Showing results by narrator "Joy Osmanski" in All Categories

Low Morrison is not your average teen. You could blame her hippie parents or her looming height or her dreary, isolated hometown on an island in the Pacific Northwest. But whatever the reason, Low just doesn’t fit in - and neither does Freya, a once-famous social media influencer who now owns the pottery studio in town. After signing up for a class, Low quickly falls under Freya’s spell. And Freya, buoyed by Low’s adoration, is compelled to share her darkest secrets and deepest desires. Finally, both feel a sense of belonging...that is, until Jamie walks through the studio door.

Always believing she was an ugly duckling, Chrissy Jenkins thought she had finally turned into a swan when her real-life Prince Charming swept her off her feet. But as his true character began to crack his perfect facade, Chrissy realized that she was better off without him. Returning to her ancestral home on Cannonball Island, she reboots her life, successfully reinventing herself as a chef at Blossoms, an up-and-coming restaurant. But despite her newfound self-confidence, she still doesn’t trust her taste in men. So when she meets Jared Chandler, a handsome ship salvager, Chrissy’s certain she can keep him as a friend....

Architect Cassidy Logan has sworn off good-looking adventurers. Newly divorced, she's focused on building ecologically friendly, historically accurate homes on the Chesapeake Bay for her father's construction company. Traveling to Cannonball Island - where there has been no new construction in nearly 100 years - Cass is sensitive to the heritage of the island and has come up with plans so perfect she's determined to buy a home for herself.

Seventeen-year-old Aimee Roh has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome, a rare condition that causes her to time travel to a moment in her life when she smells something linked to that memory. Her dad is convinced she’ll simply grow out of it if she tries hard enough, but Aimee’s fear of vanishing at random has kept her from living a normal life. When Aimee disappears for nine hours into a memory of her estranged mom—a moment Aimee has never remembered before—she becomes distraught.

Beloved baseball coach and teacher Nate Winters and his wife, Alicia, are well respected throughout town. That is until one of the many reporters investigating a bizarre bird phenomenon catches Nate embracing a wayward student, Lucia Hamm, in front of a sleazy motel. Lucia soon buoys the scandal by claiming that she and Nate are engaged in an affair, throwing the town into an uproar...and leaving Alicia to wonder if her husband has a second life.

In 2018, novelist Jami Attenberg, faced with a looming deadline, needed writing inspiration. Using a bootcamp model, she and a friend set out to write one thousand words daily for two weeks straight. They opened this practice to Attenberg’s online community and soon hundreds then thousands of people started using the #1000WordsofSummer hashtag to track their work and support one another. What began as a simple challenge between two friends has become a literary movement—write 1,000 words per day without judgement, or bias, or concerns about writer’s block, and see what comes of it.

M. J. Stark's life is picture-perfect - she has a dream job as a magazine editor, a sexy doctor boyfriend, and a glamorous life in Manhattan. But behind her success, she can't shake a deep sense of loneliness. So when her boyfriend offers her a completely new life in California after a promotion does not go her way, she decides to give it a try. Once there, M. J. is left to fend for herself in a small California beach town, with only the company of her elderly neighbor, Gloria.

At thirty-nine, Nicole Mueller’s life is on the rocks in “this brilliant, tangled web of lies, cover ups and deception” (Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author). Her once brilliant law career is falling apart. She and her husband, Dan, are about to be forced out of the apartment they love. After a warning from her firm’s senior partners, she receives an invitation from an exclusive women’s networking group, Panthera Leo. Membership is anonymous, but every member is a successful professional.

A Washington Post reporter's intimate account of the fallout from the closing of a General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin - Paul Ryan's hometown - and a larger story of the hollowing of the American middle class. This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its factory stills - but it's not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long enough to notice what happens next, when a community with a can-do spirit tries to pick itself up.

