Showing results by narrator "Emily Smith" in All Categories

Catherine Clarke defied her family's expectations when she married Gabriel, a handsome Lebanese businessman. After moving to Gabriel's homeland and welcoming a baby daughter, Catherine knew she had to acclimate herself to the strange new world. Yet both her husband and her surroundings became more volatile and threatening than she could have ever imagined. When Gabriel forbids her to return to the States, Catherine devises a plan to deceive him, but she vastly underestimates how far he will go to punish her.

Needing to get out of Manhattan after a personal tragedy, Abby Markstein accepts a teaching job in the heart of flyover country. One night while jogging through a deserted hollow, she comes upon a car consumed in flames. The only thing more horrifying than the dead man at the wheel is the live one smiling at her in the livid glow of the fire. Welcome to Lewisburg, Indiana. The lone witness to the gruesome roadside slaying, Abby quickly learns that the quiet town conceals many secrets.

Rebecca Meer's hometown of Ward, Nebraska, is small - so small that she can't even sneak home after a drunken girls' night without running into at least three people she knows. But she has bigger problems than her reputation. The head doctor at her fertility clinic is losing his mind, and his wild behavior could cost them the business. Her supersuccessful ex-boyfriend has blown back into town and somehow become her son's fifth-grade teacher.

Though her specialty is foreign cyberterrorism, CIA agent Kera Mersal finds herself plunged into a bizarre domestic case. Singers, writers, and artists are disappearing, leaving no trace in a world where everyone leaves a digital footprint. Posing as a journalist, Kera attempts to track the artists' last-known movements.

May 1870. Crowds throng the Boston station, mesmerized by the Pullman Hotel Express, the first train to travel from coast to coast. Boarding the train are congressmen, railroad presidents, and even George Pullman himself. For two young women, strangers until this fateful day, it’s the beginning of journey that will change their lives. Sensitive Louisa dreads the trip, but has reluctantly joined the excursion as a governess to a wealthy family. Hattie is traveling to San Francisco to meet her fiancé, yet she’s far more interested in the workings of the locomotive....

Esme and Benedict Werner have an idyllic life in a tight-knit community until an accident in their cul-de-sac ends in the tragic sudden death of one of their dearest neighbors. After vindicating eyewitness accounts morph into contradictory memories, suspicion, and unaccountable accusations, Benedict is arrested. Esme’s life, too, is changed forever.

Kara Martinson always thought her high school crush was out of her league, but they did share one night she's never been able to forget. Nearly three decades after being disowned by her parents and forced to raise her son on her own, Kara's made it - her art is being toasted at a gallery opening. Even better, she and her son are finally on stable ground. Until Mr. One-Night Stand himself crashes her party. Harry Canton always knew Kara would make it as an artist. Almost 30 years after high school, he still considers her the one that got away.

SETH BOYD has become Loon Lake's unlikely celebrity. Since self-publishing his memoir about searching for the Lake Superior monster, aka Soupy, he has gained national attention. He hopes the newfound focus will help locate Soupy once and for all. He's also happy to bring tourism to the town and hopes his longtime crush, ELISE MCKENNA, approves.

Morgan Bailey's complicated life - dragon boyfriend, witches, vampires to slay, the ongoing pursuit of coffee - is about to turn more complicated. The Fairy Queen is calling in a favor. She wants Morgan to exterminate the djinn. If that isn't bad enough, her nemesis Alister has gone completely mad, and most alarmingly, Inigo isn't quite himself. It's enough to make a vampire hunter yearn for the simpler days: stake 'em and leave 'em.

With an old friend in mortal danger and the Dragon King demanding her presence, vampire hunter Morgan Bailey is stuck between a rock and a volcano. Jack's gone AWOL, her nemesis is running amok with a magical book, and soul vampires are snacking on steampunk enthusiasts. Not to mention Morgan still has a price on her head.

From the bestselling author of The Dead Key and No One’s Home, comes a thriller about a haunted mansion, a missing girl, and the woman who connects them. Life fell apart for Mannie Wallace after her daughter’s best friend was abducted from the playground right under Mannie’s nose. Six...

A keenly perceptive coming of age novel for fans of Sally Rooney, Curtis Sittenfeld, and J. Courtney Sullivan, All Girls follows nine young women as they navigate their ambitions and fears at a prestigious New England prep school, all pitched against the backdrop of a scandal the administration wants silenced.

In May 1972, Liese Greensfelder arrived in the small Norwegian town of Øystese to startling news: Johannes, the farmer who hired her for the summer, had just been hospitalized after a stroke. Could she please watch over his place for a month or so, until he got back on his feet? Twenty years old and with no farming experience, Liese was dropped off the next day at a centuries-old mountain farm at the end of a dirt road high above the magnificent Hardanger Fjord—with 115 sheep, two cows, one calf, a draft horse, and a Norwegian herding dog to care for.

In a few hours, MOLLY MAGUIRE's life implodes. After her apartment burns down, a lawyer shows up at her office informing her that a distant relative left her a home in Loon Lake, Wisconsin. Then she's fired. With nothing holding her back, and nowhere else to go, she heads to the small town. Young retiree, GRANT REEM sold his tech start-up and was contacted by the owner of his family's favorite vacation spot with an interesting next act: buy a tour boat company in Loon Lake. With nothing stopping him, Grant buys the business and moves across the country. 

With a loving husband and two beautiful kids, Gabby Brady thought nothing could shatter her happiness. But the illusion of perfection comes crashing down with proof of her husband's infidelity. As tensions rise, an inexplicable tragedy strikes, leaving Gabby wounded and her closest friend dead. All fingers point to her husband, Ryan, as the prime suspect. Ryan insists on his innocence, leaving Gabby torn between loyalty and doubt. To protect her family, Gabby stands firmly by her husband. She will go to great lengths to keep her family together, even if it means risking her very life.

The key to staying alive lies buried in forgotten memories Ten years ago, forensic artist Jacy Urban escaped her abductor with no memory of that night. Now two teenage girls are missing, and all signs indicate that the same kidnapper is back on the hunt. When Jacy is attacked, it’s clear...

When a woman is found murdered in the marshes near Pawleys Island, suspects and motives prove elusive as Deputy Alex Frank leads the investigation to find the killer. A quirky new neighbor next to Hanna's beach house on Pawleys Island, and a new partner for Alex with a troubling past, raise the tensions as the murder case remains unsolved and the body count begins to rise. With fears that a serial killer is on the loose in the Low Country, Sheriff Pepper Stokes calls in the FBI to assist. An FBI profiler is assigned and dives deeper into the troubling investigation.

In the wake of her son’s sudden death, Margaret Dobrescu struggles to keep it together in the face of her grief…and her guilt. She can’t help but blame herself for Kyle’s own lifelong struggles—namely, the alcoholism that plagued him. But within mere days of his funeral, secrets and suspicions begin to surface, and Margaret’s husband admits that Kyle once confessed to having a daughter. Clinging to the hope that some part of her son is still out there, Margaret embarks on a search to find her rumored granddaughter.

Read by the author. What does it mean to love your neighbor in today's fraught, divided world? Join Dr. Emily Smith, global health expert and creator of the popular Facebook page Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist, as she dives into what loving your neighbor--as illustrated in the biblical parable...

Hanna Walsh continues to suffer post-traumatic stress following her deadly encounter with a crazed killer during a drug bust led by her husband, Charleston County Deputy Alex Frank. A week away in the Florida Keys on a friend's sailboat seemed the best therapy to aid in her recovery. When the wife of Alex's friend is abducted in Key West, Alex and Hanna join local law enforcement and the FBI to secure her release.