk the death out of the dying and save their lives—only once, never twice. But this truly unique gift comes at a price, rooting Weatherly to people who only want her around when they need her and resent her backwater ways when they don’t. Weatherly’s cousin Adaire also has a gift: she’s a Scryer and can see the future reflected back in dark surfaces. Right before she is killed in an accident, Adaire saw something unnerving, and that’s why Weatherly believes she was murdered—never thinking for a moment that it was an accident.

Mariella Jacob was one of the world’s premier bridal designers, but one viral PR disaster later, she’s trying to get her torpedoed career back on track in small-town Magnolia, North Carolina. With a secondhand store and a new business venture helping her friends turn the Wildflower Inn into a wedding venue, Mariella is finally putting at least one mistake behind her. Until that mistake—in the glowering, handsome form of Alex Ralsten—moves to Magnolia too.

Leona, an isolated American anthropologist, gives birth to a baby girl in a remote Maasai village and must decide how she can be a mother, in spite of her own grim childhood. Jane, a lonely expat wife, follows her husband to the tropics and learns just how fragile life is. Simi, a barren Maasai woman, must confront her infertility in a society in which females are valued by their reproductive roles. In this affecting debut novel, these three very different women grapple with motherhood, recalibrate their identities and confront unforeseen tragedies and triumphs.

Meredith Ventner knows a wounded creature when she sees one. Though her temporary new neighbor may be - on the surface at least - a successful, drop-dead gorgeous doctor, she recognizes the deep hurt Ryan Sorensen is carrying, and it’s catnip to her soul. But even though Meredith is the youngest, scrappiest and single-est of Magnolia’s most famous sisters, she’s committed to expanding the animal shelter on her newly inherited farm. She can’t waste her energy on a man who’s only passing through town.

Avery Keller arrives in Magnolia, North Carolina, with one aim: collect her inheritance and quickly put the quirky town in her rearview mirror. But the father who didn’t acknowledge her when he was alive has left Avery a mess to sort through - along with two half-sisters she’s never met and a gorgeous single dad living next door. Soon, her plan to keep this colorful, close-knit community at a distance gets complicated....

1910, Mexico. As the country’s revolution spreads, Dolores, the daughter of a wealthy banker, must flee her comfortable life in Durango or risk death. Her family settles in Mexico City, where, at sixteen, she marries the worldly Jaime del Río. But in a twist of fate, at a party she meets an influential American director who recognizes in her a natural performer. He invites her to Hollywood, and practically overnight, the famous Miss del Río is born.

Zora has committed every inch of her life to establishing her thriving DC bookstore, making it into a pillar of the community, and she just hasn’t had time for romance. But when a mystery author she’s been crushing on for years agrees to have an event at her store, she starts to rethink her priorities. Lawrence is every bit as charming as she imagined, even if his understanding of his own books seems just a bit shallow. When he asks her out after his reading, she’s almost elated enough to forget about the grumpy guy who sat next to her making snide comments all evening.