Showing results by author "Josie" in All Categories

Alice runs the Good Household Management Agency, providing discreet domestic staff to extravagant townhouses and sprawling country piles. So when Camille Messant calls in urgent need of a new housekeeper, Miss Beeton sends out new hire Enya. She’s rather forward but she does come with impeccable references and is fluent en français. But in the early hours of New Year’s Day, Alice is rudely awakened with the news that Enya has been found dead.

Grant Carter knows that fact intimately. The shrapnel sitting on his spine from an IED is a daily reminder. But the constant pain won’t stop him from working at the Resting Warrior Ranch, training service and emotional support animals to help people with PTSD—something else he’s intimately familiar with.

Daniel Clark is the leader. The one who ensures everyone makes it out alive. He took that responsibility seriously when he and his team served in the Navy SEALs together, and he takes it seriously now at the Resting Warrior Ranch.

Raised in a cult where opinions and freedom in women were not tolerated, Mara Greene narrowly escaped a life as a child bride—one where she would’ve been shared and owned by all the men in the compound. Her testimony helped put the cult leader in prison, but she’s never truly gotten past the horrors inflicted on her. Her conditioning to keep silent persists even now—despite having found a safe haven at the Resting Warrior Ranch.

Noah Scott spent two months in an enemy prison camp but made it out alive—unlike most of his SEAL team. He’s one of the lucky ones but doesn’t always feel that way with his scarred body and daily fight against PTSD.

Some mistakes haunt you forever. Harlan Young knows that from personal experience. Walking away from Grace Townsend, even with the best intentions and no other choice, still haunts him to this day.

Cord Spellman might be everyone's Prince Charming, but I'm only his fake Cinderella. That's why Cord's offer is perfect. The hot hockey star has playoffs coming up. He doesn't have time for girls, especially his cheating ex who's determined to get back together with him. He needs to focus on his game, so he asks me to divert the attention—as his fake girlfriend.

When Keira first receives her breast cancer diagnosis, she never expects to end up joining a running group with three women she’s only just met. Totally blind-sided, all she can think about is how she doesn’t want to tell her family or step back from work. Nor does she want to be part of a group of fellow cancer patients. Cancer is not her club. And yet it’s running - hot, sweaty, lycra-clad running in the company of brilliant, funny women all going through treatment - that unexpectedly gives Keira the hope she so urgently needs.

Months trapped in the clutches of a madman made Jenna Franklin a shell of the woman she once was. All she can do now is use her computer genius from inside the safety of closed doors. Even two years later, going outside = blood-freezing panic.

Psychiatrist Rayne Westerfield has found purpose in helping patients, especially those with PTSD, heal at the Resting Warrior Ranch. For her, there’s no greater calling than equipping people to fight the worst of their demons. But she’s never allowed anyone to help her fight her own. She’s kept her distance. Kept herself buttoned up tight. Even the people in the small Montana town she’s known for years—the ones she calls friends—don’t know who she really is, and the fears she hides. And that’s okay. But it’s not okay to Cole Phillips.

From a comic mastermind comes this brilliant collection of stories. Three teenagers believe they are witches. A woman defaces a local billboard. A bored landlord tries to influence his son's best friend. A cul-de-sac WhatsApp group discusses eggs at length. A heavily pregnant woman finds a way to time travel and a girl discovers joy on a stolen bicycle. Each tale paints a life in miniature and offers an escape chute from the catastrophes of modern life.

As the new girl from the south side of town going to a prestigious academy for my senior year, I never expected welcoming open arms. But the bloody nose on my first day was a surprise. And the threat. And the...well, let me just say behind the botoxed smiles and shiny sports cars were the worst sort of people. And there was one that brought them to their knees. One who ruled Green Hills Academy like the monarchs he descended from. Knight King hated me. Hated what I represented. Hated that I wasn't wealthy and that I dared to enter his world.

He thought he could destroy me. Threatened me. Murdered the people around me. Then trapped me with no way out. What he didn't realize was I had the devil on my side. He played the long game. Longer than anyone thought. He thought he was smart with an entire town on his side. He tried to destroy my life and everything I loved. But I grew up in a different part of town. And where I was from, we protected our own. It may not be pretty, but watching him break into nothing may be the happiest moment of my life. I just hope the devil doesn't trick me again.

He watched me get handcuffed and led away for something I didn't do. He stared with those cold, steely eyes and did the one thing that caused my blood to run cold. Knight smiled and waved goodbye. He had wanted me gone the moment he met me, and Knight King always got what he wanted. But here's the thing, there wasn't a person in the world that could hold me down.

As the dying prepare to leave this world, they often begin to get a glimpse of what lies beyond through deathbed visits from deceased loved ones, strangers, and angelic or divine figures. Religious beliefs appear to have no bearing on these experiences - even atheists and nonbelievers have reported such phenomena. At times these visits are experienced by others in the room, offering incredible validity to the idea that life truly does continue.

A Still Life is a story of illness and pain that rarely sees the light: illness and pain with no end or resolution; illness and pain that we must meet with courage, joy, ingenuity and hope. Against a world which values ‘feel good’ progress and productivity above all else, Josie sets out a quietly radical alternative: to value and treasure life for life itself, with all its defeats and victories, with all its great and small miracles.

Growing up in Chesterboro, good girls were warned away from my brothers and me, and Penny Hampshire is a good girl. We're from opposite sides of town—her side has money, and mine barely makes ends meet. But when a trauma leaves her feeling out of control and vulnerable, she asks me to teach her to fight. My family owns a martial arts gym, and I've been training and teaching forever, so I agree. Besides, private lessons pay well, and I'm saving up to move away from Chesterboro for good.

Phaedra Morgan is one of the best race engineers in Formula 1. She's a math prodigy with dazzling skill, cutting wit, and no patience for matters of the heart. Of course, her job would be a lot easier if she didn't keep butting heads with their team's cocky and infuriatingly hot new driver. Cosmin Ardelean is intense and committed, but as famous for his off-track romantic exploits as his on-track wizardry. When the pair strikes up a secret-and thrillingly forbidden-"arrangement" to improve their communication and bond of trust, the heat of their attraction turns to something more . . .

Never rent an apartment over the internet. I learned that lesson the hard way. Turns out the sweet two bedroom I was thrilled to make mine is actually smack dab in the middle of a retirement community. Now instead of enjoying Florida’s night life, I’m helping Mrs. Hill find her missing hearing aids and showing Mr. Frazier how to use his television remote for the millionth time. But it’s fine. They look out for me and I look out for them. Which is how I end up wedged in a broom closet with Mr. Frazier’s sexy as sin nephew.

A medical scandal is currently unfolding across Western liberal societies. As Parents with Inconvenient Truths About Trans reveals, the primary victims are vulnerable, socially awkward kids with normally developing bodies who fall for the internet-fueled promise that they can solve their emotional, psychological, or physical discomfort by adopting an opposite-sex identity.