Showing results by narrator "Erin Mallon" in All Categories

New York Times best-selling and Hugo Award-winning author John Scalzi gift-wraps 15 short takes on the holiday season - interviews with holiday notables, "informational" articles about TV specials and Christmas carols, short stories and poems, and even a couple of nods to Thanksgiving and New Year’s - and puts them all into a stocking stuffer-sized package that makes the perfect gift for friends, family, or yourself.

A buttoned-up counsellor. A hot ex-con with secrets. One session that changes everything. It was supposed to be simple: Let Jace Riggs walk into my counseling office, tell me how he’s adjusting to post-prison life, and let him walk out again. But the first thing I've learned is that nothing is simple with Jace. He’s tall, muscled, bearded, and tatted. He’s smarter than anyone else in the room and 10 times more guarded. He’s hiding things that would break any other man to pieces. He’s a loner, a bad boy, and an infamous Riggs brother from the wrong side of the tracks.

To make it in New York, you need a lucky break or two. And I really, really, need a little luck. So when I land a new job as a nanny, I take it as a sign that my leap of faith move to New York is finally paying off. Until I show up for my first day only to discover there’s no baby.

Misfortune. Bad luck. Heartache. Devon Thorpe is no stranger to any of them. After devastating news, Devon’s life becomes a prison of responsibility, heartbreak, and hardship. All her dreams to leave her small town vanish. A prisoner of circumstance.

This is a story about a cabin in a small town, a workaholic New Yorker who hates the holidays, and a hot-nerd local doctor who loves Christmas...and flirting. It starts to snow. There is also a dog.

For Hollywood agent Julian Hart, representing his best friend—megastar Carter Williamson—means it’s nearly impossible to keep his personal life and career separate. To make matters worse, Carter’s younger sister has been starring in Julian’s wildest fantasies more often than he’d care to admit. He knows she’s off-limits, but when Ashley shows up on his doorstep, needing a place to crash… suddenly his greatest temptation is sleeping down the hall.

Five pages...A letter holding a secret buried for more than five years...A secret neither of them wanted to know. Will the truth tear them apart...again? I’ve loved my best friend's brother, Houston Cavanaugh, since I was 11 years old. But my friendship with Hallie Cavanaugh meant too much to me to risk taking a chance with Houston. Until one snowy afternoon, Houston and I find ourselves thrust together by the grief of Hallie’s death. Our passionate and toxic relationship will test the boundaries of our loyalty to each other, and to Hallie’s memory.

Eighteen-year-old Tate Jones travels with her grandmother from their small town in Northern California to London. But the vacation of a lifetime is wonderfully derailed by the appearance of two charming Vermont farmers: grandfather Luther and his handsome grandson, Sam. Sam and Tate fall hard and fast. For two glorious weeks, the couple share their hopes, dreams, and secrets. Sam admits he suspects his grandfather is dying and that this could be the last trip they take together, and Tate reveals that she is the hidden daughter of one of the biggest film stars in the world.

In 1931, a young woman writer living in Germany was inspired by Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to describe pre-war Berlin and the age of cinematic glamour through the eyes of a woman. The resulting novel, The Artificial Silk Girl, became an acclaimed bestseller and a masterwork of German literature, in the tradition of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and Bertolt Brecht's Three Penny Opera. Like Isherwood and Brecht, Keun revealed the dark underside of Berlin's "golden twenties" with empathy and honesty.

Sometimes you have to get off the grid in order to stay on it. Reeling after being betrayed by the man she loved, Brooke heads as far off the grid as she can - to a lakeside cabin in the Berkshires. Expecting to bury herself in isolation she is unprepared for her intense attraction to her sexy artist neighbor. Logan is searching for something, but he doesn’t know what. At least not until Brooke moves in next store. Within days she’s stirred feelings inside of him he thought he’d never feel.

Tori McCade is bound and determined to earn her degree and return home to practice veterinary medicine in Salt Fork, Texas. Nothing and no one can stop her, not even the hottest man she's ever met in her life. Sam Garza meets the much younger Tori McCade in a dance club in Dallas, Texas, and all bets are off. He wants her, and he's going to have her...even if it means following her to Salt Fork. Both agree they need to keep things simple and uncomplicated. And he's okay with that...for now.

In a matter of seconds, my entire world changed, and it was in that moment that I stopped living and simply began to exist. In my grief, I sent a letter to the first boy I ever loved. I hoped in writing it I'd find some peace from the nightmare I was living, some solace in my anger. I didn't expect him to write back. I wasn't prepared for his words, and I certainly wasn't ready for the impact this soldier would have on my life. A deep-rooted hate transformed into friendship, and then molded into a love like I'd never known before.

Everyone in my small town thinks I’m the sweet one in the Bedd family, but after a year of financial drama on our farm and a lifetime of being in my hot brothers’ shadows, this kindergarten teacher needs to blow off some steam. When I meet a sizzling hot reality show chef named Bacon, that steam quickly becomes an inferno and before I know it, my one-night-stand has me screaming “Yes, Chef!” all night long.

Love is like a drug: dangerously intoxicating and addictively powerful. As a recovering addict, I know this too well. But how can I do it when Sanford and Aerin, my first loves—my unforgettable heartbreak—are back? Not only are they back, but Sanford insists Aerin needs us. He wants us to help her as we melt the shattered fragments of our hearts and become one—three hearts, one love. I should resist them. I understand the dangerous allure they—and love—have over me. I can’t risk falling back into old habits, having them become my everything once again.

Dear Santa: Please bring me a new boss for Christmas. Mine is the worst. The worst, hidden in a six-foot-tall package of male perfection. It’d be easier if he looked like an old Scrooge, wouldn’t it? Nick Saint-Croix doesn’t look like an old scrooge. He’s hot as - um, never mind. Just bring me a new boss. Please. Sincerely, Holly Winter

My name is Blue - insert a mood-related joke here - and I’m a femme fatale in training. My goal is to join the CIA. Unfortunately, I have a tiny issue with birds, and the closest I’ve come to my dream is working for a government agency that’s disturbingly up-to-speed on everyone’s sexts, rants in private Facebook groups, and secret family chocolate-chip cookie recipes.

I had dreams. Big ones. And Dean Carter did everything in his power to help me achieve them. Until we fell in love and everything fell apart. Now everyone thinks I tried to sleep my way to the top and I can’t say I blame them when the evidence points to exactly that. However, looks can be deceiving.

The NFL’s leading quarterback is the cute boy I grew up next door to. The cocky jerk - correction, hotter-than-sin jerk - can still charm the panties off any woman he wants with just a blink of his gorgeous green eyes. He’s also my best friend’s older brother and totally off-limits. Or he’s supposed to be.

They say you always want what you can't have. And what I want is Julia La Bella. I'm supposed to hate her with every fiber of my being, but I'll let you in on a little secret.... I don't. Not even close. The woman is stunning. She's also a colossal pain in my...you-know-what. Julia's my number-one competitor in the wine industry and she also happens to live next door. Not a good combination for a guy who's been told to "stay away from her" his whole life. Our parents can't stand each other: a bitter, outdated rivalry with no end in sight.

For the past three years, Stacia has seduced her way through the university's football line-up. But when she finally has a quarterback fresh off the draft, she experiences a shocking change of heart - one that sends her back to the place she never thought she'd return to: Vegas. Once there, she finds that no one believes her. Least of all Pace Larson, her sexy on-again, off-again ex who has never quite gotten over her leaving him for someone else.