Showing results by narrator "Liisa Ivary" in All Categories

In When Good Wishes Go Bad, Becca Morris thrives in her job as a dramaturg/producer - at least until her current production is derailed by threatened copyright litigation. Even worse, her boyfriend has gone on the lam, stealing her life savings and most of the theater's funds. That's when a brass lamp enters the picture - a brass lamp with a wish-granting genie. Before Becca knows it, she's juggling magic, a brilliant new play by a hot new playwright, and a battle of guerilla gardeners (yes, really!) the likes of which New York City has never seen.

She didn’t look like a fraud and a liar, and after years in Army Intelligence, Col. Sam Oliver should know. Instead Elizabeth Hardy was a pale, vulnerable-looking waif, though he didn’t buy her innocent act. He’d always made it a rule to keep his hands off his targets. Some rules were made to be broken.

Happiness has become a serious business. Where 20th-century psychology focused on depression and illness, in the new millennium scientists have begun focusing on "positive psychology" - the study of happiness. Ariel Gore first became intrigued by this subject when she discovered that a class on positive psychology was the most popular course on the Harvard campus.

Amy’s opening a pet salon with her grumpy grandmother, Granny, after a stressful stint in Pine Grove. But when Amy’s first and only customer is murdered, she realizes if she doesn't catch the killer, the grand opening of her pet salon could be ruined. Hotshot rookie cop Michael Fine thinks Amy committed the murder. Amy and Granny know he’s wrong, but they don’t have proof. There’s a killer on the loose in their little slice of heaven, and if the ladies don't solve the mystery, they could lose their business...or worse.

According the New York Times’ “1619 Project”, America was not founded in 1776, with a declaration of freedom and independence, but in 1619 with the introduction of African slavery into the New World. Ever since then, the “1619 Project” argues, American history has been one long sordid tale of systemic racism.

Personal finance is not taught in school - and the process of learning how to manage your own finances can be fraught with painful missteps. In Money Is Everything, Amanda Reaume, the author behind Millennial Personal Finance and host of the Millennial Personal Finance podcast, helps walk you through everything you need to learn to manage your money, including the best ways to make it, spend it, borrow it, and save it.

In 1961, young schoolteacher Robin Fletcher is delighted to accompany her widowed aunt on a cruise from Barcelona to Venice - a voyage whose ports of call include some of the great cities of Europe. On her first night at sea, Robin is awakened by the moonlight flooding through her stateroom window. When she goes up on deck to admire the view, she witnesses one of her fellow passengers throwing something off the stern of the ship.

Schoolteacher Maggie O'Brien comes home for Christmas on a mission - to gather toys for orphans living on poor farms in Kansas. She's made her list, but there's no Santa in sight. Not until a local shopkeeper volunteers his services. Gordon Sumner sets his mind on winning the black-haired Irish beauty, but Maggie's brother is his fiercest competitor, and O'Brien's loyal sister gives him the cold shoulder. Undaunted, he comes up with a clever plan - Santa will deliver gifts with a "wife" at his side.

Victoria Lowell grew up in the privileged world of the Boston Brahmins. She had everything she could want...except love. After being jilted, the society miss travels a thousand miles to marry a man she's never met whose romantic letters won her heart. To her surprise, and dismay, the groom who meets her at the train station exhibits little interest in romance.

Rachel Monette arrives home to a scene of unspeakable violence: Her French-born husband, Dan, is dead - the victim of a savage stabbing - and her five-year-old son is missing. A neighbor claims she saw a rabbi taking Adam away. But there are no synagogues in Williamstown. The only clue is a letter Rachel finds in Dan's safety deposit box. Written in 1942, it's about the reassignment of three German soldiers to a place called Camp Siegfried in the supposedly unoccupied western part of North Africa.

When a woman is found murdered in her North Beach apartment in San Francisco, Casey McKie takes on the case as a favor to her friend Dee Jefferson. The singer and club owner wants Casey to prove the man accused of the crime, jazz drummer Greg Sanderson, is innocent. Casey discovers the crime scene is free of forensic evidence. She figures it's the work of an experienced killer, and more murders with the same tactics prove her hunch correct.

Time travel is a dream long held by human beings. Who hasn't had fond thoughts about showing Nicola Tesla their personal Tesla coil or taking him for a drive in an electric car that bears his name? The devil is in the details of the technology, which is what ties together this collection of short fiction. The stories in this collection appeared in Analog science fiction magazine between 1990 and 2000.

They have been dared and double dared, and they've flirted with the truth, but as Kat and Simon tumble deeper into their sexual odyssey, their love for one another blooms magnificent and fierce. Soon their love is threatened, but Kat's certain nothing can tear them apart. Then duty calls, and Simon's betrayal is revealed.

Dr. Katrina Winslow has always known who she is: an elite scientist, a certifiable genius, and ultrareserved when it comes to love and relationships. So when a simple game of truth or dare offers the cool doctor the opportunity to shed her lab coat and glasses and put on a pair of sexy stilettos, she accepts the dare. But will shedding her inhibitions fulfill her every desire and help her discover if she can be truly daring, or will it cost her everything? Two men, one a sexy stranger, and a night of no-holds-barred passion.

Since meeting the enigmatic Simon, Katrina Winslow's life has been one roller-coaster ride after another. Deep down,she's certain the man who rocks her world in bed just might be the one to save her career and earn her love. But with not just one but two women pulling him away, Kat fears the man with all the answers will never give her the most important one - that he's hers and hers alone.

Dr. Katrina Winslow has always known who she is: an elite scientist, a certifiable genius, and ultrareserved when it comes to love and relationships. So when a simple game of truth or dare offers the cool doctor the opportunity to shed her lab coat and glasses and put on a pair of sexy stilettos, she accepts the dare. But will shedding her inhibitions fulfill her every desire and help her discover if she can be truly daring, or will it cost her everything?

She found passion on a dare, but is she willing to risk her heart? Since the dare that changed her life, Dr. Katrina Winslow has hooked up, broken up, hooked up again, and run like hell, but her drama's just getting started. Not only does she lose her job, but unpredictable and sexy-as-hell cop Simon insists they have fantasies left to explore. Simon's a man who gets what he wants, and he's got Katy in his green-eyed crosshairs.

Rosie Mortimer, celebrity gardener with a successful TV show, has a pleasantly uneventful life with her undemanding beau. Her gay son and his partner live nearby. When her estranged daughter Susannah, product of a fractured family, returns to Rosie's Connecticut town with her husband, a former priest, to open a restaurant, the tense relationships among these three build to a near-tragedy.

"Kalopsia", a word meaning "the delusion of things being more beautiful than they actually are", is what happens to us when we think we've fallen in love. Almost-love Stories is a collection of four short stories that almost ended well. Love isn't the way romance novels make it seem. Happily ever after doesn't exist and love is blind, but perhaps we should open our eyes.

It's not the prostitutes who are keeping Lillian awake. She may share her apartment building with a bordello, but the sounds that seep through the walls do not bother her. Ever since her boyfriend left her, taking her heart and all her clothes, the Paris nights have been unbearable. And so she takes refuge in the only place she can be herself: Sascha's, where the insomniacs of Paris go to drink, dance, and fall in love. There's Mr. Bread, a slumming millionaire.