Showing results by narrator "Allyson Ryan" in All Categories

At the beginning of her career, Sarah "Salt" Alt was a beat cop in Atlanta's poorest, most violent housing project, The Homes. It is here that she meets the cast of misfits and criminals that will have a profound impact on her later cases: Man Man, the leader of the local gang on his way to better places; street dealer Lil D and his family; and Sister Connelly, old and observant, the matriarch of the neighborhood. A lone patrolwoman, Salt's closest lifeline is her friend and colleague Pepper, on his own beat nearby.

The Cypress Arete Society is one of the town's oldest and most exclusive clubs. When assistant librarian Trudell Becket is invited to speak to the group about the library, its modernization, and her efforts to bring printed books to the reading public, her friend Flossie invites herself along. Flossie has been on the book club's waiting list for five years, and she's determined to find out why she's never received an invitation to join. But not long after Tru and Flossie arrive for the meeting, they're shocked to find the club's president, Rebecca White, dead in the kitchen.

Lexie James escaped: After being abandoned by her alcoholic father and kicked out of the apartment to make room for her mother's boyfriend, Lexie made it on her own. She earned a master's degree, conquered terrifying panic attacks, got engaged to the nicest guy she'd ever met, and landed a counseling job at the prestigious Ruxton Academy, a prep school for the moneyed children of the elite. But as her wedding date nears, Lexie has doubts. Yes, she's created the stable life she craved as a child, but is stability really what she wants?

I've been in love with Trip Wiley since I was 16 years old. Yep. That Trip Wiley. Academy award-winning actor, known philanthropist, People's Sexiest Man Alive two years running.... Yeah. It's not like I'm some delusional stalker-fan. It just so happens that he was my high school sweetheart back in 1991. In the years since, he's simply been The One That Got Away. We just can't seem to get on the same page at the same time. Our timing may have sucked, but the feelings had already been confirmed. Years ago.

You know how sometimes, your high school crush grows up to be an insanely famous movie star? Okay, probably not. But I do. Back in high school, Trip Wiley's fanbase only encompassed the denizens of the nothing little suburb of Norman, New Jersey. Ten years later, all that is about to change. In the summer of 2000, Layla Warren is enjoying her career as a journalist in New York City (well, sort of), while Trip spends most of his time grabbing Hollywood by the balls.

On two remote islands off the coast of Maine, the local lobstermen have fought savagely for generations over the fishing rights to the ocean waters between them. Young Ruth Thomas is born into this feud, the daughter of one of the greediest lobstermen in Maine. Eighteen years old, as smart as a whip and irredeemably unromantic, Ruth returns home from boarding school determined to throw her education overboard and join the 'stern men'.

Meditating on the labyrinthine nature of sexual identity and the performance of gender, High Heel moves from film to fairytale, from foot binding to feminism, and from the golden ratio to glam rock. Summer Brennan considers this most provocative of fashion accessories as a nexus of desire and struggle, sex and society, violence and self expression, setting out to understand what it means to be a woman by walking a few hundred years in her shoes.

Blending the piercing humor of Alexandra Kleeman and the jagged satire of Black Mirror, an audacious, eerily prescient debut novel that chronicles the rise and fall of a massive high-rise housing complex, and the lives it affected before - and after - its demise. Standing nearly 500 stories tall, Los Verticalés once bustled with life and excitement. Now this marvel of modern architecture and nontraditional urban planning has collapsed into a pile of rubble known as the Heap.

This bundle includes books 4-6 in the Hex Files series, a fast-paced paranormal mystery series with a kickass heroine, hilarious sidekicks, and an immersive world that will pull you in faster than you can say pizza: Wicked Moon Rising, Wicked All The Way, and Wicked Twist of Fate.

