Showing results by narrator "Abby Craden" in All Categories

Acclaimed author Lauren Slater ruminates on what it means to be family. Lauren Slater's rocky childhood left her cold to the idea of ever creating a family of her own, but a husband, two dogs, two children, and three houses later, she came around to the challenges, trials, and unexpected rewards of playing house. In these autobiographical pieces, Slater presents snapshots of domestic life, populating them with the gritty details and jarring realities of sharing home, life, and body in the curious institution called "family."

Dylan Carroll, an ambitious college student filmmaker still reeling from the death of her brother, may have just stumbled upon the opportunity of a lifetime. Musician Kai White is in the middle of a public relations nightmare, and he may be keeping a secret that could turn things around. His manager/publicist wants to create a Web series aimed at cleaning up his image. There's also a promising offer at stake if Dylan can abide by the rule of staying strictly professional, and if she can figure out what Kai is hiding. But Kai and Dylan already have an undeniable connection, and when they are together, they discover that rules are pretty easy to break.

Set in a small town in Massachusetts, Next to Love follows three childhood friends, Babe, Millie, and Grace, whose lives are unmoored when their men are called to duty. And yet the changes that are thrust upon them move them in directions they never dreamed possible—while their husbands and boyfriends are enduring their own transformations.

Cohen Rodriguez, Deo's hilarious, über responsible best friend in Lengths, got dumped by his longtime girl because he's "not impulsive enough," and he's burned up. But maybe, just maybe, she's more right than he wants to admit. So he starts to date. A lot. But no one really feels like the one. And the more girls he dates, the more Cohen's convinced she isn't really out there. Luckily he has Maren - the girl with the sexy voice who always cracks the best jokes. They've been talking daily for a year…on the phone. What started as all work soon blooms into friendship.

In Every Little Thing in the World, Nina de Gramont turns a familiar predicament teen pregnancy into an unforgettable journey.

Max Dutton, a starting NFL linebacker for the Los Angeles Condors, is certain he's going to die young, since his father and grandfather both passed away at an early age. Believing his life will be cut short, Max lives every moment to its fullest. For this reason, Max also shies away from forming close relationships. What would be the point of falling in love and starting a family, only to leave them as his father left him and his sisters? Nutrition expert Kari Murphy used to think Max Dutton was to die for. She's older and wiser now.

Melanie Hoffert longs for her rural North Dakota home with its grain trucks and empty main streets. But like many, she followed the out-migration pattern to a more urban life. When she returns home during harvest to confront the silences that have kept her at arm’s length from her childhood community, she finds it’s not easy. When asked if she's found a “fella,” rather than explain that she dates women, she stops breathing and changes the subject.

With Come to Win, Venus Williams, the multiple Grand Slam tennis champion and entrepreneur, along with an esteemed group of business leaders, politicians, and acclaimed artists, serves up a book of wisdom that shows how to turn a competitive spirit and athletic background into success off the playing field.

Drawing from the intriguing (and sometimes unbelievable) true stories of the lives of everyday Americans, historian Julie M. Fenster traces the history of the weakening of our national ethics through the practice of cheating. From marital infidelity to financial fraud; rigged sports competitions to corruption in politics and the American education system; nuclear weaponry to beauty pageants; hospitals, TV game shows, and charities; nothing and no one is exempt.

Today's teenagers spend about nine hours per day online. Parents of this ultra-connected generation struggle with decisions completely new to parenting: Should an 8-year-old be allowed to go on social media? How can parents help their children gain the most from the best aspects of the digital age? How can we keep kids safe from digital harm?

For cowboy and firefighter Jake Ramsay, Christmas at Thunder Mountain Ranch is all about family, food, and celebration. Okay, and maybe a chance to run into his high-school sweetheart, singer Amethyst Ferguson. Six months ago, they had a scorching-hot, wild reunion - and this cowboy can't wait for another chance to play with fire.

As the tulips bloom and the Nazis tighten their grip across the city, the last signs of Dutch resistance are being swept away. Marijke de Graaf and her husband are arrested and deported to different concentration camps in Germany. Marijke is given a terrible choice: to suffer a slow death in the labor camp or join the camp brothel. On the other side of the barbed wire, SS officer Karl Müller arrives at the camp hoping to live up to his father’s expectations of wartime glory. When he encounters the newly arrived Marijke, this meeting changes their lives forever.

The cooking lessons that stick with us are rarely the ones we read in books or learn through blog posts or YouTube videos (depending on your generation); they're the ones we pick up as we spend time with good cooks in the kitchen. Dorothy Kalins, founding editor of Saveur magazine, calls the people who pass on their cooking wisdom her Kitchen Whisperers. Consciously or not, they help make us the cooks we are—and help show the way to the kind of cooks we have the potential to become.

The New Deputy In Town/Smokin' Six-Shooter/Montana Royalty has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

After K-9 handler Kara Wolfe witnesses her childhood friend Beau O’Connor survive a targeted hit-and-run, she’s shocked to learn his mother’s missing. And Beau, who can no longer recognize familiar faces after an earlier attack, can’t shake the feeling these terrifying incidents are somehow connected. With the tracking skills of her blind bloodhound, Kara will help Beau locate his mother—but someone will do anything to sabotage their search. With the culprit on their trail, can they uncover a sinister plot…before their rescue mission turns into a fight for survival?

Ambushed by sudden gunfire, former cop Stephanie Wolfe realizes the tracking competition she entered with her bloodhound is a setup. An escaped fugitive has lured her into the remote wilderness to exact his deadly revenge.

After K-9 handler Kara Wolfe witnesses her childhood friend Beau O’Connor survive a targeted hit-and-run, she’s shocked to learn his mother’s missing. And Beau, who can no longer recognize familiar faces after an earlier attack, can’t shake the feeling these terrifying incidents are somehow connected. With the tracking skills of her blind bloodhound, Kara will help Beau locate his mother—but someone will do anything to sabotage their search. With the culprit on their trail, can they uncover a sinister plot…before their rescue mission turns into a fight for survival?

Security Hounds Investigations Books 1-3/Tracking The Truth/Fugitive Search/Hunted On The Trail has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

Ambushed by sudden gunfire, former cop Stephanie Wolfe realizes the tracking competition she entered with her bloodhound is a setup. An escaped fugitive has lured her into the remote wilderness to exact his deadly revenge. And her ex-boyfriend, bounty hunter Vance Silverton, has fallen into the fatal trap, too. Now cut off from civilization with only minimal supplies and their two dogs, the pair must depend on each other to survive. But with a treacherous storm approaching, it’s not only a cold-blooded killer they’ll have to escape.

K-9 officer Asher Gilmore and trainer Peyton Burns have two tasks: rescue three stolen bloodhound puppies and expose a drug ring. To outwit the criminal masterminds, they must go undercover as married smugglers with the help of an underwater-detection dog. But infiltrating the crime ring proves more dangerous than expected, putting the operation, the puppies and their own lives at risk.