From bestselling and award-winning author Traci Chee comes a stand-alone fantasy set against a war-ravaged world where kindling warfare—the use of elite, magic-wielding teenage soldiers—has been outlawed. In this rich and evocative novel, seven kindlings search for purpose and identity as they prepare for one final battle. For fans of the classic films Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven.

In 2007, a stranger-than-fiction multibillion-dollar bidding war for the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) erupted between the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Atlanta’s Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). Zero-Sum Game: The Rise of the World’s Largest Derivatives Exchange takes listeners behind the scenes of this battle to tell the gripping - and often comical - story of how the historic merger between CME and CBOT almost didn’t happen.

It’s been three months since the Patriarche was beheaded, leaving behind no known heir. Now, the planet of Laterre is unrecognizable. General Bonnefaçon has cleaned up the streets, fed the hungry, and restored peace while the next leader is decided upon. From the outside, Laterre seems to be flourishing. But dangerous rifts threaten to shatter the planet from within.

Now that Candace is a star, her life is suddenly filled with glamour. She's known everywhere; she has adoring fans who worshipher and her boyfriend, YoungBae; and she has unlimited access to her label-mates SLK, who happen to be the top boy band inthe world. Even more important, her company, S.A.Y., tells her they've heard her message of change loud and clear. They promise to makesweeping changes to become a more humane and compassionate place for artists.

Laterre is on the brink of war. The Third Estate are rioting against the injustices of a corrupt system. The Patriarche, reeling from the murder of his only heir, makes brutal attempts to quash the unrest, while a new militant faction launches a series of deadly attacks. And three outlaws find themselves pulled into the fray. Marcellus is now a traitor to his planet, willing to do anything to stop his grandfather from seizing control of Laterre. Chatine is a prisoner on Bastille. Alouette is a fugitive who has been lied to her entire life. These three renegades must risk everything.

The only book with exclusive analysis by the Pulitzer Prize - winning staff of The Washington Post, and the most complete and authoritative available. Includes a PDF of documents and other reference materials. Listen to the findings of the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, complete with accompanying analysis by the Post reporters who’ve covered the story from the beginning.

'Your husband is a landowner,' they told her. 'Food and clothing is so plentiful, it grows on trees'. 'You will be able to go to school'. Of the three lies the matchmaker told Willow before she left home as a picture bride in 1918, the third hurt the most. Never one to be deterred, Willow does all that she can to make the best of her unexpected circumstance. But it isn't long before her dreams for this new life are shattered – first by a husband who never wanted to marry her in the first place, and then by the escalation of the Korean independence movements.

Couture gowns, press parties, international travel. Rachel Kim is at the top of her game. Girls Forever is now the number one K-pop group in the world, and her fame skyrockets after her viral airport styling attracts the attention of fashion’s biggest names. Her life’s a swirl of technicolour glamour and adoring fans. Rachel can’t imagine shining any brighter. The only thing that’s missing is love—but Rachel’s determined to follow the rules. In her world, falling in love can cost you everything.

In the vein of The Bitch in the House, 15 powerful women offer captivating, intimate, and candid explorations about what it’s really like turning 40 - and life beyond.

Cadence didn't sit down one night and decide that downing two bottles of wine was a brilliant idea. Her drinking snuck up on her - as a way to sleep, to help her relax after a long day, to relieve some of the stress of the painful divorce that's left her struggling to make ends meet with her five-year-old son Charlie. It wasn't always like this. Just a few years ago, Cadence seemed to have it all - a successful husband, an adorable son, and a promising career as a freelance journalist.

California girl Allie Hudson Monroe can’t wait for the day when the renovations on the Sugarhouse Theater are complete so she can finally collect the inheritance from her father and move on with her life. After all, her life and her 14-year-old daughter are in Los Angeles. But Allie’s divorce left her tottering on the edge of bankruptcy, so to keep up on payments for her house and her daughter’s private-school tuition, Allie packed up and flew out east. But fate has a curveball or two to toss in Allie’s direction.