Showing results by narrator "Allyson Ryan" in All Categories

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.

Lauren, mother of twins, wakes up one morning to her Wife Alarm Bells sounding. She sleuths on her husband’s phone and stumbles on a dirty secret that explodes her marriage. Madeline has it all—a penthouse apartment, a perfect daughter, and no-strings-attached romps with handsome men. But when she learns she might lose her child to her ex in England, it stirs up a decades-old personal tragedy. Sophie, with too much FOMO and never enough money, obsesses over her ex-husband’s Family 2.0—all while keeping her true desires hidden, even from herself.

Isabel, Anna, Beth, and Maggie are women who aren't afraid to take it all. Whether spearheading a pregnancy lingerie company, conspiring to return a husband to his ex-wife, lusting after an old lover while in a satisfying marriage, or trying to balance motherhood and work - they are sexy, determined, and not looking for a simple happily ever after. Through punchy, hilarious, and insightful storytelling, The End of Men shatters the confines of society and, more importantly, those we impose upon ourselves.

Hair neatly braided, hands serenely clasped, eyes closed, the young woman appeared to be sound asleep. But the peaceful tableau was a madman's handiwork. Beneath the covers her white nightgown was spattered with blood. At daybreak a horrified family would discover her corpse tucked in to their guest room. The cunning killer would strike again...and again...before vanishing into the mists of time.

When Maggie Blackthorne returns to her hometown after nearly 20 years to serve as an Oregon State Police Sergeant, she expects to deal with the usual suspects - drunk drivers, oxy slingers, and the occasional rural scofflaw. But after she stumbles upon the bullet-ridden bodies of twin brothers, she realizes she’s stepped into something much more sinister. With little homicide experience, Maggie and her partner, Trooper Hollis Jones, find themselves thrust into the murder investigation.

The world was shocked by playwright Sarah Lingate’s death thirty years ago at an opulent, white-washed villa on the island of Capri. Absolved of the crime, the Lingate family maintains that what happened that night was a tragic accident. And every July they return to Capri to prove it’s true. This time, Helen Lingate - sole heir to the family fortune - has a plan. Tightly controlled by her father, she enlists the help of the family assistant, Lorna Silva, to free herself from her family’s stranglehold on her life.

Trying to choose between two incredible men is in a word: tough. Throw in the fact that the Underworld is in a state of uproar and I don’t have the time to pay attention to my personal life. And as if that weren’t enough to ruin a girl’s day, everything I know will be turned inside out when I'm thrust into the shock of a lifetime.

From National Book Award finalist Megan K. Stack, a stunning memoir of raising her children abroad with the help of Chinese and Indian women who are also working mothers....

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?

Molly Barlow isn’t that girl anymore. A business major at her college in Boston, she’s reinvented herself after everything that went down a year ago...after all the people she hurt and the family she tore apart. Slowly, life is getting back to normal. Molly has just said "I love you" to her new boyfriend, Ian, and they are off on a romantic European vacation together, starting with scenic London. But there on a tube platform, the past catches up to her in the form of Gabe, her ex, traveling on his own parallel vacation with new girlfriend Sadie.

After an unexpected and unpleasant visit from her ex-husband, Oregon State Police Sergeant Maggie Blackthorne is called to a grisly crime scene. Her ex has been found dead — the victim of a vicious attack.

While Flaunt! dives deep into how and why listeners got where they are, it quite literally dances through these realizations and uses laughter, play, and storytelling to break free. Listeners learn to cultivate the kind or rock-solid self-worth that cannot be undone by criticism or failure. Cheadle calls herself a life choreographer because she has helped herself, and now helps others dance through their lives, sometimes with well-plotted steps and other times with improvisation but always, always with self-love, sass, and joy.

At 37, Stevie Green has had it with binge drinking and sleeping with strange men. She’s confused about her sexuality and her purpose in life. When her mother asks her to return to her hometown of La Jolla to help her move into a new house, she’s desperate enough to say yes. The move goes so well that Stevie decides to start her own decluttering business. She stops drinking. She hires her formerly estranged sister, Bonnie, to be her business partner. Things are better than ever - except for the complicated past that Stevie can’t seem to outrun.

The once-rising literary star Olivia Fitzgerald is down on her luck. Her most recent novel—a retelling of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca—was a flop, her boyfriend of nine years just dumped her and she’s battling a bad case of writer’s block. So when her agent calls her with a high-paying ghostwriting opportunity, Olivia is all too willing to sign the NDA.

Forty years ago, Bakerton coal fueled the country. Then the mines closed, and the town wore away like a bar of soap. Now Bakerton has been granted a surprise third act: It sits squarely atop the Marcellus Shale, a massive deposit of natural gas. To drill or not to drill? Prison guard Rich Devlin leases his mineral rights to finance his dream of farming. He doesn't count on the truck traffic and nonstop noise, his brother's skepticism, or the paranoia of his wife, Shelby, who insists the water smells strange and is poisoning their frail daughter.

SoHo, 1981. Twelve-year-old Olympia is an artist - and in her neighborhood, that's normal. Her dad and his business partner Apollo bring antique paintings back to life, while her mother makes intricate sculptures in a corner of their loft, leaving Ollie to roam the streets of New York with her best friends Richard and Alex, drawing everything that catches her eye. Then everything falls apart. Ollie's dad disappears in the middle of the night, leaving her only a cryptic note and instructions to destroy it. Her mom has gone to bed, and she's not getting up.

Welcome to Lily Dale, New York...a sleepy summer resort, home to a population of psychics, and the place where Julia Garrity and Kristin Shuttleworth formed a fast friendship broken only by death. Ten Summer Street is no ordinary house. It was there, 15 years ago, that Kristin saw something on a Halloween night that would haunt her until the end of her days. Since then, Julia has watched both Kristin and her mother fall prey to whomever - or whatever - lurks there.

Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano (later to become the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jennie Jerome (later to become the mother of Winston Churchill) refused to settle into predictable, sheltered lives as little-known wives to prominent men. Instead, both women concentrated their energies on enabling their sons to reach the epicenter of political power on two continents. Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons is a captivating dual biography of two famous women whose sons would change the course of the 20th century.

The stress of trying to get pregnant can wreak havoc with a couple’s intimate relationship - right at a time when that connection is most important - and the frustration and shame couples may feel can have a harmful effect and reduce their chances of conceiving. Wiesner gives couples the tools they need to repair their sexual relationship, rebuild their self-confidence, and reclaim their intimacy and desire.

Classified Ads - Wanted: Personal assistant to Her Royal Highness. Duties: Whatever asked without hesitation, including but not limited to secretarial/administrative, household, defense, blood donation, driving, companionship, prey disposal, and love slavery. At last, Miranda is the life of the party: All she had to do was die. Elevated and adopted by none other than the reigning King of the Mantle of Dracul, Miranda goes from high-school theater wannabe to glamorous royal fiend overnight.