Showing results by author "La Belle" in All Categories

When Belle Boggs' "The Art of Waiting" was published in Orion in 2012, it went viral, leading to republication in Harper's Magazine and an interview on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show. In that heartbreaking essay, Boggs eloquently recounts her realization that she might never be able to conceive. She searches the apparently fertile world around her - the emergence of 13-year cicadas, the birth of eaglets near her rural home, and an unusual gorilla pregnancy at a local zoo - for signs that she is not alone.

She came to restore a church. He came to bury his past. Together, they'll save a town. In the shadow of Colorado's rugged mountains lies Clear Springs, a silver mining town where hope has all but vanished, until missionary Abigail Whitaker steps off the stagecoach, determined to fulfill her parents' legacy by restoring their abandoned church. Jonah Brooks has spent four years burying his past beneath the rhythmic clang of his blacksmith hammer. The war-hardened veteran has carefully constructed a solitary existence where memories can't find him and faith can't challenge him. The last thing ...

When starship captain Benjamin Rollins beams down to a strange alien planet that appears to have signs of intelligent life, he is shocked to be greeted by a human-like race of beings that traveled from Earth millennia ago and which claim to share a common ancestor with him. Their planet Titan is a wondrous utopia - their people live in peace and harmony, strife is unknown, and coupling is free and frequent.

Mike is enjoying being a girl so much that he can’t keep straight whether he’s Mike or Mikala anymore, and now that he’s blurring the lines between Virtnet and reality with his boyfriend, Chuck, he needs to learn a few things about femininity. Good thing for him that his mistress, Amy, is happy to teach, starting with a very personal lesson on proper lingerie selection! But Amy isn’t the only one paying attention to the new girl in town: Christy Parker, Chuck’s ex-girlfriend, has begun poking around where she doesn’t belong and asking some uncomfortable questions.

When offered a chance to avoid summer school, goth girl Frankie Tanner reluctantly agrees to help Ivy Wexler, a cheerleader who has just resurrected her cat in preparation for bigger and better (dead) things. Perfect for people who wanted The Craft to be sapphic.

Daryl spends his days working at the hospital as a caring orderly, but he spends his nights listening to his gorgeous neighbor Jessica get intimate with her husband through the paper-thin walls of his apartment. It's not so bad until he gets a mysterious package containing an old wooden carving that gives him some very vivid, very personal dreams...dreams where he's not only with Jessica, but where he is Jessica! Daryl takes care of all the patients at St. Mary's, a special hospital where most of the city's saddest cases end up, but he's especially caring towards one patient.

Roland’s wife Blair has been planning her dream wedding ever since she was a little girl, and as their wedding date has drawn closer and closer, Roland has been watching Blair’s spending spin out of control. He might not agree with all of her choices, but it doesn’t matter - he’s the man, and he’s expected to just shut up and pay for it all since this is Blair’s big day. When his simmering resentment finally spills over, he makes an innocent wish that Blair could understand how hard he has it.

It’s the summer of 1982 and fourteen-year-old Swanna Swain is the only one left at camp. The place is a ghost town by the time her mother Val finally shows up six hours late—stoned and radiant—in a Ford pickup driven by Borislav, her new young Russian lover. Assuming she is headed home to her air-conditioned Upper West Side apartment, Swanna and her lovable younger brother Madding are instead dragged to Vermont—to an artist colony where kids are not welcome and they are forced to sleep in the back of the truck, while Val is cozy inside the house with the Russian.

Sometimes the longest journey leads you home—especially when the trail to healing winds through the wilderness of grief and second chances. In the wake of devastating loss, Emily Wilson boards a wagon train west not to build a new life, but to escape the ruins of her old one. When circumstances force her to share a wagon with widowed wagon master Weston Reynolds and his young son Matthew, Emily's carefully constructed walls begin to crumble beneath the vast prairie skies. As the wagon train faces raging rivers, deadly fever, and treacherous mountain passes, Emily's medical skills become ...

