Showing results by narrator "Emily Durante" in All Categories

Mia has settled into her life with the Della Torres - Milan's premier demon-catching family, accompanying them to exorcisms and even learning some way to be useful in the family trade. Then Bernardo comes into her life, handsome, well-mannered, someone who makes her forget her impossible crush on Emilio, her cousin. But always lurking in the background is the demon who possessed Mia once before, and who has not given up on possessing her again - this time for good.

Milo is trouble. He lives it, breathes it. He embraces anything that numbs and takes his mind somewhere else, a world where his mother is herself and not just a shell, and his brother didn't almost kill her, severing any relationship they had. But more importantly, Milo drowns out the guilt for leaving his mother and not being able to forgive his brother. He drowns his pride and moves on to another girl and another party, pretending that life isn't moving on around him and he's stuck in the same place. He's stuck in the past and doesn't know how to let go.

Illustrator Lucy Brighton loves her work. Her animal characters Izzy, Bizzy, and Lizzy have their own comic strip, card line, and children’s cartoon, and their popularity has given Lucy financial stability and freedom. Yet none of that quite erases the lingering ache of a cold, lonely childhood. Then Lucy receives a call to say that her mother and father have been killed in a car crash. While settling their affairs in Florida, Lucy begins to realize how little she really knew about their lives.

With a popular comic strip, card line, and children's cartoon to her name, Lucy Brighton should be in a happy place. Then Lucy receives a call that her parents have been killed in a car crash. While settling their affairs in Florida, Lucy begins to realize how little she really knew about their lives. She has no way to explain the mysterious safe in their bedroom, with its cache of fake passports, cash, and weapons.

Quinn thinks hooking up with Ben over summer vacation will be nothing more than a quick fling. She can't even commit to a nail polish choice, much less some guy. Unfortunately for her, Ben is not just some guy. Ben gets her - the real her, flaws and all - and that scares the hell out of her. When Ben does the unthinkable - tells Quinn he's in love with her - she pushes him away. Ben can only watch from a distance as Quinn lashes out and punishes him for daring to care about her. But how far can you push someone before they are gone for good?

When She Was Electric is an evocative portrait of a family and a small town torn apart by losses. At the heart of this subtle, textured novel is a wrenching disruption - the death of a young girl in a sleepy town. The book tells the story of three generations of women: the resourceful grandmother who turned unwanted land into a thriving enterprise; the daughters, ethereal Min and bold Nellie, who grew up challenging polite conventions; and Ana, the granddaughter who embodies the hopes - and secrets - of this formidable matriarchy.

Hoping to erase her unhappy old life, Hazel jumps in her beat-up old car and speeds away. When she pulls up to the Evening and Morning Star Trailer Park, where nothing turns into even more of nothing, she decides it just might be the new life she's looking for. At the center of this new life is King, a motorcycle-riding, hard-drinking, guitar-playing kind of guy. Hazel loves him to death. He spends his days fixing cars, while Hazel spends hers working at the town’s thrift shop. Evenings they spend with Spiney and Sissy, playing cards or drinking at Old Joe’s.

Mia’s ordinary life is disrupted for good in the most horrifying way possible when she is possessed by a hungry and powerful demon - and saved only by the arrival of relatives from Italy, the country her grandfather fled many decades ago. Now her cousins, the charming and gorgeous Emilio, and stern, elderly Giuliano, say the only way to keep Mia safe is for her to come back with them to Milan - to live, to learn Italian, to fall in and out of love, and to master the family trade: fighting all demons with the ancient lore of bell, book, and candle.

It’s 1944, and Hazel’s father has agreed to help the U.S. government develop a secret weapon that will win World War II. His decision turns Hazel’s world upside-down - soon, she and her mother move out west to be with him, to a strange town with no name that everyone calls “the Hill.” The Hill is surrounded by a chain-link fence and barbed wire. Armed guards patrol its perimeter night and day.

After surviving Halloween at The Zone, Candace feels like she can do anything—but working as one of the elves during their huge Christmas celebration may still be a challenge for reasons beyond screaming kids and endless candy canes. Elf work proves more dangerous than expected, and Candace realizes she may not know her boyfriend Kurt as well as she thought she did—making finding the perfect present for him almost a full-time job. At the same time, she finds herself getting closer to her good friend Josh.

Nothing is beyond Kristi Carmichael's disdain - her hippie high school, her friend Jacob, her workaholic mom. Yet Kristi has a vulnerable side. She can hear the thoughts of her fellow students calling her fat and gross. She's hot for Gusty Peterson, one of the most popular guys in school, but of course, she's sure he thinks she is disgusting. And she's still mad at her father, who walked out on them two years ago. Soon, a school project brings her together with Gusty, her father comes home and drops a bombshell, and a friend comes out of the closet.

Who you are and who you want to be don’t always match up. Like most teenage girls, you’ve probably spent lots of time in front of the mirror wondering what you’ll be when you grow up—or dreaming of who you’ll become. Is it a supermodel, an actress, a dancer, or is it a businesswoman, a mom, or even a pastor? Brooklyn Lindsey grew up dreaming of being a supermodel....

How often have you seen a teenage girl pretend to be perturbed, but secretly smile, when she is told that she acts or looks just like her mother? Fathers, brothers, and friends sometimes shake their heads in wonder as girls "turn into their mothers". This new collection from Chicken Soup represents the best stories from Chicken Soup's library on the special bond between mothers and daughters, and the magical, mysterious similarities between them.

How often have you seen a teenage girl pretend to be perturbed, but secretly smile, when she is told that she acts or looks just like her mother? Fathers, brothers, and friends sometimes shake their heads in wonder as girls "turn into their mothers". This new collection from Chicken Soup represents the best stories from Chicken Soup's library on the special bond between mothers and daughters, and the magical, mysterious similarities between them.

How often have you seen a teenage girl pretend to be perturbed, but secretly smile, when she is told that she acts or looks just like her mother? Fathers, brothers, and friends sometimes shake their heads in wonder as girls "turn into their mothers". This new collection from Chicken Soup represents the best stories from Chicken Soup's library on the special bond between mothers and daughters, and the magical, mysterious similarities between them.

She was of American blood, born in the islands. He was a native islander. Their love bridged two worlds that would one day threaten to tear them apart. As a child, Jana Rutherford played barefoot on the sparkling Hawaiian beaches with her friend, Akela, and Akela's handsome cousin, Kimo. But that carefreeness would change as Jana grew... and the quality of her and Kimo's friendship grew as well into something deeper, stronger.

With the death of her father, Jo-Beth, her brother, and their mother, Johanna, move in with relatives in town. There, Johanna makes a living sewing her exquisite quilts and Jo-Beth discovers a special friend. Kind, thoughtful, and deep, Wesley Rutherford draws Jo-Beth like a magnet... and their attachment to one another becomes strong - strong enough to endure separation while Wes studies in Philadelphia. Strong enough to make their future together seem certain... until the Civil War forces a decision.

A gripping story about a young woman whose soul-eating guilt and desperation for a family drives her into the arms of an abuser--and about the struggling widower and women's shelter director who fight to save her in the midst their own battles.

A heart-warming contemporary romance set in the Flint Hills of Kansas, where a former rodeo queen abandons her dreams in order to care for her deceased father's ranch and her two half-siblings, only to realize with the help of a young new pastor that God can turn even the most dire circumstances into seeds of hope.

Mattie Evans, a young veterinarian in rural Kansas, saves a horse injured in a terrible accident. But she also finds herself tending the wounded relationship between a prodigal son and his ailing father. Love, conflict, forgiveness, and renewal drive the first book of the Seasons of the Tallgrass series.