Showing results by narrator "Christa Lewis" in All Categories

It's Gatsby Week at Castleton Manor, the elegant retreat for booklovers in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts, and the roaring '20s are in full swing. Charlotte Jaxon, owner of the manor, arrives to put on the ritz and oversee the festivities celebrating the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Faith Newberry is sitting pretty when she receives a brief respite from her duties in the library to assist Charlotte in organizing the events that have everyone jazzed up, including a fashion show, an antique car race, and a Gatsby Ball.

It's late March in Lighthouse Bay, and Castleton Manor is undergoing spring-cleaning. Librarian and archivist, Faith Newberry, envisions a little downtime while the manor is closed to guests. But her reverie is cut short when she is pressed into service for the organizers of the Gothic Studies Conference, who are meeting in a nearby seaside home. Though reluctant to leave her cozy cottage on the Castleton estate, Faith agrees, especially since her faithful cat, Watson, is invited along.

Christmas is no humbug affair in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts. The merry festivities are well underway in the quaint seaside village, and the halls of the posh Castleton Manor literary retreat are decked out in full Victorian décor. This year, the manor is hosting the Charles Dickens Society's annual gala, compete with parlor games and dramatic readings of A Christmas Carol, and culminating in a costume ball. Faith Newberry, Castleton's private librarian and archivist, loves being part of the holiday hustle and bustle while catering to the eccentric guests' bookish whims.

It is early 20th-century Greece. Theodosia, a teenage girl and her younger sister, lose their parents in Constantinople and are thrown into a massive population exchange between Greece and Turkey. They arrive at a refugee camp in Northern Greece, where their choice is to perish or to use the resources at hand in order to survive. Despite all the difficulties they encounter, the sisters decide not to give up, and fight for a better life. Theodosia's story carries on throughout a century and is peppered with horrific events, likable characters, and a great love story. 

Eliza heard the words retirement and club followed by gunfire. It was over quickly, and they were gone...with her voice. A pregnant ex-assassin has days to recall a lifetime, retrieve two stolen chips that control the US defense system and save two children from termination by the Club, which trained her. Only she can't remember the Club, and the children belong to the woman she terminated, and the Club wants them dead.

Inspector Victoria Rhodes works long hours as one of the last clean cops on San Francisco's crumbling police force. When a double murder claims the life of a city prosecutor in the exclusive covenant community of Atlantis, Rhodes is assigned as liaison between the SFPD investigation and the investigation run by the private security force known as the ASM.

Hollywood, 1924. Grace Michelle should be basking in her new role as lead costume designer on a major motion picture. Instead, she's barely holding it together—grieving her sister, juggling a demanding set, and trying to care for a troubled foster teen. But when the film's director is murdered and the girl is found unconscious at the scene, Grace's life takes a darker turn.

New York City, 1920. Grace Michelle has clawed her way from the streets to a dream role as costume designer for the glamorous Ziegfeld Follies. But when her sister—the show's dazzling star—is found dead, Grace's world crumbles. To find the killer, Grace must step into her sister's spotlight, trading sketches for sequins in a role she never wanted. With every curtain rise, the danger grows—onstage and off—as she's drawn into a tangled plot of fame, ambition, and betrayal.

Hollywood, 1924. Grace Michelle's career is flourishing. As a lead costume designer in the heart of Tinseltown, she finally has the success she's worked so hard for. But when a father she believed dead resurfaces—and his glamorous new wife is kidnapped—Grace is thrown into a high-stakes mystery with deadly consequences.

Ben Franklin's Guide to Wealth is the modern version of the treatise The Way of Wealth by Richard Saunders—one of Ben Franklin's many pseudonyms. Franklin practiced what he preached in the treatise, and it made him rich enough to have a full life, travel extensively, and follow his intellectual musings, which in turn led him to become an accomplished scientist, inventor, political activist, diplomat, and writer. Franklin wasn't born rich. He built his legacy using his intelligence, curiosity, natural good sense, and proclivity for thrift and hard work. When he died, he left a fortune.

