Showing results by narrator "Shannon McManus" in All Categories

Your Beautiful Heart explores issues that teen girls face every day: body image, self-worth, peer pressure, and much more. Whether you listen to the book on your own or with a group of friends, Lauren's personal message of love, faith, and value will show you what it means to be a girl who radiates with true beauty.

In a trade-off she’s lived to regret, Emily Castle left home years ago to become an interior designer. The youngest of three sisters, Emily desperately wanted to prove herself. Success, though, came at the cost of leaving behind the man she loved. For Boone Dorsett, losing Emily left his heart shattered, but another woman was waiting in the wings. Now a widower with a young son, Boone has a second chance with Emily when a storm brings her home. But with his former in-laws threatening a custody suit, the stakes of loving her are higher than ever. Will fate once again separate them - or is the time finally right for these two star-crossed lovers?

Kasey Phillips thinks her biggest problem is deciding whether to photograph Cody Tuggle's honky-tonkin' tour, until an accident on Route 58 claims the life of her husband. In a desperate race against time as a hurricane threatens the eastern seaboard, they search for her three-year-old son who is missing from the wreckage.

Detective Jane Harper can't shake the image of the young woman discovered in a field - eyes closed, a crown of woven vines on her head. She expects macabre murders like this in her native San Francisco, not here. Jane and her partner, Stu, vow to catch the killer, but in this town, that's easier said than done. The police department is in the grips of a wide-reaching scandal that could topple the entire force, and Jane and Stu face a series of dead ends. Until they meet Ida Lane.

Angela's Diner has the reputation of a safe haven where patrons find a moment of peace as they linger over coffee and tears. For one young runaway, Angela's is more than a place to tell your tale - it's a place where with the magic of chicken and waffles, and a little bit of trust, may just save your life.

In the midst of an internal investigation, the police department is thrown into chaos when Captain Frank Morelli is gunned down on his own front lawn. Detective Jane Harper suspects that someone is tying up loose ends - a conviction that only grows stronger when she witnesses the execution of another officer in broad daylight. With no one else to turn to, Jane seeks the help of psychic Ida Lane.

Malcolm McKenzie will never forget that night in New York when he put Ava Galvan in a taxi following a heated argument, and the Argentine beauty was involved in a horrific accident - one that ended her career as an acclaimed soloist with the Manhattan Ballet, and impaired her memory and ability to live an independent life. The Scottish tycoon and philanthropist lives with his guilt, and another consequence: Ava was pregnant with his child the night of the accident. Ever since that night, Malcom has raised Jack as a single father.

When a woman is found murdered by hunting arrows in a woodland clearing, Detective Jane Harper is left to determine who is responsible. But when revelations about the victim's true identity surface, Harper soon realizes all is not as it seems - and that the killer's motivations are more complex than she could have imagined.

Kate Riordan fears two things as she grows up in the small Appalachian town of Swan River: that she’ll be a frustrated townie forever or that she’ll turn into one of the mysterious and terrifying wild girls, killers who start fires and menace the community. Struggling to better her chances of escaping, Kate attends the posh Swan River Academy and finds herself divided between her hometown - and its dark history - and the realm of privilege and achievement at the Academy. Explosive friendships with Mason, a boy from the wrong side of town, and Willow, a wealthy and popular queen bee from school, are slowly pulling her apart.

Every summer, four college friends hold a mini reunion. They laugh, reminisce, and commiserate about their soul-sucking jobs. Maybe they should have listened to everyone who warned them to study something "practical". Then an unexpected windfall arrives - $1 million, to be exact - with the stipulation that they use it to jump-start their new careers. Almost overnight, a professor, a bartender, a copywriter, and an administrative assistant reinvent themselves.

Zoe and her best friend, Olivia, have always had Big Plans: They'll tour the world as prima ballerinas and live in a swanky Manhattan apartment (where they'll hang out with their fabulous boyfriends, of course). But when they're cut from the ballet company, their plans for the future evaporate. Suddenly, Zoe's dodging cheerleaders who want her and Olivia to go out for the squad, and Olivia's got a crush on Calvin Taylor, who Zoe can't stand. Zoe can't imagine anything worse happening…until Olivia gets sick. Suddenly, not being able to dance is the least of their problems.

