Showing results by narrator "Nicol Zanzarella" in All Categories

After losing his parents and sister in a fire, Jake is raised by his grandparents. As he transforms from a traumatized boy to an exceptional student athlete and finally to an ambitious assistant DA, he learns to hide a crippling fear behind a stony mask. Until she turns 13, Bettina (Tina) Berenson is a shy, bookish girl rejected by both parents. But her life radically changes when her father starts taking her to the places he frequents: racetracks, prizefights, nightclubs, and the occasional company of gangsters he admires.

The father of the Kentucky Derby called him "the greatest all-around Thoroughbred in American racing history". Sportswriter Grantland Rice simply called him "the greatest racehorse". Now Eliza McGraw tells the story of how a gangling, long-shot Kentucky Derby winner named Exterminator became one of the most beloved racehorses of all time.

It is April 2003. American forces have taken Baghdad and are now charged with winning hearts and minds. But this vital tipping point is barely recognized for what it is, as a series of miscalculations and blunders fuels an already-simmering insurgency intent on making Iraq the next graveyard of empires. In dazzling and propulsive prose, Brian Van Reet explores the lives on both sides of the battle lines.

Life went terribly wrong for Addie Bates in San Diego, and she's been running from dark memories ever since. For 15 years, the Sleepy Valley Nudist Colony has provided a safe haven for Addie to hide from the crime she committed. But when the residents pack up to go on exhibit at the 1935 world's fair in San Diego, Addie returns and must face the thrilling yet terrifying prospect of reuniting with her estranged sister, Wavey.

From the time he was a young boy roaming the forests of the unsettled Midwest, Abraham Lincoln knew in his heart that slavery was deeply wrong. The passion for humanity that defined Lincoln's life shines through in this portrait of a truly great American president.

Ranging in age from six to 40, 38 sons and daughters of lesbians offer brief essays that could be valuable to like offspring, as well as to relatives and friends trying to understand the problems such children face. Homophobia, visited upon the children as well as their mothers, is the most commonly cited concern; some younger contributors feel isolated from their peers, and a couple of boys endure rejection from radical lesbian acquaintances.

Decisively aimless, dangerously self-destructive, and impulsively in and out of love, Elsie is a young woman who feels stuck. She has a tumultuous relationship with an abusive boyfriend, a dead-end job at a newspaper, and a sharp intelligence that is at odds with the bad decisions she's making. When her initial attempts to improve her life go awry, Elsie decides that a dramatic change is the only way to fix things - to somehow make more of herself, to find a new way to live.

Michael Chabon once said, "I scan the tables of contents of magazines, looking for Antonya Nelson's name, hoping that she has decided to bless us again." And now she has blessed us again, with a bounty of the stories for which she is so beloved. Her stories are clear-eyed, hard-edged, beautifully formed. In the title story, "Funny Once", a couple held together by bad behavior fall into a lie with their more responsible friends.

Faith Simpson is born at the dawn of the twentieth century into a dynasty that gives her everything she will ever need - except her parents' love and attention. Often misunderstood, she trusts few as she grows up on the family's manicured Long Island estate. Just twenty-nine miles away, on lower Manhattan's dirty, crowded streets, Hope Lee's world is one of poverty and desperation.

This could work, whispered the little voice in the back of her mind, the voice that had been silent for seven years...Years ago, former Marine Captain Cecily Knight fled her dark past and the nightmares forever haunting her nights. Alone in the remote Canadian wilderness, she survives day to day...until Ian Fairchild comes storming into her life and shatters her protective seclusion. Until one touch bared her soul. Aloof but intriguing, defensive but undeniable, Ian is everything Cecily shouldn't want but can't ignore.

Hailey Dean, the prosecutor who's never lost a case, heads to Savannah as an expert witness on the sensational Julie Love-Adams murder trial, but she soon finds herself embroiled in a mystery and an unexpected love affair. At the baggage claim, Hailey is greeted by the handsome Lieutenant Chase Billings. On their way to her hotel, they hear an all-points bulletin for a murder that has just been committed.

