Showing results by narrator "Xe Sands" in All Categories

In this memoir of her 40 weeks and five days in hell, Andrea Askowitz takes an unflinching look at her pregnant life from struggling with hormones to poor body image to a self imposed exile from family to take us on a ride through the turbulence of single lesbian motherhood. Along the way we meet her liberal parents as they struggle with their daughter's choices, the lover she longs to reconnect with who goes M.I.A. before the pregnancy, the friends who turn out to be no help at all and strangers who offer up some unlikely kindness.

In New York City, a girl called Leonora vanishes without a trace. Years earlier and miles upstate, Goldie, a wild, negligent mother, searches for a man to help raise her precocious son, Paul, who later discovers that the only way to save his soul is to run away. As the narrative moves back and forth in time, we find deeper interconnections between these stories and growing clues about Leonora – this missing girl whose face looks out from telephone poles and billboards – whom one character will give anything to save.

Isabelle, a woman in her 30s without any of the trappings of a grown-up life, has just been fired from her job at a San Francisco phone company. Returning to the midwestern suburb of her childhood, Standardsville, Illinois, she contends with her dating single mother, a neighbor who once appeared on The Honeymooners, and an ex-boyfriend.

When Treat Byrnes walks into her bookstore café, Eve Alexander wants to eat him up. Bad boy isn't her usual flavor, but for the sexy contractor, she's willing to take a walk on the wild side. Treat has a history of falling for damsels in distress, but Eve doesn't need rescuing. Not even when her café is sabotaged. Only when Treat finds out the saboteur is his own mother, he knows he has to do something before things go too far.

“Second place is the first loser” according to Sarah Matell, a heroine who wants nothing more than to wrench on cars and race with the guys. As a talented technician in her father’s automotive speed shop, she’s a whiz at tuning race engines. Winning races also comes easily to her. What isn’t easy is winning Craig Keller, local drag race hero.

Bounty hunter Trinity Smith had one goal in life: to track down criminals and bring them to justice. And he was going after one of the most infamous of them all: Victoria Davidge, a cold-blooded seductress accused of murdering her husband. Trinity took up as a hired hand at her Arizona ranch, never expecting to find himself attracted to the fiery-haired fugitive, but the passionate beauty ignited his senses and tempted the hard-bitten loner to forget his lawful duty.

By Cecile depicts post-World War II France as it reels from war and recovery. In Paris, an orphan girl, Cecile, finds refuge with an older man. He introduces her to nightclubs, intellectuals, artists (Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Eartha Kitt!), and non-monogamy. When she falls for his mistress, she begins to live a life she deems worthy of writing about...but only under the pseudonym of her husband.

For her previous novels (Things We Didn’t Say, The Life You’ve Imagined, Real Life & Liars), author Kristina Riggle has garnered fabulous reviews and established herself as a rapidly rising star of contemporary women’s fiction. In Keepsake, she explores that most complicated of relationships, as two sisters raised by a hoarder deal with old hurts and resentments, and the very different paths their lives have taken. As always, Riggle approaches important topics poignantly and honestly—including hoarding and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in her remarkable Keepsake—while writing with real emotional power and compassion about families and their baggage. For readers of Katrina Kittle and Elin Hildenbrand, Kristina Riggle’s Keepsake is a treasure.

Gerard sits, fully clothed, in his empty bathtub and pines for Benna. Neighbors in the same apartment building, they share a wall, and Gerard listens for the sound of her toilet flushing. Gerard loves Benna. And then Benna loves Gerard. She listens to him play piano, she teaches poetry, and sings at nightclubs. As their relationship ebbs and flows, through reality and imagination, Lorrie Moore paints a captivating, innovative portrait of men and women in love and not in love.

Lil and Frank married young, launched into courtship when they bonded over how they both - suddenly, tragically - lost a parent when they were children. Over time, their marriage grew and strengthened, with each still wishing for so much more understanding of the parents they’d lost prematurely. Now, after many years in Boston, they have retired in North Carolina. There, Lil, determined to leave a history for their children, sifts through letters and notes and diary entries - perhaps revealing more secrets than Frank wants their children to know.

