Showing results by narrator "Amy Melissa Bentley" in All Categories

Maddie James has finally given in to her friend Katrina's pleas to open up her cat cafe to more than 10 felines: They're now up to 15 purring friends. In fact, JJ's House of Purrs is making such a splash that she's getting national attention. The East Coast Animal Rescue League is quite interested in the cafe, and so Maddie accepts a request to meet with Laverne Gardner, the executive director. But Laverne ends up strangled with a fancy cat leash - a piece of swag they were intending to use for the fundraiser - leaving Maddie with a lot of questions to answer.

Penelope Hunter loves her job as the events manager at one of Savannah's premier historic venues - until her ex-fiance walks into her office with his new bride-to-be. To make matters worse, a scheming social matriarch is intent on seeing Penelope fired, especially if she insists on being seen with Tucker Westbrook. Since returning from serving two tours in the Middle East, Tucker has built a thriving security company. His work is nearly as stabilizing as his friendship with Penelope, who has been by his side since childhood.

In a polygamist commune in the desert, a 14-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl fall in love and consummate that love, breaking religious law. They are caught, and a year later, she gives birth to his father's child while the boy commits murder 400 miles away - a crime that will slowly unravel the community.

As her Wisconsin community endures a long season of drought and feels the shock waves of World War II, 15-year-old Cielle endures a more personal calamity: the unexpected death of her father. On a balmy summer afternoon, she finds him hanging in the barn - the start of a dark secret that threatens her family's livelihood. A war rages elsewhere, while in the deceptive calm of the American heartland, Cielle's family contends with a new reality and fights not to be undone.

Now that Marie has become used to her lonely life of helping transients through their worst times, she can forget about the intense sadness that plagues every waking moment, until she meets a drifter who changes everything. Jake Collins once had everything a man could ever want, a nice home, clothes, and a wife who loved him, until he threw it all away like a bad poker hand.

Quinn met Hunter five years ago at age 18. It wasn't love at first sight. In fact, it was the complete opposite. But they did make a promise that day. If times ever got shitty again, all either of them had to do was text each other for help. For five years, they had always been there for each other until...they weren't.

Lulu and Jek are science nerds, and have been best friends since they were young...or at least they used to be. Lately Jek has been pulling away from Lulu, just as she's coming to terms with how she really feels about him. Just as she was ready to see if there could be something more between them. But Lulu's thoughts are derailed by a mysterious new guy who's showing up at local parties. Hyde is the definition of a bad boy, and everybody knows it...but no one can seem to resist his charms.

In the vein of The Liar's Club and The Glass Castle, Jenny Forrester's memoir perfectly captures both place and a community situated on the Colorado Plateau between slot canyons and rattlesnakes, where she grew up with her mother and brother in a single-wide trailer proudly displaying an American flag. Forrester's powerfully eloquent story reveals a rural small town comprising God-fearing Republicans, ranchers, Mormons, and Native Americans.

Sharee Samuels was 17 and 256 pounds when she hit her rock bottom. But with incredible determination and an unflaggingly positive attitude, she went on to lose more than 100 pounds over the course of five years. When she began documenting her journey on Tumblr, she never expected to become such a powerful voice for health, fitness, and self-love. But her blog, called Funeral for My Fat, soon morphed into an inspirational guide for hundreds of thousands of individuals looking for support and advice on their own fitness journeys.

Anne Norris moved to Savannah, Georgia, for a fresh start. Now her pirate-tour business is flagging, and paying the rent requires more than wishful thinking. When she discovers evidence of a shipwreck off the coast of Tybee Island, she knows it could be just the boon she needs to stay afloat. She takes her findings to local museum director Carter Hale for confirmation, but she runs after a disastrous first meeting. Carter has been searching for the location of the wreck detailed in the worn pages of an 18th-century diary. But convincing Anne to help him is no easy task.

Jake Matthews understands loss. In just one year, he lost his mother, his first love, his career, and now his cousin and best friend. But loss is the very thing that allows him to see the amazing woman he's always overlooked. And for the very first time, Jake wants to be worthy of such a pure love. Naomi Bennett spent the last year finding herself. Running away to Portugal was more than just a trip to find culture, but also an escape from the first man she ever gave her heart to. Now home, the last thing Naomi wants is to catch the eye of notorious playboy Jake Matthews.

