Showing results by narrator "Kristen Sieh" in All Categories

It doesn't take long for the students on Fielding campus to become obsessed with Hannah, Leslie, and Jimmy. The three graduate students are mysterious, inaccessible, and brilliant. Leslie, glamorous and brash, has declared that she wants to write erotica and make millions. Hannah is quietly confident, loyal, elegantly beautiful, and the person they all want to be; and Jimmy is a haunted genius with no past. After Simone - young best-selling author and erstwhile model - shows up as a visiting professor, and after everything that happened with her, the trio only become more notorious.

Bea Schumacher is a devastatingly stylish plus-size fashion blogger with amazing friends, thousands of Insta followers - and a massively broken heart. Bea indulges in her weekly obsession: the hit reality show Main Squeeze. The fantasy dates! The kiss-off rejections! The surprising amount of guys named Chad! But Bea is sick and tired of the lack of body diversity on the show. Since when is being a size zero a prerequisite for getting engaged on television?

Daphne Brink doesn’t follow baseball, but watching “America’s Snoozefest” certainly beats sitting at home in the days after she signs her divorce papers. After one too many ballpark beers, she heckles Carolina Battery player Chris Kepler, who quickly proves there might actually be a little crying in baseball. Horrified, Daphne reaches out to Chris on social media to apologize . . . but forgets to identify herself as his heckler in her message. Chris doesn’t usually respond to random fans on social media, but when a DM from “Duckie” catches his eye, he impulsively messages back.

A writer dryly catalogs the myriad reasons she cannot write; an artist bicycles through a protest encampment in lower Manhattan and ruminates on an elusive lover; an old woman on her deathbed calls out for a man other than her husband; a hapless fifteen-year-old boy finds himself in sexual peril; two young people in the 1990s fall helplessly in love, then bicker just as helplessly, tortured by jealousy and mistrust.

The year 1999. Nick Brothers and his lacrosse teammates return for their senior year at their wealthy Maryland high school as the reigning state champions. They're on top of the world - until two of his friends drive a passed-out girl home from of the team's "legendary" parties, and a rumor about what happened in the backseat spreads through the town like wildfire. The boys deny the allegations, and, eventually, the town moves on.

Sylvie and her mother and grandmother are beloved, trusted healers in their medieval French village, though some whisper that 15-year-old Sylvie and her grand-mere deal in more than herbs and medicines. Perhaps they’re a bit...witchy? After her grandmother dies, and an attempt to use magic to heal her mother’s grief brooks tragic consequences, Sylvie leaves her village in search of a teacher. The journey subjects her to strange alliances, powerful temptations, danger, and deceit. In the end, there may be only one wise woman Sylvie can trust in a world that would define her limits.

Dawn isn't a bad person - she's just made some bad choices: wrong guy, wrong friends, wrong everything. But she wasn't expecting her parents to pay a boatload of money to ship her off to Out of the Wild, a wilderness boot camp with a bunch of other messed up kids to learn important "life lessons". It's true that Dawn and the other cubs will learn a lot - but it's not what any of them expect.

A collection of glittering, surprising, darkly funny stories of people testing the boundaries of their lives - from the award-winning author of Dual Citizens. Populated with imperfect families, burned potential, and inescapable old flames, the 13 stories in We Want What We Want are, each one, diamond-sharp - sparkling with pain, humor, and beauty.

Mona Gray was 10 when her father contracted a mysterious illness and she became a quitter, abandoning each of her talents just as pleasure became intense. The only thing she can’t stop doing is math: She knocks on wood, adds her steps, and multiplies people in the park against one another. When Mona begins teaching math to second-graders, she finds a ready audience. But the difficult and wonderful facts of life keep intruding. She finds herself drawn to the new science teacher, who has an unnerving way of seeing through her intricately built façade.

