Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Araya" in All Categories

Glaciers have nothing on Kelsey Porter when she decides to freeze someone out. After getting burned once, she's not about to let it happen again. And right now all that icy contempt is focused on one annoyingly attractive and entitled interloper: Ian Roth. Not only is he looking to take advantage of her quaint, coastal community, tainting the small-town charm of Helen, Alaska, but he has committed the one crime she can never forgive - he doesn't like her dogs.

Taylor Lipin has made it her life's mission to leave her hometown and its ridiculous, century-old feud with the Porters behind. But when her sister needs help running the family inn, Taylor agrees to return to Helen, Alaska on a temporary, definitely not longer than two weeks, basis. Or so she thinks, until she's quite literally swept off her feet and into enemy territory by three happy huskies and their drool-worthy owner, Dr. Josh Krane. Though Josh didn't grow up in Helen with the rest of his Porter cousins, he's heard the stories: Porters rescue huskies. The Lipins are cat people.

Anna's father disappeared months ago. He had to flee the country because the cruel new Communist government wanted to arrest him. The Communists may have arrived like heroes at the end of World War II, saving Czechoslovakia from the Nazis - but since then, things have changed. Now Anna's whole family feels threatened and doesn't know whom to trust, so she and her mother and sister set out to escape, hoping to reunite with Papa.

There’s more to becoming a top chef for 17-year-old Isabella Fields than just not getting chopped...especially when the chances of things heating up with an intriguing boy and becoming a food star in the kitchen are both on the chopping block. Aspiring chef Isa’s family life has fallen apart after the death of her Cuban abuela and the divorce of her parents. She moves in with her dad and her new stepmom, Margo, in Lyon, France, where Isa feels like an outsider in her father’s new life.

Hope Taylor is ready to start her new life as the first female pastor of Faith Chapel Episcopal Church in Apple Springs. The Northern California town's quaint cottages, bungalows, and shops promise a fresh start. But where is Father Christopher? The kindly old rector who hired Pastor Hope was supposed to meet her upon her arrival, but he's nowhere to be seen. Hope's faith springs eternal, so she explores the little white church hoping to find Father Christopher. But when she enters the columbarium, she instead finds church elder Stanley King - his skull crushed by a fallen burial urn.

Cora hasn’t spoken to her best friend, Quinn, in a year. Despite living next door to each other, they exist in separate worlds of grief. Cora is still grappling with the death of her beloved sister in a school shooting, and Quinn is carrying the guilt of what her brother did. On the day of Cora’s 12th birthday, Quinn leaves a box on her doorstep with a note. She has decided that the only way to fix things is to go back in time to the moment before her brother changed all their lives forever - and stop him.

When a serial bomber's explosion in Olympic National Park lands K-9 officer Willow Bates in the hospital, her estranged husband, FBI agent Theo Bates, rushes to her side. He's determined to protect her and the baby he didn't know she was carrying. But the bomber has revenge on his mind and will stop at nothing to finish them off.

In 1847, the Donner party resorted to eating human flesh to survive entrapment at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They became infamous almost instantly, with hundreds of books, stories, and interviews exploring their misery. None of them tell the extraordinary story from the first-person point of view of the female survivors. Until now. Three women yearned to make better lives in California: Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Gravesset out west with her family in search of a home that would be free of disease like the ague that had afflicted her mother and sisters for years.

When the town council hires Chloe Abbington's close friend, famous wall muralist Lana Easton, to paint a mural advertising the return of the floating amphitheater, not everyone in Whisper Cove is happy about the theater or Lana. Naysayers think the noise from concerts and visitors will disrupt their quiet community. It doesn't help that a lot of money taken from the town's budget is being used to pay the muralist for her services. The mood turns even more grim when Lana is found dead, and since Chloe was there alone to discover her body, that makes her the prime suspect.

The entire country rejoiced when, out of a golden egg, Roxana Goldenscales hatched. It’s not every day (or even every decade) that a dragona princess graces the earth with her presence. But like most rare, valuable, and defenseless things, every moment of Roxana’s existence is supervised, planned, and observed. Or at least, they were. Until she ran away.