At the end of the 1990s, with the art market finally recovered from its disastrous collapse, Miss Rebecca Farwell has made a killing at Christie's in New York City, selling a portion of her extraordinary art collection for a rumored 900 percent profit. Dressed in couture YSL, drinking the finest champagne at trendy Balthazar, Reba, as she's known, is the picture of a wealthy art collector. To some, the elusive Miss Farwell is a shark with outstanding business acumen. To others, she's a heartless capitalist whose only interest in art is how much she can make.

Lucy's life by the pond has always been full. She has water and friends, laughter and the love of her adoptive mother, Lynn, who has made sure that Lucy's childhood was very different from her own. Yet it seems Lucy's future is settled already - a house, a man, children, and a water source - and anything more than life by the pond is beyond reach. When disease burns through their community, the once life-saving water of the pond might be the source of what's killing them now.

A glowing wood stove, a cozy log cabin, and shelves full of books are all Rain Wilmot needs to ride out the Wisconsin winter, now that she’s made her family’s Lofty Pines library her year-round home. But the warm-hearted librarian’s blood runs cold when local man Wallace Benson is found dead during the annual Ice Fishing Jamboree.

Step back into the 1950s, where in the town of Wooster, Ohio, the switchboard operators indulge in a forbidden treat: eavesdropping on phone calls. Vivian follows the rules, for the most part, but she enjoys the gossip as much as her colleagues do. Until one day it's about her. And the secret she hears turns her world upside down. Beneath its friendly surface, Wooster is simmering with secrets and scandal, while harsh, unspoken rules on class and race set invisible boundaries.

When a powerful witch goes missing from the NYPD, Dani is dragged out of retirement to assist her sometimes boyfriend, sometimes boss Captain Matthew King in locating the detective before it’s too late. But things are never that easy, and Dani is soon faced with three bodies missing from the morgue, two reports of necromancy that rock the borough, and a new strain of illegal magic wreaking havoc across Wicked.

Activists from Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi to the Movement for Black Lives have long recognized that there are times when, rather than having a duty to obey the law, we have a duty to disobey it. Taking seriously the history of this activism, A Duty to Resist wrestles with the problem of political obligation in real world societies that harbor injustice. Candice Delmas argues that the duty of justice, the principle of fairness, the Samaritan duty, and political association impose responsibility to resist under conditions of injustice.

Fifty-something Dan is struggling to cope with a mid-life career change. MBA-educated wife and mother Jen has dealt with life’s disappointments by becoming a closet alcoholic. Seventeen-year-old Chloe is obsessing about getting into the right university and her state tennis semifinals. Fourteen-year-old Max is trying to figure out when he can next sneak a puff on his beloved vape and plotting revenge on the school bully.

My life isn't so bad. True, I don't have a love life to speak of, but I do have a cute house in the suburbs of Los Angeles, a cat, and a quirky best friend. Enter Rand Balfour, a sinfully attractive warlock who insists I'm a witch and who just might turn my life upside down. Rand hires me to help him solve a mystery regarding the death of his client, who also happens to be a ghost. Along the way, I not only uncover the cause of the ghost’s demise, but in the process, I actually bring the ghost back to life....

Don’t be intimidated by Shakespeare. These audiobook editions make the Bard’s plays accessible and enjoyable.

Meg Fee plots a decade of her life in New York City - from falling in love at the Lincoln Center to escaping the roommate (and bedbugs) from hell on Thompson Street, from chasing false promises on 66th Street and the wrong men everywhere to finding true friendships over glasses of wine in Harlem and Greenwich Village. Weaving together her joys and sorrows, expectations and uncertainties, aspirations and realities, the result is an exhilarating collection of essays about love and friendship, failure and suffering, and above all hope.

Picture it - it's 8:30 p.m. You close the door to your child's room just as you hear your partner closing the dishwasher, and now it's time for an hour or two of glorious freedom. What do you do? Read the book you've been waiting to crack open all day? Chat on the phone with a friend, glass of wine in hand, or go out with pals and share a whole bottle? Or, like many modern parents, do you get caught up in chores, busywork, and social media black holes?