Showing results by narrator "Christa Lewis" in All Categories

Mallory’s fine - really - handling the wedding arrangements for her ex, Keith. But his fiancée, Becca, has at the last minute decided to switch from a Japanese-cherry-blossom theme to a Gone with the Wind theme. She wants to honor her ailing grandmother, who owns an impressive collection of Gone with the Wind memorabilia - and who is fiercely at odds with the groom’s mother over the nuptial plans.

Mallory Shepard hopes to unveil her new B&B just in time for her first ceremony as a wedding planner. The renovations to Thistle Park - the mansion she inherited in small-town Port Quincy, Pennsylvania - are almost complete. But what she didn’t plan on is the bride’s aunt being poisoned at the wedding tasting and her perfect venue becoming a crime scene.

It's 1971 when Louise leaves Oregon for Düsseldorf, a city grappling with its nation's horrific recent history, to study art. Soon she's embroiled in a scene dramatically different from the one at home, thanks in large part to Dieter, a mercurial musician. Their romance ignites quickly, but life gets in the way: an unplanned pregnancy, hasty marriage, the tense balance of their creative ambitions, and - finally, fatally - a family secret that shatters Dieter, and drives Louise home. But in 2008 she's headed to Dieter's mother's funeral.

When Mallory Shepard discovers some old lace at a Port Quincy antique shop, she knows it’ll make a perfect headpiece. But she’s barely gotten it out of the store before Helene Pierce tears it from her hands. Helene claims it’s a family heirloom that went missing when her late husband died in a hit-and-run 25 years ago. The conflict gets more complicated when the veil is attributed to none other than famed seamstress Betsy Ross. Mallory may have a genuine museum piece on her hands.

When the Nancy Drew Clue Colloquium converges on Castleton Manor in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts, scholars and fans, dressed as their favorite detective, arrive in their 1930s roadsters. But it turns into a bumpy ride when Nancy A. and Nancy Z. - the good-natured bad girls of Nancy Drew fandom - start pulling pranks. Their group, the River Heights Roundtable, clashes with the Nancy Drew Clue Society, and librarian Faith Newberry strives to keep the peace between the two rival groups.

It's Gatsby Week at Castleton Manor, the elegant retreat for booklovers in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts, and the roaring '20s are in full swing. Charlotte Jaxon, owner of the manor, arrives to put on the ritz and oversee the festivities celebrating the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Faith Newberry is sitting pretty when she receives a brief respite from her duties in the library to assist Charlotte in organizing the events that have everyone jazzed up, including a fashion show, an antique car race, and a Gatsby Ball.

It's late March in Lighthouse Bay, and Castleton Manor is undergoing spring-cleaning. Librarian and archivist, Faith Newberry, envisions a little downtime while the manor is closed to guests. But her reverie is cut short when she is pressed into service for the organizers of the Gothic Studies Conference, who are meeting in a nearby seaside home. Though reluctant to leave her cozy cottage on the Castleton estate, Faith agrees, especially since her faithful cat, Watson, is invited along.

Christmas is no humbug affair in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts. The merry festivities are well underway in the quaint seaside village, and the halls of the posh Castleton Manor literary retreat are decked out in full Victorian décor. This year, the manor is hosting the Charles Dickens Society's annual gala, compete with parlor games and dramatic readings of A Christmas Carol, and culminating in a costume ball. Faith Newberry, Castleton's private librarian and archivist, loves being part of the holiday hustle and bustle while catering to the eccentric guests' bookish whims.

Eliza heard the words retirement and club followed by gunfire. It was over quickly, and they were gone...with her voice. A pregnant ex-assassin has days to recall a lifetime, retrieve two stolen chips that control the US defense system and save two children from termination by the Club, which trained her. Only she can't remember the Club, and the children belong to the woman she terminated, and the Club wants them dead.

Inspector Victoria Rhodes works long hours as one of the last clean cops on San Francisco's crumbling police force. When a double murder claims the life of a city prosecutor in the exclusive covenant community of Atlantis, Rhodes is assigned as liaison between the SFPD investigation and the investigation run by the private security force known as the ASM.