Nothing is what it appears to be in this lush destination thriller that takes listeners behind the ornate doors of the most secretive palazzos in Venice, romantic chateaus in France and the Vatican’s halls of power. Contessa Giselle Verona - the art world’s current "It Girl" is happily absorbed in her creation of dangerous sculptures that have gotten her banned from museums, but have collectors reaching for their checkbooks.

For Clarence’s mother, life revolves around her young son; she takes him to see specialists to find the cause of his blindness and developmental delays, protects him from the cruelty of other children, and loves him tenderly. But she has her own struggles too. Her sanity is precarious and fractured, making caregiving increasingly difficult for her.

This fever dream of a novel features a protagonist who shares the same name as its author. Elaine first entered the house as moral support for her friend and fellow schoolteacher, Florence, but now there are no exits in sight. All the inexplicable residents of the space—Florence’s beguiling brother, her inattentive lover, distant mother, wizard father, and even her and Elaine’s school principal—are under the control of the mysterious Madelaine.

Just once, Delia Reese wants to be the one calling the shots — not the one waiting to be called. Despite her stellar resume, hiring managers at the big banks won’t give her a chance. Following yet another failed interview, Delia commiserates with her roommates and drunkenly finds herself wishing she had the advantages that come with being a man. If society wasn't locked into gender roles, she'd be climbing the corporate ladder in designer heels with no apologies. By morning, her mirror reflects a surprising makeover.

Jedha. The worn streets of this ancient world serve as a confluence for the galaxy. Visited by all, yet owned by none. Here, the Jedi are but one creed among many worshipping and studying the Force. From the Guardians of the Whills to the Path of the Open Hand, countless beings come to learn, and to share, in peace. As all of Jedha prepares for its Festival of Balance, the galaxy still reels from the violence on Eiram and E'ronoh. But after foiling a plot to escalate the war between the two planets, the Jedi believe that a lasting peace may be within reach.

From the aftermath of Order 66 comes a new group of former Jedi, each with their own reason to serve the Empire under Darth Vader. Among them is Iskat, who survived the destruction of her old Order to claim a new destiny in the Force. Iskat joins the Inquisitors in the hope of uncovering her hidden past that the Jedi refused to share with her.

In modern-day London, architectural historian and recovering alcoholic Annie Kendall hopes to turn her life around and restart her career by locating several long-missing pieces of ancient Judaica. Geoff Harris, an investigative reporter, is soon drawn into her quest, both by romantic interest and suspicions about the head of the Shalom Foundation, the organization sponsoring her work. He's also a dead ringer for the ghost of a monk Annie believes she has seen at the flat she is subletting in Bristol House.

Part Two of the Venice Trilogy begins three weeks after Salvio Scortini’s rampage through the calles and canals of the floating city...which is indeed floating since the acqua alta season is drenching everyone. The Verona family struggles to keep calm and carry on, but the pressure is building as the secret holding the family members hostage unravels. Raphielli Scortini thinks she’s being watched, and the anxiety of keeping her monstrous husband locked away in a friend’s basement is wearing on her.

Leaving behind her husband and their baby daughter, a writer gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump and a spiralling case of postpartum depression. Her temporary escape from domestic duties and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends mutates into an extended romp away from the confines of marriage and motherhood, and a seemingly bottomless descent into the past.

This is a story about a life lived in two halves. It’s about what happens when real life collides with the increasing absurdity of a world accessed through a screen. It’s about where we go when existential threats loom and the high stakes of reality that claim us back. It’s about living in world that contains both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy and justice in the universe and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

Sloane Jacobsen is the most powerful trend forecaster in the world (she was the foreseer of "the swipe"), and global fashion, lifestyle, and tech companies pay to hear her opinions about the future. Her recent forecasts on the family are unwavering: the world is overpopulated, and with unemployment, college costs, and food prices all on the rise, having children is an extravagant indulgence. So it's no surprise when the tech giant Mammoth hires Sloane to lead their groundbreaking annual conference, celebrating the voluntarily childless.