Showing results by narrator "Angela Dawe" in All Categories

Once upon a time, the stories that came to be known as "fairy tales" were cultivated to entertain adults more than children; it was only later that they were tamed and pruned into less thorny versions intended for youngsters. But in truth, they have continued to prick the imaginations of audiences at all ages.

Reclusive collector Cutter Merlin is seldom seen in Key West—lately, not at all. Officer Liam Beckett visits Merlin’s curious house and discovers the gentleman in his study. In his death grip: a volume of occult lore and a reliquary. His eyes are wide with fright, his mouth a horrified rictus where spiders now dwell. Kelsey Donovan returns to the old house to catalog her estranged grandfather’s collection of artifacts and antiquities, vowing to see his treasures divested properly.

Adria, wolf changeling and resilient soldier, has made a break with the past. Now comes a new territory and a devastating new complication: Riaz, a SnowDancer lieutenant already sworn to someone else. For Riaz, the primal attraction he feels for Adria is a staggering betrayal. For Adria, his dangerous lone-wolf appeal is beyond sexual. It consumes her. It terrifies her. It threatens to undermine everything she has built of her new life. But fighting their wild compulsion toward one another proves a losing battle.

On a Wednesday afternoon, Owen Masterson asks me to marry him. I've never met the man before. All I wanted was a job repackaging his image. He needs to ramp up his cool-factor to attract partnerships with better designers for his family's department store. But he wants me to be his temporary trophy wife instead. I need to get out from under my grandfather's control and don't really care how I do it. Honestly, I'll rock the hell out of being a temporary trophy wife.

Awakening wounded in a darkened cell, their psychic abilities blocked, Aden and Zaira know they must escape. But when the lethal soldiers break free from their mysterious prison, they find themselves in a harsh, inhospitable landscape far from civilization. Their only hope for survival is to make it to the hidden home of a predatory changeling pack that doesn't welcome outsiders. And they must survive. A shadowy enemy has put a target on the back of the Arrow squad, an enemy that cannot be permitted to succeed in its deadly campaign.

Louise "Lulu" Kingsley is thrilled to discover after years of wishing for a sibling, Cami Chandler is her half-sister. When Cami invites her to live with her at Chandler Hill, Lulu jumps at the chance to leave behind all the heartache in her recent life. Not the spoiled little rich girl the media would like everyone to think, Lulu digs into marketing for the inn and winery, feeling more comfortable there than she ever did in California with her political father. Better yet, her mother is becoming a stronger, happier person and shares the idea of becoming part of a new family.

In high school, I was in love with Hunter Ness, but he friend-zoned me. Time passed. I grew up. He went to prison. And now he's going to be my husband for a year. There are reasons. He's not going to be a real husband...He's way too sexy, and he knows me far too well. It's hard to remember he's not the real thing. But I'm going to stay smart. I'm not going to fall for my ex-con husband who only sees me as a friend. I hope.

Lady Madeline Mulbourne, widow of a renowned art critic, has secrets. Pretty secrets. Sparkling secrets. Ever since the wars on the continent ended, she's been determined to return the jewels the French confiscated to their rightful owners, even if it means stealing them herself. Lord Arthur Carmichael, Marquess of Bancroft and a former spy, is in need of a bride. Who is more suited than the woman he'd once intended to marry? But when jewels disappear at balls Madeline attends, Arthur suspects Madeline might have more than one reason for not wanting to marry him.

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Beate Haas, who defected from East Germany as a child, is notified that her parents’ abandoned mansion is available for her to reclaim. Newly divorced and eager to escape her bleak life in upstate New York, where she moved as an adult, she arrives with her two teenagers to discover a city that has become an unrecognizable ghost town.

There are all the usual ways, of course, but here’s how Janine Hartman did it. "My grandfather Hartman arranged a husband for me! Zach Thomas, the intended groom, was just as outraged as I was. But gramps insisted we’d be “a perfect match.” First Comes Marriage, according to him...." Does Grandfather know best? You decide!