Tracy Briggs has finally gotten her act together. She’s focusing on her own life and helping her hearing-impaired son learn to talk. With her sister married and exploring a new career, Tracy has begun to run the family’s magazine business and feels her life is pretty much perfect. That is, until her son’s deadbeat dad shows up in Magnolia Grove asking for a second chance. Now that her son is getting the help he needs and a promising new romance with his teacher is in bloom, Tracy wants to keep her life just as it is. But her ex isn’t taking no for an answer.

All the four-leaf clovers in the world couldn't make Brooke Justice feel lucky these days. When her soon-to-be ex refuses to stay out of her business, she decides a fresh start will turn her luck around. She retreats to the small town of Adams Grove, Virginia. But when someone breaks into her new home, she immediately suspects her ex. Frightened for her safety, Brooke calls a private investigator - but she doesn't expect her whole body to tingle when he asks if she needs his protection.

As America plunges into the Great Depression, Marthanne Hendrix finds herself in rural Vidalia, Georgia, with no memory of how she got there.

Bewildered when the neighbors call her Oma, Marthanne is haunted by memories of another life—and another self. With the help of Comfort, a domestic worker living with her own tremendous loss, Marthanne discovers that Oma is another distinct personality inhabiting her body. In a time when mental illness is taboo, Marthanne and Oma’s simple, small-town life is fraught with complexity and danger.

With gossip running rampant, Marthanne and Oma will do anything to avoid their greatest fear: commitment to an insane asylum. Only by relying on Comfort’s kindness can they navigate their uncertain future. Friendship becomes sanctuary, and the quest for an ordinary life leads to an extraordinary bond.

Deeply moving and exquisitely wrought, Show Me a Kindness is a haunting novel of love, survival, and hiding in plain sight.

Facing a personal crisis, ambitious and driven Gabriella Castle retreats to the welcoming arms of her family. Everything she's worked for has been yanked out from under her, and she seeks the serenity of her grandmother's home on the North Carolina coast. With difficult decisions to make about her future, the last thing she wants is an unexpected love. Wade Johnson fell for Gabi the first time he saw her. It's not the only time he's found himself in the role of knight in shining armor, but Gabi isn't looking for a rescuer. To get her to stay, Wade will need a whole lot of patience and gentle persuasion.

They’ve had the white dresses and the fancy receptions. But now that the honeymoon’s over, Stella, Casey, and Erin have each had to face some hard truths about the men they’ve married and the lives they’ve chosen. So when the news breaks that the pastor who presided over their weddings failed to file a few critical pieces of paper, none of these newlyweds is rushing down to the courthouse to legalize her vows. Instead, the brides share their hopes, disappointments, and secrets while grappling with that pivotal question: Should they stay or should they go?

Drew's a bit of a loner. She has a pet rat, her dead dad's Book of Lists, an encyclopedic knowledge of cheese from working at her mom's cheese shop, and a crush on Nick, the surf bum who works behind the counter. It's the summer before eighth grade and Drew's days seem like business as usual, until one night after closing time, when she meets a strange boy in the alley named Emmett Crane. Who he is, why he's there, where the cut on his cheek came from, and his bottomless knowledge of rats are all mysteries Drew will untangle as they are drawn closer together....

Gwyn Jones is perfectly happy with her life in Graves Glen. She's formed a powerful new coven with her family; she's running a successful witchcraft shop and she's mentoring some of the younger witches in town. There's only one problem—Llewellyn 'Wells' Penhallow. Wells has come to Graves Glen to re-establish his family's connection to the town and to make a new life for himself. But when he opens a magic shop just across the street from Gwyn's, he quickly learns that going up against her won't be as easy as he thought...especially after an accidentally magic-inspired kiss.

Becca Davis has always played it safe - denying her passion for fashion design in a dead-end job and letting her pragmatic boyfriend (mastermind of the "Kevin Bradley Ten-Year Plan") make the tough decisions in life. Stunned into saying yes when Mr. Predictable springs a surprise proposal on her, Becca realizes that she's running out of time to turn her life around. She's only got one more chance to chase her dreams and no one - not her control-freak fiancé, not her dramaholic sisters, not her overprotective parents - will talk her out of it.

For Naomi Ash, growing up the daughter of a clairvoyant medium exposed her to the chicanery of a business where telling people what they want to hear is the only currency. And the sleepy hamlet of Train Line, New York, nestled against a frigid lake in the westernmost fringes of the state, was founded on, built, and is still sustained by it. Now a young woman and a practicing medium herself, Naomi still lives in the place that nourished and raised her - the place where she fell in love. Love, however, can be deadly....