Showing results by narrator "James Babson" in All Categories

Meredith White was one of Hollywood's most recognizable faces. But a personal tragedy cut her acting career short and alienated her from her family. For the last 15 years, Meredith has been living alone in San Francisco with two trusted caretakers. Then a massive earthquake strikes Northern California. Meredith invites her stunned and shaken neighbors into her mostly undamaged home as the recovery begins. These people did not even realize that a movie star was living on their street. Now, they are sharing her mansion, as well as their most closely kept secrets.

Joachim von Hartmann was born and raised in Buenos Aires by his loving German mother, inseparable from his identical twin. When Joachim moves to Paris with his mother in his late teens, his twin stays behind and enters a dark world. Meanwhile, Joachim begins training to be a butler, fascinated by the precision and intense demands, and goes on to work in some of the grandest homes in England. Olivia White has given 10 years of her life to her magazine. A bequest from her mother allows her a year in Paris to reinvent herself. It is then that her path and Joachim's cross.

Alexandra Bouvier is born in Paris in 1900, at the dawn of a new century. From an early age, she is encouraged to think for herself by her enlightened family: her father, a French doctor; her mother, an American nurse; and her maternal grandfather back in the Midwest, a highly regarded newspaperman. Then at age fourteen, her comfortable life is upended as war erupts across Europe. Her parents follow their sense of duty to the front, performing triage at a field hospital and confronting the horrors of poison gas and trench warfare.

When the ever-cautious Val Locklier moves cross-country with her son for a secure job, everything she’d planned unravels within the first week. After Val reluctantly agrees to rent an apartment from her best friend’s brother, an unexpected chance at an elite filmmakers’ mentorship ignites fresh hope for a dream career. But as Val’s community begins to expand, so do her insecurities, especially those heightened by her growing attraction to a certain friendly landlord.

Molly McKenzie's bright personality and on-trend fashion and beauty advice have earned her an impressive social-media following, as well as a shiny monthly paycheck. When her manager-turned-boyfriend tells her of an upcoming audition to host a makeover show for America's underprivileged youth, all her dreams finally seem to be coming true. There's just one catch: She has little experience interacting with people in need.

Allegra Dixon has never felt loved or wanted. Rejected by her mother—a cold, beautiful socialite—and her absentee military father, Allegra's only escape from her lonely existence is through books and her own rich fantasy world. When she marries her childhood sweetheart, Shepherd Williams, it seems Allegra's life has finally taken a turn for the better. But as Shep is pulled into the dark world of military conflict, he is slowly destroyed by the horrors he has seen in combat, and becomes a dangerous man that Allegra doesn't recognize.

Born to a French mother and American father, graceful Dahlia de Beaumont has been sole owner and CEO of the venerable family perfume business based in Paris since her early twenties, following the death of her parents. For twenty-five years, after losing her young skier husband in an avalanche, her life has centered on running Lambert Perfumes and being a devoted single mother to her four now-adult children: indecisive Charles, volatile Alexa, kind-hearted business visionary Delphine, and dreamy artist Emma.

Even after their breakup, Ellie Davis can’t seem to shake her ex-fiancé. First it was the cheating, then it was the rumors, and now she finds out Jason’s been trying to get his greedy hands on her parents’ property. Where does it end? With revenge, Ellie decides. But she might just need a little help first. Enter Fernley Island’s OddJobs app. When the local boat mechanic she hires sends his nephew instead, Ellie has to readjust her plans to account for Hugh Hartford, who’s handsome, brooding, and only in town for a few days.

Joachim von Hartmann is born into a wealthy Argentine banking family and spends his early years in Buenos Aires. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, he has inherited the looks of his German ancestors, while his twin brother, Javier, could not be more different. Following the death of their father and when details emerge about Joachim’s maternal grandfather’s wartime activity, both boys and their mother, Liese, are cast out from the family. After the years of glamour and luxury, she must raise them alone with no financial support.

After her parents perish in a tragic accident, Cosima Saverio assumes leadership of her family's haute couture Italian leather brand. While navigating the challenges of running a company at twenty-three, Cosima must also maintain the elegant four-hundred-year-old family palazzo in Venice and care for her younger siblings: Allegra, who survived the tragedy that killed their parents, and Luca, who has a penchant for wild parties, pretty women and poker tables.

