Showing results by narrator "Kimberly Austin" in All Categories

Bette Gartner, a ninety-five-year-old widow, wakes up one morning and decides to throw a dinner party that night for her small family, staff, two neighbors, and a medium—and no one knows why. The story takes place over the course of the day and is told through the multiple points of view of Bette’s guests, switching back and forth between them as we learn about their motivations, dreams, hopes, and fears.

Marta is on the verge of a new life. Hard earned success waits just around the next corner. But only if she’s brave enough to keep walking toward it. Winning the Milton Cesar Foundation for the Arts Award will launch her career. With the spotlight turned her way, she’ll have to face a messy past and dream of a brighter future. Carol is burdened with the desire to fix what’s broken. To make room for more people in the elite foundation she currently runs. But change is hard and the people around her don’t share her vision. Selecting Marta as the award recipient was a bold step.

Professional ballet dancer Amelia Collins is blindsided when an accident results in a career-ending injury. With no other options but to start over, she leaves city life behind to remodel a country home in the quaint village of White Bridge, Connecticut. She buys a sprawling 1870s farmhouse on five acres, complete with a large barn. Running on nothing but hope, she moves in only weeks before Christmas.

Ian Chambers is a rule bending, teasing, accidentally make-you-fall-for-him kind of man. And I want nothing to do with it, thank you very much. Our company’s in-house lawyer has been my human resources nightmare for nine years. When he quit eight months ago, I thought I was finally rid of him. But when I'm invited to a destination wedding as a bridesmaid and he's the best man in every sense of the word, it's not as easy to pretend he doesn't exist. And this week, he's dead-set on getting my attention.

There is a vast difference between having it all and being fulfilled. In the eyes of most onlookers, Carol Burgess couldn’t ask for a more gratifying life. She’d climbed the corporate ladder and taken her swipes at the glass ceiling, leaving a few cracks along the way. When she’s finally the one in charge, she discovers change is still taboo in the elite literary industry. Faced with the choice of keeping the status quo or starting a revolution of ideas, Carol seeks out a fresh and undiscovered voice in the writing world.

Each of the ten stories in Have Mercy on Us is an illuminating window into a human life. In the way of all the best fiction, these stories enlarge our understanding of what it means to be alive, with characters who leap out of the book. In this award-winning collection, the people are varied in age, race, and origin. Spare, romantic without being sentimental, these powerful stories are, above all, about love, and the impossible and remarkable ways we yearn for connection. Cupolo’s writing is rich with vision, insight and grace—cause for celebration.