Showing results by narrator "Abby Craden" in All Categories

Denver detective Jake McCoy is trying to recover - both physically and emotionally - from the shooting death of a young boy that also left her injured. She soon finds herself rehabbing at her cabin in the mountains, soaking in the remote natural springs - which is exactly where psychologist Nicole Westbrook vacations and soon stumbles across her.... When Nicole leaves the next day, the two women know little more about the other than her first name - yet they are now lovers instead of strangers.

Two years have passed since Dominique Laroche was elected president of France at the end of French Kissing: Season Three. She and Steph are living together at the Elysée, but their relationship is strained by the demands of Dominique's job. When a rising star of the opposition proposes a new law that would affect lesbians' right to have children, Dominique is torn between her personal feelings and her party's political line.

The United States is obsessed with virginity from the media to schools to government agencies. In The Purity Myth Jessica Valenti argues that the country’s intense focus on chastity is damaging to young women. Through in-depth cultural and social analysis, Valenti reveals that powerful messaging on both extremes ranging from abstinence curriculum to Girls Gone Wild infomercials place a young woman’s worth entirely on her sexuality. Morals are therefore linked purely to sexual behavior, rather than values like honesty, kindness, and altruism.

When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad's leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can't bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril.

When their paths cross in the high-mountain air, city-dweller Leigh is certain she has nothing in common with this rustic mountain woman named Margo. But even the frostiest of hearts can be taken by surprise.

Tori Hunter always worked solo, but in Samantha Kennedy, she found a partner, in more ways than one. Casey O'Connor isn't thrilled to learn that she has a new partner on the way. It's been hard enough to transition from working with live victims to dead ones. Now, Leslie Turner is going to slow down the process. Professional duty trumps personal issues as the detectives focus on their latest case, a killer whose choice of victim is solitary women. The investigation raises a lot of questions around the killer's means and opportunities.

The flâneur is the quintessentially masculine figure of privilege and leisure who strides the capitals of the world with abandon. But it is the flâneuse who captures the imagination of the cultural critic Lauren Elkin. In her wonderfully gender-bending new book, the flâneuse is a "determined, resourceful individual keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city and the liberating possibilities of a good walk." Virginia Woolf called it "street haunting"; Holly Golightly epitomized it in Breakfast at Tiffany's; and Patti Smith did it in her own inimitable style in 1970s NYC.

Hitting rock bottom in the concrete jungle of Manhattan, investigative journalist Jamie Walker lands the assignment of a lifetime: Find the most elusive artist of a generation, who has enthralled the art and fashion world for more than a decade.

Los Angeles Police Detective Margaret Nolan and her partner have worked a lot of different cases, ones where things aren’t always as they appear. And it’s Nolan’s job to find the truth in the darkness around her. When they’re called to the scene of what looks like a fatal car-jacking, Nolan soon realizes her victim was a founder of a company about to sell for millions, and within a day of his death, his partner’s wife is abducted. As Nolan learns more about the victim and his life, she gets pulled into a disturbing world of sex, violence, and big business.

When a 71-year-old man is shot dead in his home, it seems like a random act of violence. But the hundreds of photos of Detective Tori Hunter found at the scene seem to say otherwise. And when the gun that proves to be the murder weapon in the brutal murder of Tori’s family some 30-something years earlier is found, Tori is not only facing her past, but a massive conflict of interest.

In the heart of Paris, Chiara Conti is a Queen trapped in an Ivory Tower of haute couture, fortune and lovelessness. Lonely and dejected, she's longing for inspiration, for direction, for understanding. When Vi Courtenay falls at her feet, losing her shoe like a veritable Cinderella, events are set in motion that will unravel their carefully fashioned lives. With everything tainted, will the thin lines they rend ever be mended?

Since emigrating from Bangladesh, 14-year-old Nadira and her family have been living in New York City on expired visas, hoping to realize their dream of becoming legal U.S. citizens. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly being Muslim means you are dangerous - a suspected terrorist. When Nadira's father is arrested and detained at the U.S.-Canadian border, Nadira and her older sister, Aisha, are told to carry on as if everything is the same. The teachers at Flushing High don't ask any questions, but Aisha falls apart....

Anita Topaz, Queen of the Bodice Rippers, is deliberately a woman of mystery. But pressure is mounting for Anita to reveal herself to her clamoring public. It's scrutiny that writer Paris Ellison can't allow, especially since the glamorous "Anita" is a work of pure fiction. Lady Diana Beckinsale excels at disappearing into a good role. Especially if that role gets her close to certain objects she desires. When Diana proposes the perfect solution to Paris' predicament, Paris is less than enthusiastic. She can't let someone as unsettling and observant as Diana get too close.

It’s an offer Grace Logan can’t refuse: ghostwrite the memoir of Claudia Blackwood, a successful novelist once accused of a ghastly triple murder. Did she really do it? In self-imposed exile in her island mansion, the frail Claudia is finally bringing her notorious past to a close. But for Grace, the end of Claudia’s story may be more than a sinister reveal…

Olivia Chevalier is perfectly happy living a quiet life of solitude with her two cats in the tempestuous countryside of Brittany. Olivia’s peace is disrupted when heart-breaker extraordinaire Marie Dievart moves in to the holiday home next door after an event at work makes her flee her everyday life. Olivia hates having a neighbor and Marie is put off by Olivia’s cranky ways. But maybe these two women have more in common than they first believe.

Jessica Niemi is put on leave after a violent altercation between her and a belligerent man makes headlines. To escape the unwanted scrutiny, Jessica travels to a remote island in the Åland archipelago and rents a room at a small seaside inn. She is hoping to be left alone as she faces the possibility that she is losing what is left of her sanity but three elderly visitors have arrived at the inn for their yearly sojourn.

Parker Black has put her bad girl days behind her. Once the rebellious, womanizing middle child of the wealthiest family in Seattle, she's now the founder and CEO of a luxury lingerie label. But when an incident from her past resurfaces, everything she's built threatens to come crashing down. For up-and-coming public relations specialist Julia Conner, her job is her life. A former foster kid, she's spent years climbing the ladder. So when Parker contacts her to help her come back from a scandal, Julia is determined to prove she can handle a big-name client like Parker Black.

Sophisticated. Scandalous. In fact, Miss Sarah Hamilton, a proper Philadelphian, finds London society altogether shocking. How can it be that she has awakened from her innocent slumber to find herself in bed next to a handsome - and exceedingly naked - man? The laughing onlookers standing in the doorway are no help whatsoever and surely this amorous lunatic cannot be a duke, as he claims. She is compromised - though she most certainly will not marry him!

Who wants to take a road trip with two old, bickering women and a complete stranger? Not Jill Savoy. She finds herself behind the wheel of her father's sacred Winnebago anyway, responsible for her grandmother and adopted aunt, both of whom are mischievous teenagers in old bodies, and then there's Shay.

How far would you go to protect your family? Ann Brooks never thought she’d have to answer that question. Then she found her limits tested by a crisis no one could prevent. Now, as her neighborhood descends into panic, she must make tough choices to protect everyone she loves from a threat she cannot even see. In this chillingly urgent novel, Carla Buckley confronts us with the terrifying decisions we are forced to make when ordinary life changes overnight.