Katie has always imagined her life being just like Mamm's. It's why she chose baptism and why she'll soon marry Abram Zook. But ever since her twin sister, Hannah, left, the only thing that truly makes Katie smile is the sketchpad in which she indulges her talent for drawing faces - a sin that, if discovered, could get her shunned by her family, her friends, and even Abram. Yet Katie sees her secret pastime as the only way to quiet a growing restlessness she'd just as soon ignore. That is, until their Mamm's untimely death brings Hannah back home to Pennsylvania.

Caroline Adams returns to Indian Territory after tiring of confining society life. She wants adventure, and when she and her friend Amber come across swaggering outlaw Frisco Smith, they find his dreams for the new territory are very persuasive. With the much-anticipated land run pending, they may just join the rush. Growing up parentless, all Frisco Smith wanted was a place to call his own. It's no wonder that he fought to open the Unassigned Lands. After years of sneaking across the border, he's even managed to put in a dugout house on a hidden piece of property he's poised to claim.

It's a difficult thing to be in love with someone who only sees you as a friend. That feeling was something Kristen Hall had long since grown accustomed to. Her epic crush on Jake Reynolds had lasted so long that her friends didn't even tease her about it anymore. Or maybe it was that she had just gotten better at hiding it after all these years. Kristen couldn't help but hope that maybe one day, somehow, miraculously, Jake would decide he loved her back. Perhaps something would just click, and he would realize he couldn't go on living without her.

Sidney arrived at Ash and Abigail's wedding with the simple expectation she'd see her friends get married and wish them all the best. Getting caught serenading the fish in the aquarium was one thing she did not expect to happen. She certainly didn't expect the person who caught her to be a handsome businessman who instantly wanted to hire her for her vocal talent. Truth be told, she didn't even think she had any vocal talent. Most of all, she by no means expected to fall in love with the aforementioned businessman.

Tori Jones is the light of her small town. Sweet but full of grit, she's always the first one to help. Just once please, she'd like a quiet weekend to herself. Too bad her Nana has a big problem. Nana Estelle loves her cigarettes, whiskey, and big hair, but most of all, she loves Tori. Too bad her boyfriend has run off with her money and she needs Tori to track the crook down. Savage Monroe solves problems with his fists, although baseball bats work just fine too! Living in Vegas, he rides with a gang, looking for his next big score. Too bad for Tori that his "next big score" is her.

When Works Progress Administration editor Millie Lang finds herself on the wrong end of a potential political scandal, she’s shipped off to Montana to work on the state’s American Guide Series—travel books intended to put the nation’s destitute writers to work. Millie arrives to an eclectic staff claiming their missed deadlines are due to sabotage, possibly from the state’s powerful Copper Kings who don’t want their long and bloody history with union organizers aired. But Millie begins to suspect that the answer might instead lie with the town’s mysterious librarian, Alice Monroe.

Ashley Branson has a lot to prove with her new cat yoga studio, A Purrfect Pose. It's a place for humans to find inner wellness—and adopt adorable cats from the local shelter. It's also a chance for Ash to run her own life, out from under her overbearing mother and a stifling relationship. So far, so successful. Until she discovers one of her new clients, a much-disliked college professor, dead in her studio, locked in child's pose . . .

Eight thousand years before the rise of the Raven Queen and the second breaking of the world, a simple vintner defies gods and demons alike on his trek into the underworld to reclaim the family that was stolen from him. Armed with nothing but his steadfast love and his skills at growing grapes and making wine, Z'nnek confronts the terrors in the dark beneath the world.

I was there the day the wall fell from the sky. The day they gunned down my mother and permanently separated the rich from the poor. I was there the day my father decided he could force utopia on a certain half of the population and leave the rest to rot. Pragmapax was once a great city, the only remaining outpost of civilization in our part of the world. But now, divided by an impossible wall, we've become two cities. Two peoples that despise each other. Two different ways of life—one idyllic and peaceful, the other savage and lawless. Civil war seethes in the air, breathing down our necks.