Lowering your cholesterol levels isn’t something that will happen overnight. However, you can make big strides sooner than you think by taking impactful actions on a daily basis. Your main job is to learn the knowledge.

On a cold night in an abandoned construction site, a dying alien grants five brave children the power to morph into any animal or person they can touch so that they can fight back against a secret invasion of evil, mind-controlling slugs called the "Yucks." Arnold knows this because he was there, hiding behind a half-built wall, and saw everything. He even accidentally got the same powers the children did!

Drew Crossfield is a fashion designer with a secret desire that he's never dared to explore, no matter how badly he might want to. When famous style icon naTasha notices him, there's no turning back. She knows a closeted sissy when she sees one, and she’s determined, from the start, to change this drab dresser into the feminized glam girl of his dreams.

My marriage seemed perfect from the outside looking in. People envied me. They wanted my life, wanted to be me. They had no idea of the horrors that lurked behind closed doors. They didn't know I was at the lowest point a person could reach.

La Bella Figura is a lifestyle guide for the woman who aspires to live a European-style life filled with simple pleasures and wants to look good while she does it. It is about making your life richer with less, not more, just like European women do. Who Should Read This Book: * Do you feel overwhelmed and yearn for a life where you spend the majority of your time, money and energy toward what you think really matters? * Have you ever looked in your closet and felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of clothing items you own and yet still feel as if you have nothing to wear? * Do you want to ...

THE SOLDIER'S K-9 COMPANION A chance to finally heal With the help of a four-legged friend. Struggling with PTSD, retired Navy SEAL Luke Adams hopes getting a service dog will help him finally get his life back. Fortunately, his best friend’s sister, Destiny Johnson, runs a K-9 farm where she...

Carson has always wanted a big family, but his wife, Katie, insists that she's not ready to put her body through all of the hassle of having one yet. Carson can't let it go, though. Women are made for this sort of thing, he figures. She probably just needs a little push. So one day, he swaps out her birth control pills for fakes, and hopes that by the time she realizes what's going on, she'll just get used to things! He didn't count on her having a magic spell that swaps their places, though! Now, he's stuck dealing with the consequences of his own actions...all nine months of them.

Mike just can’t seem to keep himself out of trouble! After a close call at home, he’s more dependent than ever on his friends, Amy and Kyla, to get him out of trouble, but he can’t tell even them his biggest secret of all: that Christy Parker is blackmailing him to get back at her ex-boyfriend, Chuck. With Christy smearing Mikala’s name to the whole school and threatening to reveal Mike’s identity if he says a word to anyone, Mike is stuck between a rock and a hard place (a whole series of hard places). His only hope is to try to find some way to stop Christy before she ruins his life.

A Queen betrayed. A midnight escape. A love lost in the shadows of power. Scotland, 1566. Imprisoned in her own palace and reeling from the brutal murder of her most trusted servant, Mary, Queen of Scots, faces her most perilous hour. Surrounded by rebel lords—and a husband whose betrayal cuts deepest—her only hope lies in a desperate flight into the night. With her loyal lady-in-waiting Margaret Carwood, a wary pageboy, and a king she no longer trusts, Mary flees Holyrood Palace under the cloak of darkness. But escape is only the beginning. As political tensions escalate and the cracks...

Ready to handle difficult conversations with confidence and ease? Do you dread tough discussions, fearing they’ll spiral out of control? Struggle to express your needs without sounding aggressive or making others defensive? You’re not alone. Many adults face these challenges, but the good news is that effective communication is a skill you can master. Difficult Conversations Made Easy equips you with proven strategies to navigate tough talks, manage conflict, and build stronger connections. Master the art of starting difficult conversations without triggering defensiveness.

A faux summer fling seemed like the perfect solution . . . until they start falling in love for real. Teacher Stella Marshall’s summer break has just began, but the gossip is already sizzling: Luke Keegan’s back in town! Stella’s high school crush is all grown up and smolderingly sexy. She...