In 1672, Sarah Solart Poole Good and Ann Carr Putnam begin life on seemingly equal footing—both daughters of well-off families in colonial Massachusetts. But as the years pass, their fortunes diverge. Sarah’s life spirals into poverty, homelessness, and mental distress. Ann marries into wealth and stability, becoming the wife of Thomas Putnam, the Younger, heir to one of Salem Village’s most powerful families. Yet even privilege cannot shield the Putnams from misfortune. Thomas is disinherited in favor of his younger brother, and Ann’s expected inheritance proves meager.

Now in its second edition, Sink Into Sleep provides the tools and techniques to reverse insomnia and improve sleep long-term. Insomnia, persistent trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, affects our daytime functioning and wellbeing. This book breaks down the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), the sleep program considered first-line treatment in the clinic, into a step-by-step and listener friendly program that can be easily followed at home.

American Alana Eastwood is researching her family tree. Remarkably, Alana traces her Eastwood lineage to an African child, living at Wortley Hall Manor on England's 1801 census. The boy is known as Otobong. Alana believes Otobong to be her earliest traceable ancestor and plans to visit her distant relatives still living in Nottingham. Discovering he was connected to a homicide in 1835 sets Alana on a mission to prove his innocence. Then the body of a man turns up on a beach in Mississippi, eerily close to where Alana's father was born. 

In the wake of Pennsylvania’s iconic Circle Center Mall’s collapse, fueled by greed, a community dies. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helena, caused by rising temperatures, southern Florida reverts to a swampy bog. In upstate New York, a tourist community is under a covert attack, as a private equity company seeks to enrich its coffers at the expense of local business owners and town residents. In the shadow of institutional abuses resulting in major disasters, people deal with abuse and trauma on a very personal level where their only option is a life reset.

Italy, 1943: With war blazing through Europe, nowhere is entirely safe—not even the remote hills of the Tuscan countryside. It's here that Italian partisans, including thousands of women, risk their lives to provide Jewish refugees with an escape route to Switzerland. And it's here, too, that Gianna Conti travels to join the Italian Resistance in the wake of her brother Matteo's death at the hands of German soldiers. Her father has been hiding Jewish refugees on their family's vineyard in Chianti, but now Gianna is bringing the fight directly to the enemy.

Hollywood, 1924. Grace Michelle should be basking in her new role as lead costume designer on a major motion picture. Instead, she's barely holding it together—grieving her sister, juggling a demanding set, and trying to care for a troubled foster teen. But when the film's director is murdered and the girl is found unconscious at the scene, Grace's life takes a darker turn.

New York City, 1920. Grace Michelle has clawed her way from the streets to a dream role as costume designer for the glamorous Ziegfeld Follies. But when her sister—the show's dazzling star—is found dead, Grace's world crumbles. To find the killer, Grace must step into her sister's spotlight, trading sketches for sequins in a role she never wanted. With every curtain rise, the danger grows—onstage and off—as she's drawn into a tangled plot of fame, ambition, and betrayal.

Ben Franklin's Guide to Wealth is the modern version of the treatise The Way of Wealth by Richard Saunders—one of Ben Franklin's many pseudonyms. Franklin practiced what he preached in the treatise, and it made him rich enough to have a full life, travel extensively, and follow his intellectual musings, which in turn led him to become an accomplished scientist, inventor, political activist, diplomat, and writer. Franklin wasn't born rich. He built his legacy using his intelligence, curiosity, natural good sense, and proclivity for thrift and hard work. When he died, he left a fortune.

In 1934, Lola was on top of the world. Dubbed "The Siren" by MGM, she was a protégé of Louis B. Mayer, the original talkie sex symbol before the rise of stars like Carole Lombard and Jean Harlow. But like Harlow, Lola Grayson had a dominant stage mother and bad health that struggled to meet the demand of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Exploited, pushed, primped, and promoted as MGM's biggest star, Lola Grayson made one fatal mistake—falling in love with fellow MGM star Robert Taggart. Together, they were the golden couple that audiences demanded to see.

Franz Kafka scholars know Felice Bauer, his onetime fiancee, through his Letters to Felice, as little more than a woman with a raucous laugh and a taste for bourgeois comforts. Life After Kafka is her story. The novel begins in 1935 as Felice flees with her children from Hitler's Berlin, following her family and members of Kafka's entourage—including Grete Bloch, Max Brod, and Salman Schocken-as they try to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. Years later, a man claiming to be Kafka's son approaches Felice's son in Manhattan and the drama surrounding Kafka's letters to Felice begins.