When a minivan slides off the road into an icy lake, Officer Samuel Miller narrowly rescues a woman and child from certain death. Only, Rachel Harding insists the crash is no accident—it’s eerily similar to how her sister and brother-in-law recently died. As the unexplained attacks escalate, Samuel is determined to protect Rachel and her orphaned niece at all costs. But when they make a shocking discovery, their investigation becomes even more dangerous, and survival may be impossible.

They are four, as different as can be: the romantic Nene, the clever outsider Ira, the idealistic Dina, and the sensitive Keto. Inseparable since childhood, they grow up in an old Tiblisi courtyard, in Georgia, when the Soviet Union is crumbling and the future of their country is in question. Each in her own way experiences love, hope, and disappointment as local mob wars, romance, and civil war threaten their worlds. Rising to personal and political challenges, the four women’s friendship seems indestructible, until an unforgivable act of betrayal and a tragic death shatter their bond.

When a teen falls while taking a selfie at the edge of a cliff, the last thing she sees before plummeting to her death is Katie Harmon, the nine-year-old girl she was babysitting, looking down at her. Investigators gather at the scene, and Katie's mother, Sara, rushes to comfort her daughter. Yet there's a small, secret ping of alarm in Sara's heart that she cannot share – though rookie Detective Kim Pierce senses it.

Socorro Security founder Ivy Bardot had dedicated the last two years to taking down a cartel. She’d even sent in her former FBI partner, Carson Lang, as an undercover operative. Now the syndicate was coming for members of her team. Despite having her trusted K-9, Ivy also needed Carson out and by her side. But revealing his true identity could come with a dire price. They’d sacrificed so much, including their own feelings, to seek justice. Were they prepared to risk their own lives?

When Great-Uncle Thorne arrives at Elm Medona, Maisie and Felix's lives get shaken up again. Uncle Thorne moves the family into the mansion proper. One night, Great-Aunt Maisie arranges for Thorne, Maisie, and Felix to rendezvous with her in The Treasure Chest. Minutes later, Maisie and Felix find themselves at a magic show on Coney Island in 1893 starring Harry Houdini.

Eva has never felt like she belonged...not in her own family or with her friends in New York City, and certainly not at a fancy boarding school like Hardwick Preparatory Academy. So, when she is invited to join the Fives, an elite secret society, she jumps at the opportunity to finally be a part of something.

Holly Foster knows that nothing lasts—not hometowns or schools, or even family. It’s just safer to keep herself uninvolved. So when she’s sent to spend part of the summer with her uncle, she knows better than to get attached to him…or any part of his small Vermont town of Arden.

The summer of 1988 is possibly one of love, and that’s the problem. Aspiring journalist Bobbi Sue Baxter has feelings for a man who’s engaged. But then again, he seems to return the vibe. Adding more mud to the already unclear waters, his fiancée might be involved in a murder that happened in the building where Bobbi Sue was taking an aerobics class. So should Bobbi Sue get involved? That’s a definite yes.

The year is 1930, and Cora McCavanagh is posing as a maid at Hollywood magnate Truman Byrd’s legendary estate. She’s closing in on the damning evidence she needs for a high-profile client. An aspiring PI, Cora was trained by her father, a former prison guard at the notorious Pelican Island, where she grew up surrounded by hardened criminals. And that's why she recognizes Jack Yates as soon as he walks through the door. The last time she saw him was on an ill-fated night that changed the course of her life and still haunts her more than a decade later.

By using strategies and technologies as the flywheel to orchestrate systems of listening, understanding, and predicting, as well as taking action and learning from those interactions at scale, businesses can easily put the customer and employee first, not only meet the ever-changing customer and employee expectations, but also leapfrog their competition. They predict empathy is the next frontier in technology. This book is aimed at sparking an industry-wide conversation about how exponential technologies like AI and cloud can enable a more empathetic world.