Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Woodward" in All Categories

As penance for a bet, millionaire Rafe King must complete one job as an everyday carpenter. And that’s when he hit the jackpot – an introduction to Katie Charles. With every word, every touch, the sweet, sexy lady made Rafe feel like more than the cold-hearted tycoon he was reputed to be. There was only one problem: Katie despised all wealthy men, especially the King family. But if he kept this secret, it might cost him…everything.

When Laura Sibbie starts a secret club at school she calls it Pig City, after the funny hat she always wears. To make sure that none of the members tells anyone else about the club, Laura makes them give her something totally embarrasing as 'insurance'. She promises to keep the insurance secret - unless someone talks about Pig City.

In The Hidden Lives of Dreams, Melinda Powell, psychotherapist and co-founder of the Dream Research Institute UK, reveals how we can better understand our dreams and how doing so can improve our waking lives. As well as examining the importance of sleep and dreams, Powell explores the role of light, colour, landscapes, space, healing presence and lucidity in dreams, dispels common misconceptions and addresses our fears of nightmares.

One woman. A million-dollar card game. A city in darkness. Fearless Florida bounty hunter Lori Anderson travels to Chicago to trap the head of a notorious crime family, in a high-stakes, nail-biting mission that sees her trapped in one of the city’s tallest buildings during a blackout.

'Love me, love my game,' says professional tennis player Willy Novinsky at 23. Tennis has been Willy's one love - until she meets the uncannily confident Eric Oberdorf. Low-ranked but untested, Eric, too, aims to make his mark on the international tennis circuit. They marry. But their life together soon grows poisoned by full-tilt competition over which spouse can rise to the top first. Willy discovers that her perfect partner may also prove her most devastating opponent.

It's the winter solstice in a Philadelphia that has been eroded by extreme weather, economic collapse, and disease-carrying mosquitoes. The Saturnalia carnival is about to begin - an evening on which nearly everyone, rich or poor, forgets their troubles for a moment. Nina hasn't attended Saturnalia in three years, since she walked away from the elite Saturn Club. But when she gets a chance call from Max, her last remaining friend from the Club, Nina will put on a dress of blackest black and attend the wild solstice masquerade, on a mysterious errand she can't turn down.

At a perfectly ordinary cocktail party, Francis is introduced to Billy and—although it slips right by him at the time—he falls in love with her at once. Billy is a serious, often glum person. An economic historian, she is indifferent to a great many things (clothes, food, home décor), frowns easily and is frequently irritated. Francis is older. He likes routine and a well-run household; he likes to pay for dinner, open car doors and call Billy at night to make sure she is safe. Both are happily married - but not to each other.

Doctor Esme Charbonneau Tallich's passion is cosmology, the science of the origin of the universe; specifically, she is searching for a TOE, or a Theory of Everything. Esme is a feminist maverick, a rogue thinker. Hired as a professor of molecular biology at the University of Greater California, she prefers the "bench science" of organic chemistry at one extreme and "walking out into space" at the other. Her marriage to a TV director and aspiring stand-up comedian is rocky.

Touchy Subjects is about things that make people wince: taboos, controversies, secrets, and lies. Some of the events that characters crash into are grand, tragic ones: miscarriage, overdose, missing persons. Other topics, like religion and money, are not inherently taboo, but they can cause acute discomfort because people disagree so vehemently. These stories are about the spectrum of feeling that runs from awkwardness through embarrassment to shame.

When four patients unexpectedly wake after being declared dead, their families are ecstatic and the word “miracle” begins to be whispered throughout the hospital. But the jubilation is short lived when the patients don’t respond to their names and insist they are different people. It is suggested all four are suffering from fugue states until one of the doctors recognizes a name and verifies that he not only knew the girl but was there when she died in 1992.

When a man is found gruesomely murdered in the local pub, all fingers point to the backpackers working behind the bar that night—two American girls who skipped town before the body was discovered. Despite all the evidence against them, rookie cop Tara Harrison knows there must be more to this case than a pair of sorority sisters who couldn't take a joke. She's determined to uncover the truth, and is soon on the trail of a devastating secret that could tear her hometown apart.

Robyn Peltier has always lived a normal life. So when her boss is murdered and she is named the prime suspect, she is way out of her depth. As the bodies pile up only her friend, Hope, and Hope’s somewhat spooky boyfriend, Karl, are on her side. Hope, meanwhile, has a few secrets of her own. Namely that she is half-demon and her ‘spooky’ boyfriend is actually a werewolf. Hope also knows that Robyn has accidentally stumbled into a bloody supernatural turf war.

On their first date back in law school, Natalie and Will Clarke bonded over drinks, dinner and whether they could get away with murder. Now married, they'll put the latter to the test when an unchecked danger in their community places their son in jeopardy. Working as a criminal defence attorney, Nat refuses to rely on the broken legal system to keep her family safe. She knows that if you want justice...you have to get it yourself.

Five years after their break-up, Eve still hasn’t found a reason to believe in true love. But when Foster has an accident and she discovers she’s still listed as his next of kin, Eve knows she can’t let him wake up in hospital with no one by his side. After all, those devilishly blue eyes have always been hard to say no to… Foster isn’t sure if his poor battered brain is playing tricks on him when he sees the only woman he’s ever loved sitting next to his bedside.

How long does it take to fall in love? For twenty years, Laura has been a good wife and a good mother. She's supported her husband through redundancy, she's worried about her son, she's encouraged her daughter. She's stopped thinking about all the places she'd like to go and all the books she'd like to talk about. She's not unhappy, exactly. She's not that self-indulgent. As anyone would tell you, Laura is wonderfully constant, caring, selfless.

Laurel and her son Simon are planning on a quiet Christmas at home in New York, when she gets a call from her father saying he needs her in Lake Summers in the heart of the Adirondacks. As twinkling lights go up and snowflakes begin to fall, Laurel can’t wait to leave New York behind to help her father run the family business and make snow angels with her son, even if it’s just for Christmas. But when she walks through the door, she’s shocked to find the inn in disrepair, and a letter saying her father will be gone until Christmas Eve.

Young cabin steward Sid is proud to be working on the TITANIC, the greatest ship ever built. Clara dreams of adventure - and now she's an accidental stowaway in the hold of the CARPATHIA. Here she meets the biggest, best dog she's ever known: Rigel, who is on his way to his new owner in Italy. None of them could have imagined how they would need each other one ice-cold, terrible night - or that an extraordinary sea creature might also answer their call....

In the title story, we meet Maya, who is torn between her wryly funny boyfriend and the allure of her veterinarian. In "Andorra," a woman's lover calls her every Thursday as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counselling. "How to Give the Wrong Impression" shows us a woman pining for her roommate, a man who will hold her hand but then tell her that her palm is sweaty.

Eliza Benedict’s past returns to haunt her when the serial killer she escaped from as a young girl walks back into her life. Twenty-five years ago, he stole her innocence. Now he wants to get in touch. Eliza cherishes her quiet existence with her successful husband and children in the leafy suburbs of suburban Washington. But her tranquillity is shattered when she receives a letter from the last person she ever expects - or wants - to hear from.

It’s every mother’s nightmare - the abduction of her baby. That’s how it starts for Erin Vogel when she is attacked and left unconscious in her apartment. When she awakes it is to find that Georgia, her six-month-old daughter, has been taken. But Erin is given a chance to get Georgia back. At an unthinkable price. Like most mothers, she has always said she would do anything for her child. Now the strength of that bond is about to be put to the ultimate test.