Showing results by narrator "Talmadge Ragan" in All Categories

No one expects Evalyn Brewer to return to Quail Crossings from California married with a child, and that includes Evalyn. She had dreams of Hollywood stardom, not dirty diapers and pigs. But when Robert Smith, a country boy from head to toe, offers her and her daughter a chance at a normal life, reputation intact, Evalyn can't help but accept. Little does Robert know, Evalyn is keeping a huge secret.

They say that your school years are supposed to be the best years of your life, and that you should make the most of them because you'll miss them when you're all grown up. Up until Maisie Preston's senior year, she would have totally agreed with that statement. Life was great, she had everything going for her, excellent grades, great parents, an annoying yet caring twin brother, and an impossibly sweet boyfriend. Everything was perfect - that is until the arrival of Zach Anderson.

Harry Blacksworth is rich, handsome, the ultimate playboy with a killer smile and a clever wit. He's fought it, denied it, ignored it, but the damn truth won't go away: He's fallen in love. And just when he's accepted that fact, Greta Servensen, the only woman he's ever trusted, breaks his heart. Christine Blacksworth and Nate Desantro beat the odds when they fell in love and married. But staying married is threatened when the foundation behind every good relationship - trust - is challenged.

A woman who sees what others cannot see seeks the murderer of a young street hustler, a man she had befriended in photographing San Francisco's dark, sexually charged netherworld. The colors of Kay Farrow's landscape are black, white, and shades of gray. An achromat suffering from total color blindness, Kay possesses a vision that informs her world and sharpens her skills as a talented photographer. When Tim Lovsey, a handsome prostitute, is brutally slain, he becomes much more than Kay's subject. She makes it her mission to find his killer, even though the police would prefer to quietly let the case drop.

Volstead Manor has caught on fire, and the last of its murderous secrets flare hot enough to drive Bailey back to her sleuthing. A villain, who remains shrouded in darkness until the end, threatens to destroy Bailey, and once again the mansion ignites with malevolent mischief. While she unearths a family secret from prohibition that's hidden deep within the cellar, she becomes entangled in a ticking-clock race to save her own life.

The year is 1974, and songwriter Casey Bradley is just eighteen years old when handsome, charismatic singer Danny Fiore crashes into her life and her heart. The first time she hears Danny sing, Casey is ready to toss away her entire future for a man who's almost certain to break her heart. Danny has a white-hot talent and a single blinding ambition: To become a rock star. The songs that Casey writes send an icy blue finger down the center of his cynical spine. But Danny knows exactly where he's going, and he has no intention of taking any woman along.

The only person who can identify the most notorious hit man in the country, Kate Bridges is running for her life. Murphy Dolan is in the Army Reserves, returning from his 2nd tour of duty, only to find a stranger hiding in his house. She's scared spitless. He's completely burned-out on violence. Neither of them has any trust left to give.

A plague of vampirism has crept across the country, reducing once-thriving cities to ghost towns. In Chicago, a few scattered survivors hide behind the fortified walls of office buildings and museums, raiding deserted stores for dwindling supplies of clothing and food.

Kat Denham, a popular author of steamy romance novels, has decided to write a book in a different genre. She has a friend who's a doctor of acupuncture, has just lost over 100 pounds, is getting married in mid-life for the first time to a doctor, and seems like the perfect role model for the protagonist in Kat's soon-to-be-written book.

World War II is finally over, and Dovie Grant is thrilled that her loved ones are finally coming home. As Dovie's longtime love, Gabe Pearce, and her adoptive son, Elmer Brewer, return home, the family is overjoyed. The happiness of their reunion is cut short when the news that Dovie's son-in-law, Evalyn's husband, Robert, is missing in action. Even with Robert MIA, there is a ray of light when the Brewer's long lost sister, Ellie, arrives in their hometown, Knollwood, TX.

Can a painting hold a secret safe in plain sight across seven centuries? The murder of the last member of an old Venetian family peels back the rug on a shocking truth that draws art historian and textile expert Phoebe McCabe into the fray. What she sees in the missing Renaissance symbology will shake the foundations of religious and cultural assumptions across two continents and point the way to a priceless hoard. It’s a secret potent enough to pitch rival factions against Phoebe and her team while destroying history as collateral damage along the way.

Cara Bishop already saved the world. Now, with the war over and the aliens defeated, she's teaching other pilots to fly the alien ships that turned the tide...until the government approaches her about joining a super-secret mission, that is. Steve Hunter is the product of alien DNA. He was created in a lab, designed to destroy the aliens in a ground war that was never fought. Now, they're finally putting him to use as the leader of this new mission.

For the last eight months, Mandy has lived across the hall from a caveman. He won’t trim his beard, he mostly talks in grunts, and he’ll hardly emerge from his cave of an apartment. Ben might be a grumpy mess, but she kind of likes him anyway. She’s not attracted to him, of course. Not at all. Those stray feelings are merely a fluke. She’s looking for a man who has it all together, and Ben isn’t even close.

Cass Adams is crazy, and everyone in Deacon, Kansas, knows it. But when her good-for-nothing husband, Roland, goes missing, no one suspects that Cass buried him in their unfinished koi pond. Too bad he doesn't stay there for long. Cass gets arrested on the banks of the Spring River for dumping his corpse after heavy rain partially unearths it.

When Captain Hunter and the crew of the Endeavor come across an alien ship, they have no idea what caused the deaths of its entire crew. Could they be infected with some unknown virus? Or did they simply all go mad and kill each other? Once Dr. Klein rules out infection, it seems like they're in the clear. Until, that is, some strange phenomenon invades the ship. Suddenly, crew members are acting strangely and the ship's course keeps changing against orders.

The women's rights movement grew out of the women's suffrage movement of the mid-1800s and also addressed other women's legal rights issues. The second wave of the movement, which promoted economic, political, and social equality, gained momentum in the 1960s and '70s, when such groups as the National Organization for Women fought for equal pay and laws banning employment discrimination.

Sixteen-year-old Bernadette Terrell is a champion debater who loves books, contests, and winning. When she's named captain of her school's Classics Bowl team to compete on TV against an elite private school for the state title, she's thrilled. It's more than a chance to earn glory for her town, and scholarship money for her family - not to mention make non-fictional friends. She's been training for this her whole life. Winning is her destiny. Or is it?

Lisa Cartwright thought she’d be spending the holidays getting over her ex Joey Novak. They just can’t seem to properly break up. When his company sends its staff to Lisa’s retreat, she has to play nice, even if that’s the last thing she wants to do. Joey has marriage on his mind and intends to use their close proximity to remind her of how good they are together. However, an interloping coworker insists on proving him wrong. His new rival, timid editor Finch Alice, has decided that she’s tired of undeserving men getting all the happy endings.

Three women, roommates back in college, find their lives forever altered when one of them feels compelled to confess the secret. The Truth About Us weaves the past and the present in a page-turner that explores the shifting quality of truth and the cost of secrets.

What do a well-bred Southern Belle and a Northern working class Pinkerton detective have in common? Espionage . . . and romance. At the start of the US Civil War, while young men begin dying on American battlefields and slavery is headed toward its end, behind the scenes, female undercover work and Pinkerton intelligence are alive and well. But in the end, can the love between this novella's Romeo and Juliet couple survive, or will they be just another casualty of war?