Showing results by narrator "Gail Shalan" in All Categories

 In 1906, 15-year-old Forrestina Bradley runs away from her stifling life of ease and joins the circus as a tightrope walker. After a tragedy forces her to leave the circus, she embarks on a life of nomadic adventure, running a carnival rat-game and becoming involved in an illegal dance hall and moonshine business near the banks of the White River in Arkansas during Prohibition. 

She'd inherited Jack Manning's bold heart, tempered once in a very great while by her stepfather's gentle upbringing and her mother's practical nature. But as far as Jackie Manning Bradshaw is concerned, she'll need that bold heart to work her way onto the Broadway stage, the only place she's ever wanted to be.

October, 1917 - Lena Garson, 19 years old, daughter of an old-fashioned banker and his wife, thinks of herself as a very well brought up young lady leading a quiet life with a predicable future. When Clarence Muldoon, son of the richest man in town, begins to court her, Lena feels her life is now going in the direction her parents want for her.

When Lena Manning finds herself widowed after World War I, she must build a new life for herself and her infant daughter. With the help of her church, she finds stability and contentment until the arrival of a new pastor turns her quiet life upside down. Turned out of her job at the church, Lena is offered employment and a home with a wealthy family. When the son of the house pursues her, she is drawn into the seductive world of wealth and power. Can she survive the secrets of that world, or will fear drive her back to her church where she can no longer be sure of her welcome?

In the early 1800s, Lark and her brother set out to cross the North American continent to settle in the west. In the wilderness, she finally tastes the freedom her restless soul has thirsted for all her life. However, when she meets Charles, a half Crow who feels just as out of place in the world as she does, Lark begins to understand that her wanderlust isn't just a hunt for a new home - it's for someone who can love her independent spirit.

Heather Kaminsky returns to Bethany Beach, Delaware with its farms, boardwalk, and freedom and her Great Aunt Ruby Wellington's house. She's there to help her dying aunt, but she doesn't even think she can help herself, after surviving a brutal attack and quitting her corporate job in her 30s.

Patty Gayle and the Legend of Kingsley is a fantasy set in Kingsley Lake, Florida, in 1960. It's the journey of Patty Gayle, a twelve-year-old awkward girl, who doesn't think she has much purpose in life until she is given a key that unlocks possibilities of which she could only dream. The key leads her on an adventure to a magical land that she thought only existed in her grandmother's stories.

There is nothing extraordinary about Tucker O’Shay’s dreams. Go to college. Become president. Fall in love. And pretend like he has enough time to get it all done. Sixteen-year-old Sarah Miller doesn’t expect anything out of the ordinary when she begins her first day at the one-room-school house in her new hometown of Rocky Knob. But when she meets seventeen-year-old Tucker O’Shay she finds herself swept up in a friendship that changes the way she sees the world and a love that changes her life.

How does someone give their heart away when they don't have all of the pieces? Not that Makenna really wants a second chance at love anyway. She is stuck in her tragic past, secretly living every day for her deceased fiancé, while her new boyfriend, Drew, is gently nudging her into the present. Desperate to appear normal again, she slaps on a happy face and goes through the motions of a normal, healthy relationship - but with the exception of even a single kiss.

It's Christmas and there are wedding bells ringing around Coulter's Restaurant as they prepare to celebrate Rosalie and Michael's wedding. But the bride is hiding something, a secret that she won't even share with her fiance, and that secret has Rosalie calling off the wedding. Can Grace, her best friend, intervene in time to save Rosalie from making the biggest mistake of her life?

Grace Coulter has been hiding in the kitchen of her family restaurant since she was eight years old. That's when the name-calling began. Stretch, skinny-minny, boy in girl's clothes, all because of the slender height that had her towering over even the tallest boys in the class. Now, nearly thirty years later, Grace is head chef of the failing restaurant and still hiding in the kitchen. Like many businesses during the current recession, Coulter's may have to start laying off employees or even close.

Fall in love all over again. Seventeen-year-old Taylor Lawton has a crush on Timothy Cooper, a boy at her school, and as crushes go, things are normal. He ignores her. She doesn't speak to him. Until their English teacher, Mrs. Walker puts them on a project together. A turn of fate then throws them both for a loop. For an entire week, they will stay beneath the same roof. Will this be too much togetherness? What will Taylor do with Timothy's painful secret? A light audiobook with a touching storyline, this tale is enjoyable for both young adults and grown-ups alike.

Historical fact-based fiction about the famous spy who played a key role in Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. This narrative takes place between July 1861 and July 1862 and is the first in a series about the Confederate Secret Service and the women who were its most effective agents. Belle Boyd was the first woman in American History to be formally commissioned an army officer.

Hit the jackpot with stories from Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, Alexander McCall Smith, and more superstars of mystery. 

In the second of the Hometown trilogy, ex-Afghanistan vet paramedic Frankie McGill and resident deputy Gabe Zantos are caught up in a case of arson. A house at the end of a country road has stood vacant for years; it's occupants mice and the stray raccoon or two. When the derelict house catches fire, the only reason the Hawkesford Fire Department responds is because of the danger to the dry wheat fields surrounding it. But then not only a gunshot victim, but a charred body is found inside the house, along with evidence of a meth cooking operation. Accident, or murder?

From USA Today bestselling author J.W. Ocker comes a chilling middle grade horror perfect for fans of R.L. Stine and Holly Black alike. Noe Wiley couldn’t be more excited to move. After the slumber party sleepwalking incident of last year, she’s ready to make some new friends. But Noe...

From the author of Five Things About Ava Andrews comes a new middle grade stand-alone novel with STEM and activism themes, set against the backdrop of beautiful Zion National Park. With the perfect blend of humor and heart, this poignant story about family, grief, and changes beyond our control...

'Sexy and self-assured, Skin Contact is irresistible' Ada Calhoun, author of Crush Unmoored by her mother's sudden death, Frances has never felt so diminished, so lost, or so old. She's painfully aware that strangers no longer look at her the same way - and that she's now, at thirty-two, older...

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection An ALA Rise: A Feminist Book Project List Selection “Soaring and searing.” —Elizabeth Acevedo, former Young People’s Poet Laureate and New York Times bestselling author of Poet X A promising young singer recovers from a traumatic experience...

It's 2067, and the Graves family has transformed Mars from a lifeless rock into a chaotic patch of settlements – equal parts national pride and corporate power grab. Enter Hunter Graves: handsome, ambitious and with spectacularly bad timing. He shows up unannounced at the United Nations base just in time for a toxin alert to set off every alarm they've got. Then the evac pods leave without him. Also stranded: Cleo, a sharp-tongued stowaway with no intention of dying today, and even less patience for overconfident trust-fund boys...