Showing results by narrator "Cassandra" in All Categories

Once there was a mermaid called Amelia who could never be content in the sea, a mermaid who longed to know all the world and all its wonders, and so she came to live on land. Once there was a man called P. T. Barnum, a man who longed to make his fortune by selling the wondrous and miraculous, and there is nothing more miraculous than a real mermaid. Amelia agrees to play the mermaid for Barnum and walk among men in their world, believing she can leave anytime she likes. But Barnum has never given up a money-making scheme in his life, and he's determined to hold on to his mermaid.

In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Then, apparently out of nowhere, a sudden sickness struck the legions and laid waste to cities, including Rome itself. This fast-spreading disease, known now as the Antonine plague, may have been history’s first pandemic. Soon after its arrival, the Empire began its downward trajectory toward decline and fall.

Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.

In her first memoir, the Academy Award-winning actress Sophia Loren tells her incredible life story from the struggles of her childhood in war-torn Naples to her life as a screen legend, icon of elegance, and devoted mother. In her acting career spanning more than six decades, Sophia Loren became known for her striking beauty and dramatic roles with famed costars Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Jack Lemmon, and Paul Newman.

Heather Willette has a good life in Concord, Massachusetts—complete with a husband who runs his own business and a son to take up his mantle one day. But now that her marriage has fizzled out and Ross, her only child, is graduating from college and getting serious with his girlfriend, Heather wonders if that life is the one she really wants. Ready to seek out her own happiness and discover herself again, Heather decides to leave her husband and rent a cottage on Nantucket.

Everyone in Wynotte, North Carolina, knows the name Davy Malcor. Knows the video clip of him juggling four balls, "All at the very same time!" Knows the Marty McFly jacket his mother made for his birthday that he wore proudly, and often. But no one knows what happened to him the night he went missing more than twenty years ago. When the jacket is unexpectedly uncovered, the cold case reopens, and Davy's family is thrust into yet another media storm. But at the heart of the story are four people forever changed by one single night.

Ruth and Nat are orphans packed into a house full of abandoned children run by a religious fanatic. To entertain their siblings, they channel the dead. Decades later Ruth's niece, Cora, finds herself accidentally pregnant. After years of absence, Aunt Ruth appears, mute and full of intention. She is on a mysterious mission, leading Cora on an odyssey across the entire state of New York on foot. Where is Ruth taking them? Where has she been?

Tricia Miles, owner of the Haven’t Got a Clue bookstore, must solve her own mystery when a bestselling author is found dead in the washroom.

Luttie McFee's history has taught her to avoid attachments...to people, to places, and to almost everything. With her mother long dead and her father long gone to find his fortune in Las Vegas, 15-year-old Luttie lives in the god-forsaken town of Yankton, South Dakota, with her nine-year-old brother, Fate, and Floy Satterfield, the 300-pound ex-girlfriend of her father.

After the publication of Little Women, Jo March is shocked to discover her book of scribbles has become a best seller, and her publisher demands a sequel. While pressured into coming up with a story, she goes to New York with her dear friend Laurie. But despite her growing feelings, her desire to remain independent leads her to turn down his heartfelt marriage proposal and sends the boy off to college heartbroken. But when Laurie returns to Concord with a sophisticated new girlfriend, will Jo finally communicate her true heart's desire or lose the love of her life forever?

The virus has run its deadly course and the threat posed by the infected is nearing its end, but the true danger is only beginning. The survivors have fractured into two camps, gathering at ancient ruins in the Arizona desert and a subterranean military base beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains. One side follows a prophetic Native American elder toward the salvation of humankind, while the other is commanded by a seemingly immortal being devoted to its eradication. A final battle to determine which side will prevail looms on the horizon, growing closer with every passing second.

So, I have a third mate. No big deal. Except Auric punched my royal—descended from gods—betrothed right in the face. Novak has murder in his eyes, more so than usual. And my body is screaming at me to take all three males and teach them who’s in charge here. Because I believe the truth now. I’m a Noir royal descended from the gods themselves and destined to fix the history my fake-father forged: the one where black-winged angels were the result of sin and scandal instead of the truth.

Ever since getting sober a few years ago, Allison Hilborn-Tatro has been dedicated to achieving what she calls "radical stability" in her life. She’s up before five each morning and asleep by nine every night. Her days as a family therapist and mother to one good-natured Labradoodle are orchestrated down to the minute, with little room for anything unexpected to barge in and knock her off the wagon. That is, until the death of a neighbor she barely knew leaves her in possession of his two orphaned Shih Tzus.

In a small Northern Italian village, nine-year-old Luca Taviano catches a stubborn cold and is subsequently diagnosed with leukemia. His only hope for survival is a bone marrow transplant. After an exhaustive search, a match turns up three thousand miles away in the form of a most unlikely donor: Joseph Neiman, a rabbi in Brooklyn, New York, who is suffering from a debilitating crisis of faith.

Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practise her other calling: as an unofficial shrink. For years, she has supported her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but then her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. Sylvia has become famous for her prescient podcast, 'Hell and High Water', and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right wingers worried about the decline of western civilization.

Some secrets should stay buried. After accidentally freeing a demon, ticking off the werewolf alpha, and possibly inciting a war, Darby Adler’s Warden job is in serious peril. With the council up in arms and a literal god on her doorstep, Darby needs to figure her life out, and pronto. If she can’t, losing her job might be the least of her problems.

Told in the intimate voices of unique and endearing characters of all ages, these tales explore desire and heartache, loss and discovery, moments of jolting violence and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs. A bookseller’s unspoken love for his employee rises to the surface, a neglected teenage boy finds much-needed nurturing from an unlikely pair of college students hired to housesit, a girl’s loss of innocence at the hands of her employer’s son becomes a catalyst for strength and confidence, and a proud nonagenarian rages helplessly in his granddaughter’s hospital room.

In this tantalizing true mystery of a stolen life, an acclaimed reporter and an identity theft investigator follow a series of incredible revelations about the actual identity of a wife, mother, and friend turned perfect stranger. Days after Lori Ruff’s suicide, her family discovered her hidden strongbox containing stunning evidence that her entire life had been invented. Her real identity was buried so deep it would take five years to unearth. Who was Lori Ruff?

Haunted by an unfathomable tragedy in a Michigan copper-mining town, Fenna Vos has learned to focus on her own survival, even as World War II rages on. Now, she performs with an escape artist. Her honed ability to control her surroundings and elude entrapments, physical or otherwise, helps her run from the trauma of her youth. Then, Fenna is recruited by British intelligence.

Kathleen Paulson enjoys her life as a small-town librarian with two extraordinary cats, Owen and Hercules, who provide companionship during the quiet times and have a remarkable talent for sleuthing when murder disturbs the peace....The local businesses of Mayville Heights hope to convince Chicago-based company Legacy Tours to sell a vacation package for their town. Legacy Tours partner Mike Glazer grew up in Mayville Heights, but he’s no longer the small-town boy people once knew.