Showing results by narrator "Hallie Ricardo" in All Categories

Seven generations of women in Susana Prather’s family have been lost to the Georgia swamp behind her house. The morning after her eighteenth birthday, she awakens soaked with water, with no memory of sleepwalking. No matter how she tries to stop it, she’s pulled from her safe bed night after night, haunted by her own family history and legacy. Now, the truth feels unavoidable: it’s only a matter of time before she loses her mind and the swamp becomes her grave.

Best friends Malena and Klepetan always adventure together! The two storks excitedly prepare to fly thousands of miles for the flock’s annual migration to a warm winter. But when Malena is injured, she stays in Croatia while Klepetan goes to South Africa—and the pair must navigate the turbulent winds of separation for the first time. But even over the vast distance, the two brave explorers discover ways to enjoy their separate seasons while keeping their hearts connected—and their hopes aloft that spring will bring them back together.

In the virtual reality game Heir Apparent, there are way too many ways to get killed—and Giannine seems to be finding them all. Which is a shame, because unless she can get the magic ring, locate the stolen treasure, answer the dwarf's dumb riddles, impress the head-chopping statue, charm the army of ghosts, fend off the barbarians, and defeat the man-eating dragon, she'll never win.

The Fehler sisters wanted to be more than bug girls but growing up in a fourth-generation family pest-control business in rural Missouri, their path was fixed. The family talked about Fehler Family Exterminating at every meal, even when their mom said to separate the business from the family, an impossible task. They tried to escape work with trips to their trailer camp on the Mississippi River, but the sisters did more fighting than fishing. If only there was a son to lead rural Missouri insect control and guide the way through a crumbling patriarchy.

The completed By Design Trilogy is here! Anne is a young, Southern professional with just the right connections and a privileged point of view. Confident in her innate value, she has complete faith in her power to control her own future. After all, even with the challenges that come with working at a high-profile interior-design firm located in the heart of Atlanta, she knows exactly where she’s headed. What she doesn’t expect is Dr. Brad Young, Jr.

The third and last novel of the By Design Trilogy continues the journey of Anne and Brad as they make their way through the many complications, heartaches, and joys of life. Inevitably, they begin to think of their own mortality as the years move forward. Anne thinks of her mother a lot these days. Even though her mother's life had ended way too soon, Gretchen had managed to prepare her daughter well--she left a legacy to be envied. Now, after so many years, that legacy has the daunting task of seeing Anne through. Will life be gentle with Anne?

Anne and Brad Young’s love for one another continues to blossom. The talented, young, southern designer inspires a depth of new emotions in the handsome surgeon as he finds her love for everyone in her path a magnetic force he cannot resist. But ... can he overcome his frustration with her independent ways?

Anne is a young, Southern professional with just the right connections and a privileged point of view. Confident in her innate value, she has complete faith in her power to control her own future. After all, even with the challenges that come with working at a high-profile interior design firm located in the heart of Atlanta, she knows exactly where she’s headed. What she doesn’t expect is Dr. Brad Young, Jr.

Sixteen-year-old science-geek Eve gets pregnant on a service trip over her winter break, and pro-life Mom and pro-choice Dad want her to study both sides of the abortion debate to figure out what to do. The unaware father Adam is still serving as a volunteer at the Dominican Republic orphanage where they met. Since there's no WiFi at the orphanage, he looks forward to being able to text and Face Time with Eve once he gets back to Germany in mid-August. By then, she'll be eight months pregnant - or not.

From 1942-1960: Emily lives the first 18 years of her life on her grandfather’s farm with a burden of misfortune and hardship. When the school board forces Grandfather’s hand, Emily is allowed to attend school. She experiences her first real friendship, the thrill and pain of an innocent young love, and a secret she bears alone. Just days after her 18th birthday, her bag is packed, and she’s ready to start a new life. When someone tries to stop her - and ends up dead - Emily escapes the horror and hops a train out west.

Competitive climber Cara Jenkins feels most at home high off the ground, clinging to a rock wall by her fingertips. She's enjoyed a roaming life with her mountaineering parents, making the natural world her jungle gym, the writings of Annie Dillard and Henry David Thoreau her textbooks. But when tragedy strikes on an Ecuadorian mountaintop, Cara's nomadic lifestyle comes to an abrupt halt.

Samantha and her mother spend day and night caring for Samantha's ailing grandma. But tonight may be the last night Samantha will be able to sleep on the sofa next to her Grandma's hospice-provided bed. Moving and insightful, Grandma's Leather Sofa shows what it truly means to care for a loved one who is terminally ill.

In the wake of her mother's death, Emma finds solace - and parallels to her own life - in the whales that she watches with her father.

Two months after a family tragedy, Christina finds herself contemplating the lives of birds as she prepares for the funeral. As restrained as it is devastating, The Loneliness of Flying is a heart-wrenching reflection on the aftershocks of loss.

Althea's mother's absence has been palpable her entire life - always felt but rarely mentioned by Althea or her father. Althea was only told that her mother fell ill shortly after Althea was born. But when a mysterious woman turns up wounded on Althea's doorstep, the truth about her mother reveals itself in a way that promises to uproot Althea's entire life.

With two biological sons and a promising career, Coleman Carter seems set to fulfill his promise as a resourceful trial lawyer, devoted husband, and dutiful father until his wife, Elizabeth, champions their adoption of a Korean orphan. This seemingly altruistic mission estranges Coleman's conservative parents and demands that he now embrace the unknown as fully as he has always entrenched himself in the familiar.

The daughter of a murdered businessman joins forces with a New York City cop in a perilous hunt for history's most coveted treasure. Claire Andrews loved her father dearly, but now he's dead, brutally slain after attempting to sell an irreplaceable, possibly priceless saltcellar encrusted with rare gems. Leaving the Midwest for New York City, she seeks the help of Detective Artie Modelstein of the NYPD's Frauds/Jewels Squad, hoping to recover the lost treasure and clear her father's sullied name.

Have you ever been so low that you cried while eating a sandwich, or so high that you bought three pizzas and got into a stranger's van? No? Live those ugly truths (and several pretty hilarious lies) vicariously through a compilation of Crissy Milazzo's best essays.

Adele - the beautiful fairy queen with wings of clockwork - despairs when her husband, the master tinker, dies before he finishes the great machine that will reignite the human-fairy war and drive the humans away. When she meets Dale, a human boy with natural talent - who can finish the machine - she enslaves him and binds his will with her fairy magic. However, Dale's twin sister, Nora, who has only recently discovered that she is a maker and has power of her own, escapes before she can be taken as well.

Five years have passed. The worlds above and below have recovered and changed. The fairies from the Clockwork Kingdom return every year, asking for Dale's help in vain. This year Cornelius, the head of the fairies, brings dread news: Kostya has returned. The maker has taught herself what she could about magic, but no teacher has ever arrived. Finally a herald manages to break through the spells surrounding the town to warn Nora that something, perhaps a monster, has been keeping them at bay. And it is stalking her for her power and her life.