Showing results by author "Christina" in All Categories

For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Until the arrival of European explorers they were the only people to have ever lived there. Both the most closely related and the most widely dispersed people in the world before the era of mass migration, Polynesians can trace their roots to a group of epic voyagers who ventured out into the unknown in one of the greatest adventures in human history.

I like my sex dirty and disposable. I'm not into commitment or chicks who want more than one night. My brothers and club come first, second, and last. Until she walks into my life. Classy, rich, and so out of my league it's crazy. A week together should get her out of my system, but this good girl is so bad when we're all alone and I can't get enough of her. I don't do forever, but she's hooked me so bad I don't ever want to let her go. Except there's no way a princess can live in my world and I sure as hell won't live in hers . . .

When Christina Crawford’s harrowing chronicle of child abuse was first published in 1978, it brought global attention to the previously closeted subject. It also shed light on the guarded world of Hollywood and stripped away the façade of Christina’s relentless, alcoholic abuser: her adoptive mother, movie star Joan Crawford.

Now that Edith and her friends have everything they need to ransom Simon from captivity, hopes are high for a brighter future for both the people and dragons of Ormdale. But then a surprising invitation from Edith's past leads her to a clue to the mysterious nemesis that threatens her family's legacy, and news reaches her that the sinister Dr Farley is at large. And Edith begins to wonder if the most potent threat to her happiness may be much closer to home.

Vivian Yin is dead. The trailblazing starlet was the first Chinese actress to win an Oscar ­- but at what should have been the peak of her career, she became a recluse. The rest of her life was shrouded in mystery. Now, her daughters gather for the reading of her will. They expect to inherit their childhood home: a grand Southern California manor house with a sprawling, labyrinthine garden. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead. The two families haven't seen each other for decades - not since the tragedy that fractured all of their lives.

Jess Davis is a numbers genius, but when it comes to love, she's had to accept there is no magic formula. Juggling a career with raising her daughter, it's not surprising that her love life is...nonexistent. When yet another date ends in disaster, she's prepared to give up on love for good. But then she hears about GeneticAlly, a buzzy new matchmaking company that claims to find you the One using a DNA equation. Suddenly, love doesn't seem quite so far out of reach.

Felicity 'Fizzy' Chen is lost. Sure, she has an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with numerous bestsellers to her name, but when she's asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn't been practising what she's preached. She hasn't been in love. In lust? Sure. But that swoon-worthy, can't-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. And suddenly the optimism she's encouraged in her readers starts to feel like a lie.

Lark Levitt doesn't belong at Roosevelt College, at least in theory. Most students who attend the university come from wealthy families, and Lark is only a scholarship and a bus ride away from the trailer park where he lives. It's also a dream come true because dance is his life, and their program is one of the most prestigious in the country. But there are bumps in the road, like running into someone from his childhood.

Ten days after calling off her wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, she realised she had almost signed up to live somebody else's life. In this intimate, frank and funny memoir in essays, CJ Hauser lets go of 'how life was supposed to be' and goes looking for more honest ways of living.

Noah Dixon is damaged goods. After an accident leaves him physically scarred and emotionally vulnerable, dating isn't in the cards, so he throws himself head-first into his retail job. When he's obligated to attend his best friend's engagement party on Fire Island, it dawns on him he's about to spend yet another weekend feeling totally invisible and alone among a swarm of gorgeous men.

Ami is determined to break the Torres family wedding curse. Her own disaster of a reception ended with all the guests getting food poisoning, and she left her cheating husband soon after. But even though she's still processing her own divorce, Ami won't let her twin sister Olive's day be anything but perfect. Olive may think she wants a private ceremony in Maui, where she and her fiancé Ethan first fell in love, but Ami knows better and secretly flies the whole Torres family out to surprise the couple.

Jean McClellan spends her time in almost complete silence, limited to just 100 words a day. Any more, and a thousand volts of electricity will course through her veins. Now the new government is in power, everything has changed. But only if you’re a woman. Almost overnight, bank accounts are frozen, passports are taken away and 70 million women lose their jobs. Even more terrifyingly, young girls are no longer taught to read or write.

Glasgow, 2025. Dr Amanda Maclean is called to treat a young man with a mild fever. Within three hours, he dies. The mysterious illness sweeps through the hospital with deadly speed. This is how it begins. The victims are all men. Dr Maclean raises the alarm, but the sickness spreads to every corner of the globe. Threatening families. Governments. Countries. Can they find a cure before it’s too late? Will this be the story of the end of the world - or its salvation?

Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away. But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos - the first and only love of her life - the careful bubble she’s constructed begins to dissolve.

Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to "aging out" out of the foster care system. A community-service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvie and worse.... As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

Lily has never forgotten the man that got away...but she certainly hasn't forgiven him either! As the daughter of a notorious treasure hunter, Lily makes ends meet using her father's coveted hand-drawn maps, guiding tourists on fake treasure hunts through the canyons of Utah. When the man she once loved walks back into her life with a motley crew of friends, ready to hit the trails, Lily can't believe her eyes. Frankly, she'd like to take him out into the wilderness—and leave him there.

Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam 'West' Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she'd signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways. Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his inheritance. There's just one catch.

One typo, and a boy and girl connect by chance. Wishing each other a happy Valentine’s Day isn’t the end. In fact, it becomes a friendly annual tradition—with rules: no pics, no real names, nothing too personal. As years pass, the rules for their email “dates” are breaking, and they’re sharing more than they imagined—including the urge to ask…what if we actually met?

Escaping a cheating ex, finance whiz Sara Dillon's moved to New York City and is looking for excitement and passion without a lot of strings attached. So meeting the irresistible, sexy Brit at a dance club should have meant nothing more than a night's fun. But the manner - and speed - with which he melts her inhibitions turns him from a one-time hookup into her Beautiful Stranger.

Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion...she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests. Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas.