Showing results by narrator "Hillary Huber" in All Categories

We made some incorrect assumptions about work, and those assumptions are killing us. We allowed a narrative that is solely about earnings to replace what we know to be true about human motivation. Human beings are hardwired to seek purpose, but according to data, most people don't feel a sense of purpose in their work. Work has become a grind, an endless series of tasks that lack meaning.

Winter winds off the Atlantic have turned the tourist mecca of Seaside Creek, New Jersey, into a ghost town. Dr. Christina Paxton, however, is growing accustomed to living with ghosts. Recently widowed, the emergency room physician has returned to the shore with her young daughter, house-sitting a sprawling beachside Victorian home. One night, her two-year-old calls her by a name that makes Christina's blood run cold and sends her thoughts spiraling back 30 years.

Being prepared for any scenario is the trademark of any good CIA operative, and Eve Wolfe is one of the best. But when her latest mission literally explodes in her face, she wakes up labeled a traitor and - even more surprising - in the custody of elite Aegis Security operative and ex-lover Zane Archer. Although she still secretly has feelings for Zane, he’s now demanding the one thing that she can’t give him: The truth.

Jim Harrison takes us on a journey of the human heart in three new novellas. Julip follows a bright and resourceful young woman as she tries to spring her brother from a Florida jail after he shot three of her former lovers. The Seven-Ounce Man continues the picaresque adventures of Brown Dog, a Michigan scoundrel who loves to eat, drink, and chase women. The Beige Dolorosa is the haunting tale of an academic who, recovering from the repercussions of a sexual-harassment scandal, turns to the natural world for solace.

Set on the Minnesota prairies in 1987, during a drought season that is fostering the demise of the family farms, the story features two intertwining narrators: a father searching for answers after his son commits a heinous murder, and a pastor's wife who has returned to the town for mysterious reasons of her own. A penetrating look at small-town America, reminiscent of Russell Banks' Sweet Hereafter or Affliction, driven by a powerful murder mystery, Little Wolves is a literary triumph.

After years of abuse and neglect, Parker is found chained in a junk-filled backyard after a drug bust. The little guy's terrified of people. Officer Ned Barringer brings him to a nearby shelter for medical care. When Ned learns how hard it is for dogs like Parker to get adopted, he must do more. He's also instantly taken with Kim Harper, one of the shelter managers.

Summer has come to Atlantic City but the boardwalk is empty of tourists, the casino lights have dimmed, and two Jane Does are laid out in the marshland behind the Sunset Motel, just west of town. Only one person even knows they’re there. Meanwhile, Clara, a young boardwalk psychic, struggles to attract clients for the tarot readings that pay her rent. When she begins to experience very real and disturbing visions, she suspects they could be related to the recent cases of women gone missing in town.

I have my dream job. With a nightmare boss. At first, Nicole Barret seemed to be the perfect boss. I was dead wrong. It gets worse when I find out my husband knows her all too well. She's his ex-fiancé. She won’t let me quit without destroying my career and my marriage. It wasn’t a coincidence that she hired me. It won’t be a coincidence if I disappear.

MediMiracle Corporation manufactures Sophrosyne, a miracle cure for opiate addiction. Ellison Ricard, a research analyst for the company, claims to have uncovered data that proves Black users of Sophrosyne experience fatal side effects far more often than people of other races. When Ricard confronts MediMiracle’s charismatic founder and CEO, Peyton Burke, a violent confrontation ensues. The wheelchair-bound Ricard—a Black man who had been severely injured years earlier—is fired that very day.

John farrow was Hollywood royalty. An Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter, he was married to the talented and beautiful actress Maureen O'Sullivan. Together they had seven children, including esteemed actress Mia Farrow, mother of journalist Ronan Farrow. They were a fairytale Hollywood family. But all was not as it seemed.

It’s June 2012. The magical and slightly cultish River Run swim club is alive with the spirit of fun competition when a perfect storm brews between team moms and best friends Gillian Cloud and Kristy Weinstein. The ghost of family addiction has turned up, looming over their carefully planned pasta parties, tie-dye nights, and pep rallies, forcing them to face their unresolved childhood trauma. Gillian responds by trying to control everyone around her while Kristy relapses into her dangerous addiction to love.

Sophie Winston is busy handling the first ever convention of the Association of Ghost Kitchens—restaurants that do delivery only—but she's taking a little time out for a lunch meeting organized by A Healthy Meal. The group is dedicated to providing meals for children in need, and as a bonus, it'll give Sophie the perfect opportunity to ogle the lavish Old Town home of socialite Geraldine Stansfield. Gerrie's dining room is impeccably furnished, the table laden with gleaming crystal and prized china. If it weren't for the dead man lying on the floor, everything would be perfect.

Shelby wants to give her daughter Chloe a gift she’ll never forget: a luxury cruise around the Caribbean. It will be the honeymoon Chloe and her husband Rob never got to take. Shelby will look after their little boy. Then the unthinkable happens: Shelby gets a call from a distraught Rob—Chloe is missing, fallen overboard. Everyone says she was drunk and alone, that it must have been a tragic accident. But all Shelby’s maternal instincts tell her that can’t be true.

Hey guys! Just wanted to let you know that I’ll be in Athens for four days next week.

In the final months of World War II, San Francisco newspaper secretary Ellie Morgan should be planning her wedding and subsequent exit from the newsroom into domestic life. Instead, Ellie, who harbors dreams of having her own column, is using all the skills she's learned as a would-be reporter to try to uncover any scrap of evidence that her missing pilot father is still alive. But when she discovers a stack of love letters from a woman who is not her mother in his possessions, she vows to find out the truth about the father she loves - and the woman who loved him back.

Holly is beginning to understand what her gut has been telling her, and it isn't a pretty sight. Will she listen to what she is learning, or is she feeling the pressure from New York? JB is telling her stories, but does he have an ulterior motive? And if he does, is it better for Holly to know it…or not? Will each of them find the solution they need? Holly is back, learning about another story ripped out of the ZOO. But this one seems too impossible to be true. HOW MUCH can one person drink and not shoot themselves?

Grim Reapers. Saving lives. Lessons in love. For some, it's a fictitious world, but for Debra's friend, it will become her life. For once, nothing is going right in her world, but she always has her friend to help her, right? Right? Ushering souls into the afterlife was something she scoffed at…until it became all too real. Now she is attracting men like she is one of the seven sins. Can she deal with her business having unexpected troubles, help others before Death takes them, and have a love life when one wasn't expected?

The Infinite Future is a mind-bending novel that melds two addictive tales in one. In the first, we meet three broken people, joined by an obsession with a forgotten Brazilian science-fiction author named Salgado-MacKenzie. The motley trio sets off to discover his identity, and find his fabled masterpiece. In the second half, Wirkus gives us the lost masterpiece itself - the actual text of The Infinite Future, Salgado-MacKenzie's wonderfully weird magnum opus.

To the world it seems obvious: Kaylene Adams killed her daughter before taking her own life. Attorney Emilie Wesley knows a different story: Kaylene would never hurt anyone and was looking for a way out of a controlling, abusive relationship. Her death shakes Emilie’s belief that she can make a difference for women in violent marriages. Self-doubt plagues her as she struggles to continue her work in the wake of the tragedy.

In the wake of San Francisco Noir, Los Angeles Noir, and Orange County Noir - all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series - comes the latest California installment, Oakland Noir. Masterfully curated by Jerry Thompson and Eddie Muller, the "Czar of Noir", this volume will shock, titillate, provoke, and entertain. The diverse cast of talented contributors will not disappoint.