Valerie Wyatt is the high priestess of elegance: She has built an empire on how to entertain, how to decorate, how to live beautifully, and is at the top of her game with licensing arrangements for fine fabrics, furniture, wallpaper; six books; and a highly rated TV show. Valerie's daughter, April, is a classically trained chef and the workaholic proprietor of a comfortable, popular downtown New York restaurant. They couldn't be happier in their chosen fields—or more different in their attitudes.

Angie is the only one in her family - maybe the only one in the world - who believes her captured war-hero sister is still alive. Angie needs to believe it. It’s better than thinking about last year, when she tried to kill herself in front of a packed gym. Better than trying to steer clear of Stacy Ann Sloan and her posse of ultra-mean girls. Better than dealing with her corporate-lawyer mother, who wants to know only one thing: When is Angie going to lose exactly 29 pounds? Then a new girl, KC, arrives in Dryfalls, Ohio. She’s beautiful, hip, and smart, and everyone wants to know her. From the minute they meet, KC sees the real Angie....

There are those who walk among us who are no longer alive, but not yet crossed over. They seek retribution…vengeance…to warn. Among the living, few intuit their presence. Katie MacDonald is one who can. As she’s drawn deeper and deeper into a gruesome years-old murder, whispered warnings from a spectral friend become more and more insistent. But Katie must uncover the truth: could David Beckett really be guilty of his fiancée’s murder?

Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg was among the most sought-after gynecologists in pre-World War II Germany. The creator of the first IUD, known as the Gräfenberg ring, he was posthumously credited with identifying the eponymous "Gräfenberg spot" or G-spot. He was also a Jew in Nazi Germany, and by 1938 he had been stripped of his practice, his possessions, and his freedom and was languishing in a Nazi prison.

Daphne Sweeten left Paris - and a job she loved - to marry the man of her dreams in the U.S. But when he stands her up on their wedding day, she’s left reeling and senseless. Literally. She’s been trained as a perfume creator and now her sense of smell has disappeared along with her fiancé!

She has to figure out why her nose isn’t working, fix it, and get back to Paris. Meanwhile, she’ll rely on her chemistry skills and just hope her new boss at Gibraltar Products, Jesse, doesn’t notice her failing senses. They’ll be working together on household fragrances, not posh perfumes. How hard can it be?

Organizing a conference for Professor Philip Putzel isn't high on Nina Spark's to-do list. All she wants is to enjoy the sun and sand at her new home on Pineapple Cay, hopefully with handsome fishing guide Ted Matthews by her side. But saying no to Philip isn't easy, especially after a mysterious assailant tried to kill him following his delivery of a scathing keynote address.

In this darkly comic memoir, a young woman recounts the steps she took to rebuild her sense of self in the aftermath of two devastating strokes that robbed her of her ability to communicate. Nina Mitchell was an accomplished Harvard graduate whose world changed forever when her facility with language - and much of her personality - disappeared. Lacking the tools to navigate her old life, Nina was forced to create another one. In After Words, she shares her remarkable journey as she slowly reclaims the power to converse, write, assert her identity, and to be herself - with words.

Former marine Maggie Riley has just set sail for the Caribbean, ready for a little R&R on her 40-foot boat before starting a work assignment in Dominica. Then Cole Thatcher appears. Sexy, naked - and possibly nuts - Cole turns out to be an archaeologist searching for the wreckage from a World War II submarine that may hold millions in gold coins and classified documents from a powerful inner circle of the secret society Skull and Bones.

When her father got remarried 14 years ago, Zach first entered Missy's life. The marriage only lasted a year, but her ex-stepbrother kept hanging around. Now Zach works with her in her father's landscaping business, and he's sweeter, funnier, and sexier than ever. And Missy can't help but wonder if it's wrong to think about him in a different way. He was only her stepbrother for a year, after all, and now he's acting like he wants to be a lot more.

Whether diving into complicated relationships or wrestling with family ties, the girls and women who populate this collection - misfits and misanthropes, bickering sisters, responsible daughters, and unhappy wives - don't always find themselves making the best decisions. Utterly singular and wholly unforgettable, Emma Duffy-Comparone's stories manage to be slyly, wickedly funny at even their darkest turns and herald the arrival of an irreverent and dazzling new voice.