Showing results by narrator "Laurence Bouvard" in All Categories

Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura's prearranged marriage to the son of her father's business associate would secure her family's status in their traditional Japanese community, but Naoko has fallen for another man - an American sailor, a gaijin - and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it's learned Naoko carries the sailor's child, she's cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations.

From best-selling author Kristin von Kreisler comes a poignant, uplifting novel of one woman's journey to healing, and the surprising soul mate that helps guide her there. Lila Elliot knows she's lucky. A shooting rampage at her office left several colleagues dead and others seriously wounded. Lila's injuries will heal in time. Yet though she gratefully retreats to her best friend's house to recuperate, Lila can't quite move past her fear and anger.

Jean McClellan spends her time in almost complete silence, limited to just 100 words a day. Any more, and a thousand volts of electricity will course through her veins. Now the new government is in power, everything has changed. But only if you’re a woman. Almost overnight, bank accounts are frozen, passports are taken away and 70 million women lose their jobs. Even more terrifyingly, young girls are no longer taught to read or write.

After his train is robbed at gunpoint, Remington Frost awakens from a blow to find the bandits gone - along with the woman he was shadowing for protection. No stranger to risk, Remington will do what it takes to bring Phoebe Apple to safety and her kidnappers to justice. But ransoming Phoebe is just the start of trouble....

Margo hasn’t been back to Lake Moss since her friend went missing. But as she returns, the news breaks. Her hometown’s swimming hole has been Jessie’s grave for 15 years. Digging out her old diary, and steeling herself to face unfriendly ghosts from her past, Margo sets out to help a documentary crew as they return to investigate the infamous case the police bungled.

Imagine you are a hunter-gatherer some 12,000 years ago. You've got a choice - carry on foraging or plant a few seeds and move to one of those new-fangled settlements down the valley. What you won't know is that urban life is short and riddled with dozens of new diseases; your children will be shorter and sicklier than you are; they'll be plagued with gum disease and stand a decent chance of violent death at the point of a spear. Why would anyone choose this? But choose they did.

Every civilization has its myths. Only one is true. When 18-year-old Keiko Yamada's father dies unexpectedly, he leaves behind a one way ticket to Japan, an unintelligible death poem about powerful Japanese spirits and their gigantic, beast-like Guardians, and the cryptic words: Go to Japan in my place. Find the Gate. My camera will show you the way. Alone and afraid, Keiko travels to Tokyo, determined to fulfill her father's dying wish.

In the heat of the Rio Carnival, Ellie succumbs to her charismatic boss Diogo Serrador. But having taken her virginity, the Brazilian billionaire wants nothing more to do with her until he discovers she’s pregnant. Diogo will accept nothing less than taking Ellie as his bride. Their marriage is passionate by night but empty by day—for Diogo’s dark past has frozen his heart.

Dani and her husband Tate’s life together is almost perfect. But Dani is haunted by guilt for causing a terrible car accident that left her unable to have children. She can’t remember why she was driving so fast that day or where she was going. Her therapist says she should try to move on.

CEO Lisa Messenger shares an insightful account of her rollercoaster ride as the creator and founder of the globally popular Collective Hub, the hip magazine of inspiration for disrupters and innovators of all stripes - with bold ideas on how you can stay on track and remain true to whatever your passion may be. Speaking to the new generation of innovators, this book is a personal and honest chronicle of Lisa Messenger's various business endeavors. Exuding honesty and energy, Lisa blends these wonderfully insightful stories with important business lessons.

Vivian is a cosmopolitan Taiwanese-American tourist who often escapes her busy life in London through adventure and travel. Johnny is a 15-year-old Irish teenager living a neglected life on the margins of society. He has grown up in a family where crime is customary, violence is a necessity, and everything - and anyone - can be yours for the taking. As Vivian looks to find her calling professionally, she delights in exploring foreign countries, rolling hillsides, and new cultures. But all of that changes when...Vivian's path collides with Johnny.

For the last 28 summers, Alice and Tom have met to rekindle the passionate love affair they began all those years ago. Each married to someone else, with busy lives and happy families, they've managed to keep their secret and to keep their love alive. But nothing is forever. Tom's wife is in the national spotlight for her controversial and increasingly popular campaign for political office, and Alice has received a diagnosis that puts her future in doubt. Could their 28th summer together also be their last?

In this prequel to Practical Magic, we meet the Aunts: sisters Frances and Jet, and Vincent, their brother. Their mother, Susanna, knew they were unique: pale, red-haired Franny, who could commune with birds; shy, beautiful Jet, who knows what others are thinking; and charismatic Vincent, built for trouble. Susanna sets some rules of magic: no walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles and absolutely no books about magic.

On the planet of Higo, without the guidance of the Great Spirits, its people are descending into religious civil war. Baiyren Tallaenaq, Prince of Higo, is exiled after causing the death of his mother. Freed from his responsibilities and the looming war, he steals their greatest weapon - a giant, sentient armoured suit - and uses it to open a portal to a world he never knew existed. A world called Earth...home of a magical young woman called Keiko.

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old Jewish girl, is arrested by the French police in the middle of the night, along with her mother and father. Desperate to protect her younger brother, she locks him in a cupboard and promises to come back for him as soon as she can. Paris, May 2002: Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked to write about the 60th anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv'--the infamous day in 1942 when French police rounded up thousands of Jewish men, women and children.

On a cold day in 1997, student Sara Morgan was killed in the woods surrounding her liberal-arts college in Upstate New York. Her boyfriend, Blake Campbell, confessed, his plea of temporary insanity raising more questions than it answered. In the wake of his acquittal, the case comes to haunt a strange and surprising network of community members, from the young woman who discovers Sara’s body to the junior reporter who senses its connection to convicted local serial killer John Logan.

Missy Masters inherited more than the usual genetic cocktail from her estranged grandfather. She also got his preternatural control of shadows and his enduring legacy as the legendary vigilante superhero, Mr. Mystic. After a little work the costume fits okay, but Missy is far from experienced at fighting crime, so she journeys to China to seek the aid of Lung Huang, the ancient master who once guided her grandfather.

This is the first academic study of sneakers and the subculture that surrounds them. Since the 1980s, American sneaker enthusiasts, popularly known as 'sneakerheads' or 'sneakerholics', have created a distinctive identity for themselves, while sneaker manufacturers such as Reebok, Puma and Nike have become global fashion brands. How have sneakers come to gain this status and what makes them fashionable?

Thanks to Sofia, cult-leader Franz Oswald is now in custody awaiting trial for the horrific things that took place on Fog Island. With the help of a fashionable lawyer, Franz is spinning a web of revenge that stretches far outside his prison walls. When Sofia determines to speak out about the sect, her life once again turns into a living nightmare. No matter where she runs, Oswald’s network seems to reach her. And in the wake of his final revenge, Sophia must ask herself the crucial question—can one ever be free from a cult?

The year is 1880. Two hundred years after the trials in Salem, witches Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St Clair finally feel safe and have opened a tea shop in Manhattan, specialising in cures, palmistry and potions. When an enchanting young woman called Beatrice joins the witches as an apprentice, she soon proves indispensable, but her new life is marred by strange occurrences. She sees things no one else can see. She hears voices no one else can hear. Objects appear out of thin air, as if gifts from the dead.