It's the summer of 1888, and names like Carnegie, Astor, Pullman, and Bostwick line the premier resort's registry as society's elite gather on its grandiose front porch to see—and be seen. But Chase Bostwick isn't interested in being seen. As the second son of a wealthy financier, he's only interested in work—in Chicago—so being tasked by his father to chaperone his wearisome mother and boisterous little sister during their Michigan summer holiday is Chase's personal purgatory masquerading as paradise for never was a man more ill-suited to leisure.

American Alana Eastwood is researching her family tree. Remarkably, Alana traces her Eastwood lineage to an African child, living at Wortley Hall Manor on England's 1801 census. The boy is known as Otobong. Alana believes Otobong to be her earliest traceable ancestor and plans to visit her distant relatives still living in Nottingham. Discovering he was connected to a homicide in 1835 sets Alana on a mission to prove his innocence. Then the body of a man turns up on a beach in Mississippi, eerily close to where Alana's father was born. 

In the wake of Pennsylvania’s iconic Circle Center Mall’s collapse, fueled by greed, a community dies. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helena, caused by rising temperatures, southern Florida reverts to a swampy bog. In upstate New York, a tourist community is under a covert attack, as a private equity company seeks to enrich its coffers at the expense of local business owners and town residents. In the shadow of institutional abuses resulting in major disasters, people deal with abuse and trauma on a very personal level where their only option is a life reset.

Franz Kafka scholars know Felice Bauer, his onetime fiancee, through his Letters to Felice, as little more than a woman with a raucous laugh and a taste for bourgeois comforts. Life After Kafka is her story. The novel begins in 1935 as Felice flees with her children from Hitler's Berlin, following her family and members of Kafka's entourage—including Grete Bloch, Max Brod, and Salman Schocken-as they try to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. Years later, a man claiming to be Kafka's son approaches Felice's son in Manhattan and the drama surrounding Kafka's letters to Felice begins.

In 1934, Lola was on top of the world. Dubbed "The Siren" by MGM, she was a protégé of Louis B. Mayer, the original talkie sex symbol before the rise of stars like Carole Lombard and Jean Harlow. But like Harlow, Lola Grayson had a dominant stage mother and bad health that struggled to meet the demand of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Exploited, pushed, primped, and promoted as MGM's biggest star, Lola Grayson made one fatal mistake—falling in love with fellow MGM star Robert Taggart. Together, they were the golden couple that audiences demanded to see.

Thirty-year-old Charlotte James, better known to her mystery fans as C. J. Barrett, decides to take a break from writing her popular Steve Sheppard mystery series. Leaving New York City, she moves back to her hometown of Austin to wind down, recuperate, and maybe come up with some new ideas for her books.

A truck veers off an overpass and falls onto the interstate below, right into the middle of the morning commute. Many people lose their lives, and the city of Seattle reels from the disaster. When an elaborate mural that appears to glorify the event is discovered, it is seen as being in very poor taste. That's until it transpires it was painted two days before the crash. Was it a warning by some psychic or savant? Or the work of a psychopath who played a role in the tragedy, seeking to cause as much pain and disruption as possible?

Trillium Bay, 1889. Alexander Bostwick doesn't believe in ghosts, but the unexpected death of his bride has him feeling haunted. The lingering scent of her perfume—along with her personal possessions popping up in the most peculiar places—has him worried he's lost his senses as well as his wife. With half of Chicago feeling sorry for him and the other half suspecting he had a hand in her demise, Alex escapes to Trillium Bay, hoping peace and quiet might ease his troubled mind.

Set against the backdrop of the construction of the Berlin Wall, The Last Secret Kept explores the beauty of individualism while demolishing the invisible walls built between ourselves and our loved ones.

In 1790 the United States has a new Constitution. George Washington presides as the first elected president. Abroad, France and Britain are at war. And by 1795 seafaring Americans are accosted on the high seas by French privateers and British naval ships. Tensions rise as American merchants continue to trade. Among them, Hasket Derby and Captain George Crowninshield busily build maritime empires while their sons seek a new way forward.