Showing results by narrator "Emily Smith" in All Categories

Fleeing an abusive marriage and tormented by her past, Alexandra Turner finds solace in a small coastal town on Puget Sound and a job with a local marine biologist studying orcas. After befriending a group of locals, Alex learns that she has moved to a place that has a reputation of being the "most haunted town in Washington." Such superstitions would be easy to dismiss...if Alex wasn’t already on edge. Haunted by shreds of memories of her days with her husband, Alex can’t keep from looking over her shoulder.

A heartbroken and humiliated Ricky Graves took the life of a classmate and himself. Five months later, the sleepy community is still in shock and mourning. Ricky's sister, Alyssa, returns to confront her shattered, withdrawn mother and her guilt over the brother she left adrift. Mark McVitry, the lone survivor of the deadly outburst sparked by his own cruelty, is tormented by visions of Ricky's vengeful spirit. Ricky's surrogate older brother, Corky Meeks, grapples with doubts about the fragile boy he tried to protect but may have doomed instead.

Annie O'Connell runs a business she loves, has a daughter she raised entirely on her own, and protects two younger brothers the way she has all their lives. She's the foundation of her family, but sometimes being solid as a rock means she has sharp edges. After a lifetime of fighting to succeed, there is only one person she trusts not to let her down: herself. When Annie's carefully constructed life is shattered, Marcus is determined to stand by her, help her through disaster, and prove that what they share is stronger than the tragedy that changes the lives of everyone in its path.

In this candid oral history of a presidential tenure, author Brian Abrams reveals the behind-the-scenes stories that illuminate the eight years of the Obama White House through more than one hundred exclusive interviews. Among those given a voice in this extraordinary account are Obama’s cabinet secretaries; his teams of speechwriters, legal advisers, and campaign strategists; as well as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who fought for or against his agenda. They recall the early struggles of an idealistic outsider candidate and speak openly about the exacting work that led to cornerstone legislation.

Clifford Odets’ masterpiece, starring Mark Ruffalo, Jane Kaczmarek, Richard Kind, and Ben Gazzara, brings to life the struggles of a working-class family aspiring to the promise of the American Dream. Even as they endure the country’s worst economic nightmare, three generations of an immigrant family are crowded into a Bronx tenement, fiercely determined to stay afloat, no matter what the cost.

Megan Jacobs always wished for a different heart. Her entire childhood was spent in and out of hospitals, sitting on the sidelines while her twin sister, Crystal, played all the sports, got all the guys, and had all the fun. But even a heart transplant three years ago wasn’t enough to propel Megan’s life forward. She’s still working as a library aide and living with her parents in her small Minnesota hometown, dreaming of the adventure she plans to take "once she’s well enough." Meanwhile, her sister has the perfect life - or so Megan thinks.

Harper's uncle, Jack Calhoun, has been charged with murdering a priest. Jack has no idea if he killed the priest or not. All that he knows is that he woke up in the rectory, holding a knife, with a priest covered in blood at his feet. It soon becomes apparent that Jack is not who he seems. He's not the man who Harper grew up with. He's become something else. Somebody else.

Young architect Wren Fontaine lands her dream job: restoring Greenleaf House, New York’s finest Gilded-Age mansion, to its glory days. But old homes have old secrets: Stephen Greenleaf—heir to what’s left of his family’s legacy—refuses to reveal what his plans are once the renovation is completed. And still living in a corner of the home is Stephen’s ninety-year-old Aunt Agnes who’s lost in the past, brooding over a long-forgotten scandal while watching Wren with mistrust.

Lithia’s father tells the story of Hoban Boson, a long-ago captain of a ship on Earth, and his defiance against those who would try to take their freedom. Hoban convinced his crew to go up against the Falcon, the ship that had landed in Buzzard Bay to lay claim to the town. Hoban’s crew and ship, the Success, was much smaller than the Falcon, but to him, that didn’t matter. What mattered was standing up to those who would subjugate and terrorize. Lithia is old enough to know that bad guys don’t win in the end, and young enough to be scared when all seems lost.

