Showing results by narrator "Vanessa Johansson" in All Categories

Since childhood Nila Carter has been made to spend every weekend at the family cabin. In her teenage years she believes it to be a prison; as an adult it becomes her sanctuary and means to survive. When a mysterious outbreak occurs in India, Nila's brother, Bobby, a virologist with the CDC, places the family on a precautionary alert to be ready to bug out. Unlike anything he's ever seen, the rabies-like virus is not just deadly; it causes extreme violent behavior in those infected.

Beatrice was sent away from home to reform her spiteful behavior, and Vernon was hurt and determined to forgo love. Lord Vernon decides to move on with an unemotional marriage of convenience. Lady Beatrice finds herself reduced from a Duke’s daughter to a life of service in Scotland, trying to learn the ways of the less privileged. Will the two find their way back together again? Or will Vernon choose another bride first? Will Beatrice be able to humble herself and reform her shrewish spoiled ways?

This is a captivating historical mystery, infused with romance, that links the lives of three women across a century - two deep in the past, one in the present - to the doomed passenger liner, RMS Lusitania.... Her finances are in dire straits, and best-selling author Sarah Blake is struggling to find a big idea for her next book. Desperate, she breaks the one promise she made to her mother and opens an old chest that belonged to her great-grandfather, who died when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915. What she discovers there could change history.

On the coal-choked island of Luisonn, the tyrannical Stav Regime breeds rebellion among the working class. Firin, a face-changing con artist trained by her domineering father, dances between fake lives to escape punishment for her crimes—until armed rebels topple the regime. With freedom finally within her grasp, she discovers one of the heroes is her former lover, Bregan, who introduced her to her second love: the theater.

What to Expect Before You’re Expecting has everything that eager-to-be moms and dads need to know about getting pregnant, from getting their bodies ready to make a healthy baby to getting that healthy baby on board faster. You'll find baby-friendly foods to order up (say yes to yams); fertility busters to avoid (see you later, saturated fat); how to pinpoint ovulation, time baby-making sex, keep on-demand sex sexy, and separate conception fact - it takes the average couple up to 12 months to make a baby - from myth - position matters.

When expat blogger and mother of four Eva Melusine Thieme first harbors the idea of ringing out her three years in Africa on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, it sounds easy. In fact, it has all the trappings of a dream vacation: no cooking, no fighting kids, and an army of porters to lug everything up the mountain. What can go wrong? Tag along as Eva takes you on her journey up the slopes of Kilimanjaro together with her teenage son and a group of hilarious South African friends.

Mallory Pike has always wanted to be a member of the Baby-Sitters Club - they're so much fun to be around, and she's practically a baby-sitter already. Now the club members have invited Mallory to a meeting. This might be her big chance! But the BSC isn't making it easy - they make Mal feel like a baby on a job, and make her take an impossible written test. Mallory's beginning to think she doesn't want to be a part of the BSC...or maybe she and her new friend Jessi should start a club of their own. It's time to show those baby-sitters what a couple of new girls can do!

In the wake of her husband's sudden death, Cassie Costas finds her relationship with her teenage stepdaughter unraveling. After their move to historic Tarpon Springs, Florida, Savannah hates her new town, her school and most of all her stepmom, whom she blames for her father's death. Cassie has enough to contend with as she searches for answers about the man she shared a life with, including why all their savings have disappeared.

About to become parents, my husband and I decided to move to my small hometown to be closer to my family. Everything was perfect until I met our new neighbor—the reason I moved away to begin with. Kelly Van Patten. She's the epitome of beauty. With her radiant blond hair, captivating blue eyes, and a smile so warm and caring, it's no wonder everyone adores her… except me. Even my husband is falling for her charm and manipulation, or worse, falling for her. When Kelly slips and accidentally shows her true colors, I realize something even worse. Does she know what I've been hiding?

When cat lover and quilter Jillian Hart volunteers to help a local animal shelter relocate a colony of feral cats living in an abandoned textile mill, she never expects to find a woman living there too. Jeannie went missing from Mercy, South Carolina, a decade ago, after her own daughter’s disappearance. Jeannie refuses to leave the mill or abandon Boots, her cat who died years ago. After all, she and Boots feel the need to protect the premises from “creepers” who come in the night.

