Showing results by narrator "Carlotta Brentan" in All Categories

It is the summer of 1969 and Rome is awash with glamour and intrigue. Teddy Huntley Carlyle is fresh off a plane from Texas with a new husband in tow and a new life on the horizon. After some wayward years of bad men and bad decisions, she’s promised herself a fresh start. In Rome, Teddy will be good. She will wear the right clothes and the perfect lipstick and she will charm her husband’s colleagues at the Embassy.

When the Nazi occupation of Rome begins, two courageous young women are plunged deep into the Italian Resistance to fight for their freedom in this captivating debut novel.

1938, Italy. Six-year-old Lia loves to build sandcastles at the beach and her biggest problem is her shyness and quiet, birdlike voice—until prime minister Mussolini joins forces with Hitler in World War II, and everything changes. Now there are laws saying Jewish children can’t go to school, Jews can’t work, or go on vacation. It’s difficult for Lia to understand why this is happening to her family. When her father loses his job, they must give up their home and move from city to city.

When an antique tin of love letters is found hidden in her family home, noted historian Tay Dove rushes home to Dove Pond to investigate. Tay is still reeling from a romantic betrayal, so she’s relieved to refocus her energies on her latest project: a biography of her great-great-grandmother Sarafina, a star reporter who began her career in Dove Pond in the late 19th century before abruptly leaving town.

On the heels of a difficult break-up and a devastating diagnosis, Shakespearean scholar Lizzie Delford decides to take one last lavish vacation on Elba, the sun-kissed island off the Italian coast, with her best friend and his movie-star boyfriend. Once settled into a luxurious seaside resort, Lizzie has to make big decisions about her future, and she needs the one thing she may be running out of: time.

Capucine Benoit works alongside her father to produce fans of rare feathers, beads, and intricate pleating for the haute couture fashion houses. But after the Germans invade Paris in June 1940, Capucine and her father must focus on mere survival - until they are betrayed to the secret police and arrested for his political beliefs. When Capucine saves herself from deportation to Auschwitz by highlighting her connections to Parisian design houses, she is sent to a little-known prison camp located in the heart of Paris, within the Lévitan department store.

Motherhood isn’t always what’s expected. One woman may delight in navigating the unknowable, while another may look to the past to chart the course ahead. Still another may have the urge to redefine the relationship between mother and child. For each, the journey can be heartwarming and heartbreaking, ever changing and challenging. In these provocative stories, acclaimed authors probe the growing pains that can change the lives of both mother and child in ways they never imagined.

Welcome to picturesque Provence, where the Lady of the Chateau, Séraphine Demargelasse, has opened its elegant doors to her granddaughter Darcy and three friends. Twenty years earlier, the four girlfriends studied abroad together in France and visited the old woman on the weekends, creating the group’s deep bond. But why this sudden invitation? Amid winery tours, market visits and fancy dinners overlooking olive groves and lavender fields, it becomes clear that each woman has a hidden reason for returning. Then, following a wild evening’s celebration, Séraphine is found brutally murdered.

As golden sunlight shimmers across the crystal-clear waters, Francesca travels to the tranquil Italian island of Santa Caterina in search of precious rare books and a new beginning. Heartbroken after the sudden end of her long-term relationship, she jumped at the chance to help recover a collection of missing books. But when she arrives, she soon discovers she was invited by the island’s mysterious owner, alongside handsome local book collector Thiago, to unlock a secret that spans generations. Together, she and Thiago learn the books were hidden during the Second World War.

Alice Bassi is (a little) over 30, single (not by choice), and she can’t help but feel that she is failing at this whole adulthood thing. She’s stuck in a dead-end job, just found out her ex-boyfriend is engaged to his pregnant girlfriend, and Richard Gere hasn’t shown up with flowers and a limo to save her from it all. On one particularly disastrous morning - when Alice would much rather have stayed home, curled up with her favorite rom-coms - she meets Davide Nardi

Teodora di Sangro is used to hiding her magical ability to transform enemies into music boxes and mirrors. Nobody knows she’s a strega - and she aims to keep it that way. The she meets Cielo - and everything changes. A strega who can switch outward form effortlessly, Cielo shows Teodora what her life could be like if she masters the power she’s been keeping secret. And not a moment too soon: The ruler of Vinalia has poisoned the patriarchs of the country’s five controlling families, including Teodora’s father, and demands that each family send a son to the palace.

1918 - America is at war with Germany, and, for the first time in history, the US Navy has allowed women to join up alongside the men. Ten thousand of them rush to do their part. German-American Marjory Kunwald enlists in the Navy to prove her patriotism. Suffragette Blanche Lawrence to prove that women are the equal of men. And shy preacher’s daughter Viv Weston in a desperate attempt to hide from the police.

Sixth grade is supposed to be perfect. Shannon’s got a sure spot in the in-crowd called The Group, and her best friend is their leader, Jen, the most popular girl in school. But the rules are always changing, and Shannon has to scramble to keep up. She never knows which TV shows are cool, what songs to listen to, and who she’s allowed to talk to. Who makes these rules, anyway? And does Shannon have to follow them?

Amelie St. James, prima ballerina of the Paris Opera Ballet and sweetheart of Paris, is a fraud. Seven years ago, in the devastating aftermath of the Siege of Paris, she made a decision to protect her sister: she became the bland, sweet, pious “St. Amie” the ballet needed to restore its scandalous reputation. But when her first love reappears and the ghosts of her past come back to haunt her, all her hard-fought safety is threatened. Dr. Benedict Moore has never forgotten the girl who helped him embrace life again after he almost lost his. Now, years later, he’s back in Paris.

Every year, the senior class at Lincoln High plays assassin. Lia Prince has been planning her strategy for years, and she's psyched that not only does she finally get to play, she's on a team with Devon Diaz. But this year, the game isn't any fun - it's real. Abby Ascher, Ben Barnard, and Cassidy Clarke have all turned up...dead. Can Lia stop the ABC killer before he reaches D?

Ten years after graduation, a group of friends plan a reunion in a remote house in upstate New York. It isn't a bachelor party, as they've led one of their friends to believe, but instead an intervention for an escalating drug addiction. They lost one member of their friendship group in college, and they'll do anything to make sure that doesn't happen again. But from the moment they arrive, something doesn't feel right.

The story of the Giro d'Italia—Italy's equivalent of the Tour de France, and its superior in the eyes of many—is as dramatic and full of extraordinary characters as the story of Italy itself. Heroism, suffering, feuds and betrayals, tradition under threat from modernity all play out against a timeless landscape. The iconic riders, mythical stories and career-defining exploits are conveyed in rich, vibrant prose.

always wondered, How does she do it? Defying gravity is no easy trick. Neither is motherhood. Now that her mother is leaving New York for bigger skies in New Mexico, it’s a new stage in life for both of them in an ever-evolving relationship that reveals the true magic of being a mother.

Ellie Batair was sure of one thing and one thing only: if given the chance, she could defeat any man who stood in her way. When forced to enlist in the army of a Queen she hates and endure brutal, life-threatening trials, she comes face to face with the truths of her past. Truths that her years of training never could have prepared her for. In order to survive, Ellie finds allies in the most unlikely of people: a young Elf, a cunning witch, and a haughty Fae.

After Del Walker fled her small hometown and its cult-like church, she vowed to never return. The man she loved, Lars, left her to marry the local golden girl Eve, and their romance is now the focus of Eve’s viral blog espousing the pastor’s conservative philosophy about women and marriage. But six years later, Lars is suddenly killed, and she’s convinced it couldn’t have been an accident.