Showing results by narrator "Natasha Soudek" in All Categories

A gorgeous stranger in an old photograph. A desperate search from another century. And a mystery Camille Gordon cannot resist. It has been two years since Camille discovered that she was going to be a teenage mother. Abandoned by her child's father, Camille is determined that she and her daughter will make it on their own. When she discovers an old picture hidden in a trunk in her grandmother's attic, Camille is at once drawn to the man in the image.

Tish Gordon has worked tirelessly to earn a law degree from her father's alma mater in Chicago. Although the Shore Leave Café will always be in her heart, Tish wants nothing short of a high-profile law career in the glamorous city. There is just one minor roadblock - a summer internship in Jalesville, Montana, where a fast-talking company is snapping up acreage and threatening local business. Tish heads west, determined to accomplish the internship and return to Chicago, but Montana has distractions of its own, like a sexy musician/cowboy.

With a particular focus on obsession and the abnormal, We So Seldom Look on Love explores life at its quirky extremes, pushing past limits of convention into lives that are fantastic and heartbreakingly real. Whether writing about the dilemma of a two-headed man who attempts to expunge his own pain or the shock of a woman who discovers she has married a transsexual, Gowdy convinces us with incisive detail, only to disarm us with black humor.

Joelle Gordon is leaving Chicago and her cheating husband to head for her hometown of Landon, Minnesota. There, she returns to the Shore Leave Café, the lakeside diner the Davis women have run for decades. Joelle's family, including her three teenaged daughters, Camille, Tish, and Ruthann, is made up of strong women who have long believed in a curse upon them - a curse that robs them of the men they love.

Twelve years ago, Jillian Henriksen cut off all her hair and placed it in her young husband's hands as he was buried. After his tragic accident, she clung to the only remaining stability she had - her young son Clint, her family of women, and her job at their lakeside diner, the Shore Leave Café. Now it is summer again, and change is in the hot and humid air. Jillian's sister, Joelle, and her teenaged nieces, Camille, Tish, and Ruthann, have come home to Landon, bringing a welcome distraction.

Tourmaline Harris's life hit pause at 15, when her mom went to prison because of Tourmaline's unintentionally damning testimony. But at 18, her home life is stable, and she has a strong relationship with her father, the president of a local biker club known as the Wardens. Virginia Campbell's life hit fast-forward at 15, when her mom "sold" her into the services of Hazard, a powerful attorney: a man for whom the law is merely a suggestion.

The past summer has been a wild ride for Joelle Gordon, in more ways than one. After discovering her husband cheating, she fled Chicago for her small-town childhood home in Landon, Minnesota. There, her family's lakeside diner, the Shore Leave Café, remains unchanged. Yet nothing else in Landon is the same, including her family of women, her three teenaged daughters, Camille, Tish, and Ruthann, and the intense, passionate love she has found with Blythe Tilson.

Bree's wedding to Tony, the man she truly loves, has almost arrived. But first it's time for a bachelorette weekend with the best friends from her youth, Graci, Tara, Corinne, and Adya. Considered the wild one of the group back in the day, Bree hardly seems a candidate to be first down the aisle. As the weekend progresses, she begins to panic about making her wedding vows. It takes the support of her friends to set Bree back on the course to love.

Adya Parish has drifted through life for too long and vows to take back control, not relying on any man to take care of her. Her pledge to become more self-reliant requires time spent alone - not with the sweet man, his adorable daughter, and crazy dog that careen into her life. But with one chance meeting in the park, Adya begins to find the family she has always longed for. It will take real strength of will to refuse to fall for them and continue to stand on her own two feet for the first time in her life.

After an abruptly ended engagement, Graciela Ramirez is dying of a broken heart and has to attend her friend's wedding as the only member of her old group who's still a virgin. On a quest to reinvent herself as bolder, braver, and sexier, she tries crazy new things and intends to have a one night stand. Catapulted into the dating game once more, Graci never expects that Neal, the hot musician she literally runs into at a bar, might be her second chance at love. He's supposed to be her transition guy, but love doesn't arrive on a schedule.

Anais Cooper is burnt out on big city living. When she unexpectedly inherits a house on Anastasia Island, a suburb of St. Augustine, Florida, she quits her job and moves south. Anais's goal is to turn the ramshackle house into an upscale spa. Retired athlete Palmer Freeman, Anais's next door neighbor, has plans for the property. All his offers are turned down flat. It's just a matter of time. He doubts that Anais has the business acumen or means to turn the home into an income producing property. Palmer, a single parent, raising two girls, has his own challenges.

From a childhood of abuse came loneliness, fears, and torments in my life. Then, after going through a nervous breakdown, an abusive marriage, and a desire to no longer live, one day, miraculously, it all began to change. Listening to my testimony, you, too, will come to realize that not only did God protect me, but God himself is now using my yesterdays for his glory. God saved me to be here for each one of you. The spark of life that seemed to no longer be within me was still present and burns brighter than ever today.

When the Russian Revolution came to Saint Petersburg, Princess Irina went into hiding. A stunningly beautiful ballerina, she knew she had to escape the Bolsheviks - or else die. With her jewels sewn into her cloak, Irina made a mad dash for the border. But the Cheka caught up with her, stole her jewelry, and left her naked, bloody, and dead along the riverbank. Her murder was never avenged. Such is Tatiana "Tatty" Chase's heritage.

In the great city-state of Meviel, manners, status, and the family luck can steer your fate - or change it utterly. In these three stories luck and love play a part - as do pirates, swordplay, and midnight assignations. Step into the courts and drawing rooms of Meviel, where an edged sword and a ready wit are your best weapons in life and in love.

Ann Decker fixes computers for a living, and in the evenings she passes the time sharpening her hacking skills. It's not a very interesting life, but she gets by - until one day she's contacted with a job offer for a company called Transformations Incorporated. None of her coworkers has ever heard of it before, and when Ann is finally told what the company does, she can hardly believe it: TI has invented technology to travel in time.

Wonder Woman and Philosophy: The Amazonian Mystique explores a wide range of philosophical questions surrounding the most popular female superhero of all time, from her creation as feminist propaganda during World War II up to the first female lead in the blockbuster DC movie franchise.

Award-winning journalist Caitlin Bergman's mother is dead - at least that's what she’s told everyone for the past 40 years. It’s easier to lie than to explain how Maya abandoned her only daughter before dropping off the map forever. But when a rural sheriff invites Caitlin to the woods of coastal Oregon to identify her mother's remains, Caitlin drops everything to face the woman she's spent a lifetime hating. Unfortunately, the body - abandoned on the land of a reclusive cult, the Daughters of God - was left faceless.

Fifteen years ago, Hector Lewis’ wife and young daughter vanished without a trace. People have long thought he was responsible, but the man he knows is behind their disappearance still walks free. As a police officer, he is sworn to uphold the law. But he has seen how little justice there is in the world. And when a newcomer’s arrival sparks a harrowing series of crimes, Hector finds himself in a race to catch a man he is convinced is a killer.

In the 1990s, Megan Margulies' Upper West Side neighborhood was marked by addicts shooting up in subway stations, frequent burglaries, and the "Wild Man of 96th Street", who set fires under cars and heaved rocks through stained glass church windows. The world inside her parents' tiny one-bedroom apartment was hardly a respite, with a family of five - including some loud personalities - eventually occupying the 550-square-foot space.

A missile is fired from earth to hit the surface of the moon. It is successful, and the missilemen are heroes, until...THE MOON FIRES BACK! Terrible lunar missiles blast New York, London, and Paris. An ultimatum is delivered from the unsuspected civilization of our satellite: "You have attacked us! You will pay the penalty!"