From his position behind the pulpit, Reverend Peter Taylor has a unique view of his affluent congregants. By and large, they appear respectable and morally upstanding, but they have their share of troubles - and perhaps even more than their share of sins. Liza Howard is a notorious Jezebel who seduces young and old alike, and who now has her sights set on Judy Bennett’s son, despite his engagement. Meanwhile, Judy hides her own family secrets behind her relentless judgment of others.

Maggie Thomas is still stumbling her way through running her uncle’s Miami Beach P.I. agency. When a dead woman washes up on the shore, Maggie has reason to believe the woman’s death wasn’t an accident. Maggie may have recently solved her first case as a private eye, but handsome detective Jake Jackson warns her that this one is too complex.

Rebecca Meer's hometown of Ward, Nebraska, is small - so small that she can't even sneak home after a drunken girls' night without running into at least three people she knows. But she has bigger problems than her reputation. The head doctor at her fertility clinic is losing his mind, and his wild behavior could cost them the business. Her supersuccessful ex-boyfriend has blown back into town and somehow become her son's fifth-grade teacher.

Arriving in Little Havana in Miami, Cole creates a list of potential victims while Warren tracks down an old confidential informant. Desperate to reach a reclusive financier, Cole then makes an unusual friend, who leads her on a wild-goose chase through Miami. All the while, news is breaking around the world that implicates Cole and Warren in the killings, and a mysterious pair has followed them to Miami.

Andrea “Andi” Silvers thought moving to the tiny fishing village of Coffin Cove, on the Vancouver coast, would be a fresh start. But she got shot during a murder investigation.

Her boss at the Coffin Cove Gazette keeps telling her to take it easy. But she’s back on the booze and won’t get help. Instead, she’s going to do what she does best and follow her next lead.

In Bucak's dreamlike narratives, dead girls recount the effects of an earthquake and a chess-playing automaton falls in love. A student stops eating and no one knows whether her act is personal or political. A Turkish wrestler, a hero in the East, is seen as a brute in the West. The anguish of an Armenian refugee is "performed" at an American fund-raiser. An Ottoman ambassador in Paris amasses a tantalizing collection of erotic art. And Greek God Apollo confronts his personal history and bewails his Homeric reputation as he tries to memorialize, and make sense of, generations of war.

At the rooftop bar of the famed Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC, a former vice president is assassinated. Across the Potomac River, a mysterious sniper leaves a .50 caliber rifle on the bed of his hotel room, then disappears. Crime reporter Jane Cole and NYPD cop Robert Warren have clues no one else has. But as they arrive in DC to investigate, they're hit with a series of cover-ups and misdirections. And as they close in on the killer, they realize that they, too, are being tracked.

When Eve Carrington is chosen to participate in an exclusive writers' workshop, she knows it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For one month, she will live, write, and share her work with nine other aspiring authors. The top three will get a chance to be published. But when the building they're staying in isn't ready and Eve sees the old mansion they'll be moved into, she starts having second thoughts. Not only is the mansion isolated but the deadlines are tight, the pressure intense, and the competition incredibly fierce.

No birth announcement could top the headlines from the day Janie and Jack Perkins entered the world. As twins born to a mother in a coma - courtesy of a bullet from their father - the sensational story of their birth never quite died down. While Jack still craves the flash of a camera, Janie seeks sanctuary behind the lens - as a crime scene photographer.

Erin Marinelli has her work cut out for her when she arrives at her late grandmother's Wisconsin home to prepare for an estate sale. But sifting through the overwhelming collection of figurines, outdated appliances, and dusty books, she finds something that captures her attention: a yellowed envelope of old photographs. In one, taken almost a century ago, a beautiful woman is seated with a young boy who looks uncannily like Erin's five-year-old autistic son, Will. Intrigued, Erin looks further into her family's history, and discovers parallels to her present-day life.

November 13, 2015. It was a Paris night that began like so many others - until a series of terrorist attacks brought darkness to the City of Light. Stirred by the tragic events at the Bataclan music club, One Night in November locks into the hearts and minds of all those whose paths crossed that fateful fall evening...