Showing results by narrator "Shannon McManus" in All Categories

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.

When sheltered artist Julia Castillo flees her hometown, she has just one goal: to prove to her overbearing family once and for all that she can make it on her own. After she moves to Sanctuary, West Virginia, her horse paintings take the art world by storm. Yet Julia finds her courage tested as never before - by her love for a handsome country lawyer, by her bond with a dangerous black stallion, and by the secret she is so desperate to keep…

Fresh out of beauty school, Becca's all business...and the last thing she needs is bad boy Nate Parrish anywhere in her life. In the past Nate was trouble. He's been trying to repair his reputation - heck, he's even got just one girlfriend. The problem is she isn't Becca. Now Nate's in a whole lot of hot water. He needs to get Becca from "I won't" to "I do"...but how can he do that when she won't even say "I might"?

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....

Now, hunted by the king's soldiers, Aurora's only chance of freeing her kingdom from the king's tyrannical rule is learning to control her magic. But Aurora's powers come at a price - one that forces her to leave the only home she's ever known, one that demands she choose between the man she loves and the people she seeks to protect, and one that will cause her to unravel the mysteries surrounding the curse that was placed on her over a century before...and uncover the truth about her destiny.

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.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Radical is this fearless advocate's incisive, intensely personal call-to-arms. Rhee combines the story of her own extraordinary experience with dozens of compelling examples from schools she's worked in and studied-from students from unspeakable home lives who have thrived in the classroom to teachers whose radical methods have produced unprecedented leaps in achievement. Radical chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child, her rage at the special interests blocking badly-needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to create outstanding public schools.

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.

Both exhilarating and wrenching, Hilary T. Smith's debut novel captures the messy glory of being alive, as seventeen-year-old Kiri Byrd discovers love, loss, chaos, and murder woven into a summer of music, madness, piercing heartbreak, and intoxicating joy.

Libby St. Clair believes in fate - so much so, she's willing to pin everything on a curse a fortune-teller placed on her and her two best friends when they were kids. The curse, that each of them will marry before 30, have a disaster of a wedding, and end up with a man other than her original fiancé, has come to fruition for both of her friends, who are now deliriously happy. But Libby's attempt to quick-start the curse by proposing to her wrong-for-her boyfriend ends in a wild dash from the altar.

Women are missing and dying in the Triangle area of North Carolina. One woman holds the key to why. With the conclusion of the Y-Man murders nine months ago and her resignation from the FBI, former Special Agent and Behavioral Analyst Rainey Bell has finally found peace and contentment she never thought possible - even if she remains a bit paranoid. Her wariness is justified when a monster from her past rears his demonic head. Rainey has faced death and evil before - alone. Now it’s different - she has a family to protect, her own. Only Rainey can keep them alive. Or can she?

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.

From the small towns of Appalachia they came, the young men who joined the fight for liberty in World War II. Now they are elderly, and some of them - like Harmon Strayer, father of prosecutor Bell Elkins's former law school classmate - suffer from Alzheimer's. When Harmon dies in an Alzheimer's care facility from what appear to be natural causes, Bell confronts a mystery that brims with questions about memory, grief and the lethal cost of burying the past.

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.

The girl with no past, and no future, may be the only one who can save their lives. Nisha was abandoned at the gates of the City of a Thousand Dolls when she was just a little girl. Now 16, she lives on the grounds of the isolated estate, where orphan girls apprentice as musicians, healers, courtesans, and, if the rumors are true, assassins. She makes her way as Matron's errand girl, her closest companions the mysterious cats that trail her shadow. Only when she begins a forbidden flirtation with the city's handsome young courier does she let herself imagine a life outside the walls. Until one by one, girls around her start to die.

After yet another heartbreak, Flynn Crane is pretty much done with dating. She's not even sure she can keep her grandparents' struggling bed-and-breakfast afloat. But just as she's about to give up on both her business and her dream of settling down in Boot Creek, Ford Morton walks back into her life.

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....

Sixteen-year-old Baltimore teen Bethany Stern knows the only way out of spending her summer at Camp Utopia, a fat camp in Northern California, is weight-loss. Desperate, she tries The Forgiveness Diet, the latest fad whose infomercial promises that all she has to do is forgive her deadbeat dad, her scandalous sister, and the teenage magician next door and (unrequited) love of her life. But when the diet fails and her camp nemesis delivers the ultimate blow, Bee bids sayonara to Camp-not-Utopian-at-all to begin what she believes will be her "real" summer adventure.

After her assistant DA boyfriend's near brush with death, Rose Gardner hopes to make it through the holiday season with a minimal amount of drama. But she can't forget the promise she made to the king of the Fenton County underworld in exchange for Mason's life.

Savannah Dey politely agreed to attend her ex-husband's wedding, but she'd be grateful for any reason to get out of it...which is why the speeding ticket from the handsome sheriff of Adams Grove is both a surprise and a reprieve. With one quick call to her editor, the aspiring columnist finds herself with a new assignment and the perfect excuse to get closer to the man who pulled her over. Now, all she needs is a way to deal with all the bad memories the small town dredges up.