Showing results by narrator "Ann Shanks Etter" in All Categories

When dreams and expectations clash in a flurry of sparks, an actress and an aristocrat find themselves searching for common ground. Lady Victoria Penchant has had enough scandal for one lifetime, and she’s sworn off drama for good. But when she makes an unexpected return to her family’s castle during high tourist season, drama is exactly what she finds—in the form of a Hollywood film crew and their sharp-tongued, stunning star, Sophia LeBlanc.

Fencing prodigy Jess Kidman has always been ahead of her peers. At the age of 13, she made the varsity team, won a state championship, came out, and fell head over heels in love with her team captain, Lauren Standish. After being gently rebuffed by the high school senior, young Jess vowed she would return for her some day when their age difference became irrelevant and her own accomplishments made her not merely an equal, but an Olympian.

Kye Manchester is no stranger to ambition. She sacrificed more than she cares to admit to become a highly acclaimed actress. Now more than a decade after her big break, her prospects are waning, and in a moment of desperation, she tells a lie that sends her spiraling back to where she started, and to the one woman she swore she’d never let herself need again. Fletcher Bouchard isn’t just Kye’s first love and her greatest heartbreak, she’s also a world-champion mounted archer in a unique position to help Kye gain the skills she needs with a horse and bow, only she has no inclination to do so.

A one-way stage ticket to the frontier leaves a young woman penniless and alone in Long Grass, Wyoming. With no other hope than to survive another day, she takes up the only profession open to her. Years later she encounters a one-of-a-kind cowboy she can love, and her first taste of pleasure—and happiness.

Kathleen Halloran has never been happier. She and Molly Cooper have built a life together, living in her grandmother’s cottage. The family drama of the past has calmed down. She and Molly will soon be aunts. Life on Little Sister Island is everything Kathleen could wish for...until the island begins to send ominous signals that change is in the wind.

After a publicly humiliating divorce, best-selling author Emma Volant runs away to hide in the seaside English village of Amberwick, where she doesn’t know another living soul. She wants nothing more than to surrender to her broken heart in private. However, when the locals discover their newest resident is world famous, they gather at the local pub and hatch a plan to draw Emma out of her self-imposed isolation, hoping her celebrity status will elevate the village’s reputation to something more than a holiday hotspot....

Now that the island will have its own teacher for the first time in decades, Rebecca Ahearn is tasked with making financial arrangements to build a new school room. While on the mainland, she barges straight into her first—and only—love, a woman she hasn’t seen in over 40 years. Suddenly, the choices she has made for her life seem empty, and she begins to wonder if it was worth the sacrifice.

Claire Weaver’s only goal is to climb the ladder of success. After winning an unwinnable toxic tort case and securing a 90-million-dollar verdict, she’s a shoo-in for a judgeship at Kansas City’s circuit court. The last person fire investigator Emery Pearson expects to see in court is the stranger she had the pleasure of dominating last night—only this time, Judge Claire Weaver is definitely in charge.

Small-town woodworker Ava Collins and big city doctor Bex Leone both love Christmas. Some might go so far as to call them obsessed. They love Christmas music, Christmas food, Christmas carols, and Christmas movies. When the two women meet over a Thanksgiving dinner, it seems for a second they might have finally found their mistletoe match, but their initial connection goes wildly awry when they realize their versions of what constitutes an ideal Christmas differ as drastically as the places they choose to spend their holidays.

Fire investigator Emery Pearson doesn’t have time for a relationship. Her career is everything, so the rest of her life is put on hold until she reaches her professional goals. Sex is always on the table, though. Finding the perfect woman who only wants a quick hookup seems like a fantasy, but when she meets Lily online, the fantasy turns to reality when they agree to meet. Their tête-à-tête at the museum is more than Emery could imagine—satisfying, exciting, and passionate.

Mira Collins has her life together. She’s built a solid career as a financial planner, a comfortable home, and an uncomplicated and regimented routine…until her wayward sister, Vannah, shows up unexpectedly and drops a bomb on her orderly world. Ever dependable Mira reluctantly accepts temporary custody of her 10-year-old nephew, Ben, then quickly learns that not all responsibilities can be handled with a color-coded calendar system, and that being a substitute parent is terrifying.

Bailey must traverse the rocky terrain of her friendships, her freshman year of college, and her sexuality to discover not only whom she wants to pursue, but her own identity. For Bailey, learning to be true to herself means being brave enough to let go of the limits on love that are holding her back.

New York, 1883: Gamblers and thieves, immigrants and street urchins, Do-Gooders and charity houses, impossible goals and impossible odds. The Bowery is a place where you own nothing but your dreams. And dreams are the only things that come cheap for pickpocket Mollie Flynn and prostitute Annabelle Lee. Pleasure is fleeting—and often stolen. Nights at Lefty Malone's saloon, sneaking into the Thalia Theatre. Then it's back to their airless, windowless tenement room and the ongoing struggle to keep a roof over their heads and bread in their stomachs.

Hal Orion is an accomplished chef and food truck owner. Quinn Banning is an investment banker. Putting together her next business venture, Quinn recognizes Hal's talent and charm as necessary assets for success - her good looks don't hurt, either. But Hal's transient ways are in opposition to the stability Quinn craves. Relying on their shared love of Buffalo, Quinn makes Hal an offer she can't refuse - a restaurant under her own name, complete creative control, and secure financial backing. It's every chef's dream. But Hal utters the one word Quinn can't stand to hear: no.