In this award-winning collection, listeners will find spellbinding stories of loss, absence, and the devastating effects of chance - of what happens when the unthinkable bad luck of other people, of other towns, becomes our bad luck, our town. Taut, lucid, and engrossing, provocative and dark - and often darkly funny - these stories have much to offer the lover of literary fiction as well as the listener who just loves a great story.

A perfect blend of provocative beauty and fighting skills kept her safe in the most dangerous situations. But Maggie Bennett had no protection against her feelings for the handsome, mysterious Randall Carter. Torn by memories of past hurts, hopes for new love tossed her back into his arms and onto the bloody trail of a notorious terrorist. Maggie and Randall are swept on a wild roller-coaster ride of violence and betrayal…targets for an assassin's bullet and a passion that will strike without warning from the dark depths of the heart.

Maggie Bennett’s irresistible beauty and deadly skills in the martial arts always got her out of the tight spots. But she couldn't escape a stab of pain and passion when her new partner turned out to be tall, sensual Randall Carter. Once before, his kisses had promised forever - until the morning he'd walked out of her life. Now a thrilling, high-voltage chase after a mysterious spy has led her back into his arms and behind Europe's Iron Curtain, where Maggie and Randall become desperate players in an electrifying game - ready to break every rule...in danger and desire.

A touching tale of a grandmother and her granddaughter exploring and cherishing the natural world. Words, the woods, and the world illuminate this quest to save the most important pieces of our language—by saving the very things they stand for. When Mimi finds out her favorite words—simple...

Consider this glowing debut from Paige Lewis a menagerie of near-extinction. Space Struck explores the wonders and cruelties occurring within the realms of nature, science, and religion, with the acuity of a sage, the deftness of a hunter, and a hilarious sensibility for the absurd. The universe is seen as an endless arrow “...and it asks only one question: How dare you?” The poems are physically and psychologically tied to the animal world.

Chicago obstetrician Mackenzie “Mac” Huntress set her standards for men very high early on. It’s been over twenty years since she fell for a fictional movie heartthrob, and Mac’s content to wait for the real version to come along; it’s her nagging mother who’s not happy with the timeline. So Mac falls back on her lifelong Mom-surviving skill - lying. The latest fabrication: a handsome neurologist named Michael. But when Mac’s little sister announces her engagement, Mac is expected to introduce her elusive “plus-one” at the wedding.

Even before Lawrence Block could rest on his laurels from "In Sunlight or In Shadow", a question arose. What would he do for an encore Suppose each author was invited to select a painting from the whole panoply of visual art - from the cave drawings at Lascaux to a contemporary abstract canvas on which the paint has barely dried. And what a dazzling response!

Finding Mrs. Warnecke tells the inspiring story of Cindi Rigsbee, a three-time Teacher of the Year, and Barbara Warnecke, the first-grade teacher who had a profound and lasting impact on Cindi's life. Cindi, an insecure child who craved positive attention, started her first-grade year with a teacher who was emotionally abusive and played favorites in the classroom. Two months into the school year, her principal came into the classroom and announced that half the students were being moved to another classroom.

Consie is home for a funeral when she stumbles upon a family letter sent from Germany in 1945, which contains staggering news: Consie's great-uncle Hermann, who was transported to Auschwitz with his wife and three daughters, might have escaped. This seems improbable to Consie. Did people escape from Auschwitz? Could her great-uncle have been among them? What happened to Hermann? Did anyone know? These questions are at the root of Consie's excavation of her family's history as she seeks, 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, to discover what happened to Hermann.

The Voucher Promise examines the Housing Choice Voucher Program, colloquially known as "Section 8", and how it shapes the lives of families living in a Baltimore neighborhood called Park Heights. Eva Rosen tells stories about the daily lives of homeowners, voucher holders, renters who receive no housing assistance, and the landlords who provide housing.