He is a killer, a rapist, a monster and knows only pain and survival. That is until the capo's sister walks into his life and changes everything. She's a light who makes his darkness darker; her smile makes his heart turn to ice, and he can't escape the fear her seductive looks instill - knowing it's only a matter of time before he fails again and takes her for himself.

Jack Picaro came to America to seek his fortune. But after killing his best friend in a drunken duel, the apprentice gunsmith flees westward, leaving behind children he does not know, Gus and April. As Jack ventures up the Missouri River, he finds unspoiled land where a man can live free - and also be attacked by an Arikara war party. His rifle stolen in the bloody skirmish, Jack sets out alone to reclaim it. His wild escapade ends in a fight to the death with a legendary Crow warrior named Standing Wolf. So begins a fateful epic search across the last frontiers of the untamed West.

There are two sides to every story, and theirs isn't pretty, but then again, what's pretty about the Mafia? Trace Rooks, that's what. But she wants only one of them, and he'll kill the other before he lets him have her. The only problem is that they're cousins - and she may just be their long-lost enemy. Whoever said college was hard clearly didn't attend Eagle Elite University. Welcome to hell, also known as the Mafia, where blood is thicker than life, and to keep yours, you must keep your friends close - and your enemies even closer.

Cole Maddox just moved back to his hometown in Montana after leaving the Army’s most elite unit because his superiors lied to him. But his town has changed. A ruthless gang of bikers has flooded it with fentanyl, and when Cole’s brother defies them, they put him in a coma. Big mistake. Cole unleashes his arsenal of Special Forces skills to take them down. However, he soon learns the gang is only the bottom layer of a criminal network much larger and deadlier than he imagined.

Who is The Horoscope Writer? It’s not Bobby Frindley. He’s an ex-Olympic athlete who has fast-talked his way into an entry-level position at a dying newspaper. He’s supposed to be writing horoscopes, but someone has been doing his job for him . . . On his first night on the job, Bobby receives an email with twelve gruesome, highly detailed horoscopes, along with a chilling ultimatum: print them and one will come true, or ignore them and all of them will.

In the streets of Beverly Hills, secrets are the most valuable currency. Meredith Fox, a once-prominent Hollywood publicity agent, has clawed her way back from the brink of obscurity. Now, she’s poised for a comeback, leveraging the dark secrets of her celebrity clients to put herself back on top. But when a routine money drop goes fatally wrong, Meredith finds herself caught in a deadly web of betrayal.

Who is The Horoscope Writer? It’s not Bobby Frindley. He’s an ex-Olympic athlete who has fast-talked his way into an entry-level position at a dying newspaper. He’s supposed to be writing horoscopes, but someone has been doing his job for him . . . On his first night on the job, Bobby receives an email with twelve gruesome, highly-detailed horoscopes, along with a chilling ultimatum: print them and one will come true, or ignore them and all of them will.

Ten years have passed since Jack Picaro lost his Ghost Rifle - the firearm he invented, the one that never missed its target. The loss of the rifle calmed the hellraiser in his soul. Instead of returning to the gambling halls and whiskey bars of St. Louis, Jack has spent the last decade as a fur trapper in Wyoming’s Wild River Range, married to Sky, the daughter of an Arikara war chief. Then, after helping rescue US soldiers captured by Crow Indians in the Rocky Mountains, Jack hears the familiar bell-like report of his Ghost Rifle.

Company spy Ben Calix returns to Paris to find his perfectly ordered world has collapsed. A sniper attack. An ambush. A call for help that brings French SWAT forces down on his head. Ben is out. This is a severance - reserved for incompetents and traitors. Searching for answers and anticipating a coming attack, Ben and a woman swept up in his misfortunes must travel across Europe to find the sniper who tried to kill him, the medic who saved his life, the schoolmaster who trained him, and an upstart hacker from his former team.

This is not the story of an ordinary criminal but rather the story of a man caught up in a world within which he could not function; boyhood naïveté did not prepare him for a society that inflicted stark reality. This true-to-life story is told in his own words, with minor editorial adjustments. The first 20 chapters are told before he found out the facts surrounding his father's death.