Showing results by narrator "Tavia Gilbert" in All Categories

As a mother and a famous author, Ward DeFleur has it all. She lives in a beautiful estate in picture-perfect Connecticut, along with her teenage daughter, Stevie, where nothing can go wrong. Until, one night, when Stevie is brutally murdered and Ward’s entire world is shattered. Consumed by panic and grief, Ward vows never to put pen to paper again. Enter Bree Bennett. Bree is a recently divorced, former-journalist-cum-housewife, desperate to fill her days with something other than Pilates classes and grocery shopping.

It’s mid-September 1893 and Eloisa Carstairs is the reigning debutant of Gilded Age Chicago society. To outsiders she appears to have it all. But Eloisa is living with a dark secret. Several months ago, she endured a horrible assault at the hands of Douglass Sloane, heir to one of Chicago’s wealthiest families. Fearing the loss of her reputation, Eloisa confided in only one friend. That is, until she meets Detective Sean Ryan at a high-society ball.

For legendary literary critic Michiko Kakutani, books have always been an escape and a sanctuary, the characters of some novels feeling so real to her childhood self that she worried they might leap out of the pages at night if she left the book cover open. In Ex Libris, she offers a personal selection of more than 100 works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, with passionate essays on why each has had a profound effect on her life.

Emma and Bobby Ross enjoy a charmed life on the shores of Miami Beach. They are a model family with a successful business, an uncomplicated marriage, and two blessedly typical twin daughters, Zoe and Lily. They are established members of a tight-knit community. Then, on the night of the girls’ fifteenth birthday party, they learn of Zoe’s heartbreaking mistake - a private and humiliating indiscretion that goes viral and thrusts her and her family into the center of a shocking public scandal.

While Hope Walker is recovering from the events of Christmas Eve... a funny thing happens. A strange photograph appears. And a curious investigative reporter like Hope Walker smells a story. This time, the story leads her and her best friend Katie to Nebraska.

Patricia Eagle’s account of her lifetime of relationships with dogs reveals the clarity, strength, and wisdom she gained from them, even in the most challenging of situations. As Eagle chronicles the lives of her ten dogs over seven decades and the lessons she’s learned from them—including how to become a better dog owner and companion, and even a better human—her dogs come alive on the page, each with their own unique personality, from the feisty to the meek.

It is 1972 and Alicia Talbot, a Vietnam war widow with a two-year-old son, has traveled to the poor, mostly illiterate nation of Botswana to teach English. At the nearby border, civil war roils Rhodesia. Alicia’s remote school harbors a saboteur, someone runs guns to Rhodesian guerrillas, and students sense the rising tension. Alicia falls for a new teacher, Jake Hunter, but just when romance seems possible, the sunbaked Kalahari Desert and guerrilla warfare threaten all she loves.

From a triumph in radio serials to persevering in a burgeoning, male-dominated television industry, Abby Taylor has a million stories she’s dying to tell. The soap opera is her brainchild. Championed by her mother and sisters, nothing can stop Abby from becoming an aspirational voice for every woman in the country. Her life behind the scenes, however, is just as dramatic as any she could have invented. Stay tuned for an engrossing story of determination, grit, and love.

Investigative reporter Hope Walker doesn't have a problem. She's got lots of them. The mayor is out to get her. The hunky guy she likes just left town. The local bank's been robbed. And now the new sheriff is doing everything to get in her way. And that just might be the biggest problem of all. Because there's been another murder in Hopeless. And as usual, Hope's the only one who can solve this mystery.

River of Angels, set on a tropical island in the Caribbean, reveals the multiple facets of life condensed within a small town. The story examines individuals caught between the world of conventional society and the world that speaks to an individual's true self.

An adorable manatee (Kobee Manatee) with his two new pals (Tess the Seahorse) and (Pablo the Hermit Crab), navigate a 1,200-mile adventure from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Florida. This adventure tale takes place in early autumn when lowering water temperatures can quickly threaten the life of a warm-blooded manatee. Will Kobee make it safely back to Florida?

In this audio collection of the complete Rayne Tour series, YA listeners and lovers of seatbelt suspense will enjoy the mysteries, secrets, and hazardous experiences of Shaley, the daughter of a rock star who finds herself in the midst of danger after a tour gone wrong. The Rayne Tour Audio Collection includes: Always Watching, Last Breath, and Final Touch.

Ten years ago, Jerry came to New York City to break into show business. Today, his career is stalled, his ex-fiancé is a TV star, and he survives by bartending in Manhattan’s high-end cocktail lounges. Stunned by loss and regret, he is sleepwalking through a hung-over life when he discovers Violet’s book about when they were young, hopeful servers at a Times Square restaurant. As he searches the words of his self-destructive soul-mate, can he reconcile his past and find the hope he lost along the way?

Law school graduate and newlywed Ruth Appelbaum is acclimating to life and marriage in a posh Philadelphia neighborhood. She’ll do almost anything to endear herself to her mother-in-law, who’s already signed up Ruth for etiquette lessons conducted by the impeccably accessorized tutor Lillian Diamond. But Ruth brings something fresh to the small circle of housewives—sharp wit, honesty, and an independent streak that won’t be compromised.

In these wonderfully funny and poignant stories, Willett’s eccentric, complex characters think and do the unconventional. Soft, euphonic women gradually grow old; weak, unhappy men confront love and their own mortality; and abominable children desperately try to grow up with grace. With a unique voice and dry humor, Willett gives us a new insight into human existence, showing us those specific moments in relationships when life suddenly becomes visible. Critically acclaimed when it was first published, Jenny and the Jaws of Life is being brought back due to popular demand.

Ingrid DiLaurio lives in Riversedge, New York, four express train stops from Manhattan. Don’t be fooled: with its tree-lined Main Street, and quaint ambiance, Riversedge is only impersonating a small town. While it’s a place small enough for everyone to know each other’s secrets, few do. The town revolves around the prestigious Riversedge Law Club, where deals are made and cases are resolved and where Ingrid DiLaurio—a former lawyer turned nationally recognized podcast host—has never once been made to feel welcome.

Lo Gunderson feels trapped in her small midwestern hometown until she sees an ad for a free car in the local paper. To maintain her staunch anticapitalist values, she refuses to spend money on what she can find for free, so this car is the perfect ticket out of the town. Though it doesn’t cost any money, it still comes with a price. Blanche Peterson is dying and asks for a single favor—that Lo track down her estranged son, whom Blanche hasn’t seen in over a decade. But before she can decide whether to fulfill Blanche’s dying wish, she needs to get the car started.

Welcome to the world of Droll Tales, in which reality is a mutually agreed-upon illusion and life is painful, paradoxical, beautiful, and brief. With an oddball cast of characters who reappear in various guises throughout these interrelated stories, Smyles reveals an off-kilter world overlapping this one. And in giving us a tour of this enchanted, sometimes absurd place, with its own workings and ways of expression, she gives us a new way to understand our own.

Can you help children be kind? Of course you can! Kindness can be taught and it can be modeled. And stories are an incredibly effective way to teach and model kindness for kids and adults! When Mr. Push Came to Shove, the first book in the Kindness Project series, is an adorable tale about what happens when a lonely old man meets a big crazy family. And it's a story that models kindness for kids! And after the story, there is a short section that helps adults lead children in a discussion about kindness! Enjoy the story, then lead the discussion.

From the author of Jerusalem Maiden comes a mesmerizing, thought-provoking novel that tells the riveting story of an American woman—the daughter of Holocaust survivors—who travels to Russia shortly after the fall of communism, and finds herself embroiled in a perilous mafia conspiracy that could irrevocably destroy her life.