Joyce loves Luca. Luca loves Joyce. Frank loves his family and will do anything to protect it, even if it means taking away his brother's reason for existing. Falling takes only one step, one movement of the chess piece, and in Joyce's fall she took more than just one heart with her. Go back to the beginning, where the drama of the Elect all starts. Go back to the first part of the story, where true love tried to conquer all. Where true love failed.

A fourteen-year-old girl disappears on the small island of Föhr, and Detective Lena Lorenzen is called in to investigate. When the girl’s bloodied body is found on the beach with vicious wounds to the wrist, Lena immediately suspects that what’s been made to look like suicide was in fact a brutal and calculated murder. But the local residents - even the girl’s own parents - won’t cooperate with her investigation. The devoutly religious islanders are clearly hiding something. But what ungodly secret could possibly lead to the murder of an innocent teenage girl?

Moving to a new city was supposed to be a fresh start for her family. Now it’s a nightmare. Her little girl was supposed to be at day care when Kelsey arrived to pick her up. But they have no record of her daughter ever being there. And to make matters worse, her husband is missing too - he won’t pick up his phone, and the school he supposedly works at says he never accepted their job offer.

Ex-FBI agent Cody O'Brien lives a quiet life in Northern California. Self-sufficient and content, she provides a good home for herself and her eight-year-old son, Ryan. But all of that is shattered when Ryan is kidnapped is broad daylight. Cody's greatest fear is knowing the true motive behind the abduction. For her entire life is a lie - one so easily exposed, and so very dangerous. A woman of hard-earned courage, she escaped the killers responsible for her husband's murder and learned to start over. Failed by the Witness Protection Program, she trusts only herself to save her son.

Annadel, West Virginia, was a small town rich in coal, farms, and close-knit families, all destroyed when the coal company came in. It stole everything it hadn't bothered to buy - land deeds, private homes, and ultimately, the souls of its men and women. Four people tell this powerful, deeply moving tale: Activist Mayor C. J. Marcum. Fierce, loveless union man Rondal Lloyd. Gutsy nurse Carrie Bishop, who loved Rondal. And lonely Sicilian immigrant Rosa Angelelli, who lost four sons to the deadly mines.

Twins Rosie and Ivory have grown up at their ringmaster mother’s knee, and after years on the road, they’re returning to Port's End, the closest place to home they know. Yet something has changed in the bustling city: fundamentalist flyers paper the walls and preachers fill the squares, warning of shadows falling over the land. The circus prepares a triumphant homecoming show, full of lights and spectacle that could chase away even the darkest shadow. But during Rosie’s tightrope act, disaster strikes.

It's been two months since Petra Dee and her coyote sidekick, Sig, faced off against Temperance's resident alchemist, but things are far from quiet. When an internet video of a massive snake in the backcountry of Yellowstone goes viral, a chase for the mythical basilisk is on. Monster hunters swarm into the area, and never one to pass up the promise of discovery, Petra joins in the search.

Petra Dee and her immortal husband, Gabe, have been trying to gain a toehold in what passes for ordinary life in Temperance, Wyoming - a wickedly enchanted land founded generations ago by the alchemist Lascaris. Petra may be adept when it comes to the uncanny, but as a reasoned geologist, Petra still can’t fathom the wildfires suddenly engulfing Yellowstone National Park or why Gabe claims to have seen the sky explode in flames. The answers could lie in the past.

Though she still misses her late husband, Carlo, Bria couldn't be happier that their dream bed and breakfast, Bella Bella, is humming along nicely. Of course, even on the stunning Amalfi Coast, things seldom run smoothly. Like Bria's mother and mother-in-law dueling over a suitable communion site for Bria's eight-year-old son Marco. Bria's also juggling the demands of the famous Chef Lugo, his producer, Massimo, and Pippa, a member of the production crew who is staying at Bella Bella for a nice, long-term stay . . .