Loving the holiday season but hating its commercialism, Mallory coordinates an old-fashioned family Christmas of baking and trimming that attracts media attention, but Mallory begins to fear that the chaotic film crews will spoil her plans.

When quilter Jillian Hart returns to her lake house in Mercy, South Carolina, she discovers her friend, Tom, is missing-and his estranged half-brother has moved into Tom's house. Jillian doesn't trust the guy, especially since he allowed Tom's diabetic cat to escape. When police officers find Tom's wrecked car with a dead stranger inside, Jillian is determined to find out what happened to Tom-before someone else turns up dead.

With her strange black eyes and even stranger fainting spells, Haelewise is shunned by her village, and her only solace lies in the stories her mother tells of child-stealing witches, of princes in wolf-skins, of an ancient tower cloaked in mist where women will find shelter if they are brave enough to seek it. But when her mother dies, Haelewise is left unmoored. With nothing left for her in her village, she sets out to find the tower of legend-a place called Gothel, where Haelewise meets a wise woman willing to take her under her wing.

Recently widowed Jillian Hart is rebuilding a life for herself and her three beloved cats - Chablis, Syrah, and Merlot - as a quilter in a small South Carolina town. The quilts she makes are for cats as smart, special, and sweet as her own, and business is thriving. But when she returns from an overnight quilting show, she discovers Chablis sneezing - and since Chablis is allergic to humans, that can only mean one thing: Someone has broken into her house. When she realizes her Abyssinian, Syrah, is missing, Jillian suspects catnapping. Spurred by Chablis and Merlot’s mournful meowing, she investigates - and discovers more missing cats and a murder.

What could possibly make a proper gentleman come completely undone? What if Elizabeth Bennet accepted the proposal of another before she met Mr. Darcy again? In Abigail Reynolds' bold and playful retelling of the Austen classic, a devastated Mr. Darcy must decide how far he is willing to go to win the woman he loves. Consumed by jealousy, he knows that winning her will throw them both into scandal and disgrace, but losing her is unbearable. Mr. Darcy is going to have to fight for his love, and his life. . .

Jessica Clayton has made a career out of helping others downsize—because she’s learned the hard way that the less “stuff,” the better, a policy she applies equally to her relationships. But a new client is taking Jess back to Cape Sanctuary, a town she once called home…and her little sister Rachel. While Jess couldn’t wait to leave Cape Sanctuary Rachel put down roots, content for the world—and her sister—to think she has a picture-perfect life.

McKenzie Shaw would do anything for her hometown of Haven Point. It may be small, but it’s never let her down…unlike gorgeous, infuriating Ben Kilpatrick. He was her childhood hero until he closed his family’s factory, leaving the town’s economy in shambles. Now his tech firm is considering opening a local facility. For Haven Point’s sake, McKenzie has to grit her teeth and play nice.

It's not Fourth of July on Mackinac Island without fireworks and fudge. The Historic McMurphy Hotel and Fudge Shop is supplying the treats-and Allie McMurphy has hired Rodney Rivers, the biggest name in aerial displays, to create an unforgettable spectacle. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a case of red, white, and boom when Allie finds him dead, covered with screaming chicken fireworks, just before the entire warehouse of pyrotechnics goes up in smoke. Is it arson or is it murder?

Ever, Lindsay, and Josie have ushered their daughters—Bea, Olive, and Savvy—through years of dance classes. They've tended bloodied feet, stitched ribbons to countless pairs of pointe shoes, and forged friendships that seem to transcend rivalry. But now Etienne Bernay, enfant terrible of French ballet, has come to their conservatory. Not only will he direct this year's production of The Nutcracker, but he's brought along a film crew to document his search for one special student who will receive a full scholarship to the Ballet de Paris Academie.

Una Kelly has grown up to be a rough-and-tumble grifter, able to filch a pocketbook in five seconds flat. But when another con-woman pins her for a murder she didn’t commit, Una is forced to flee. Running from the police, Una lies her way into an unlikely refuge: the nursing school at Bellevue Hospital. Based on Florence Nightingale’s nursing principles, Bellevue is the first school of its kind in the country. Where once nurses were assumed to be ignorant and unskilled, Bellevue prizes discipline, intellect, and moral character, and only young women of good breeding need apply.