Showing results by narrator "Carlotta Brentan" in All Categories

It's 1948, and Irene Willard has had five miscarriages. She's desperate to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires and, now pregnant for the sixth time, checks in to an isolated house-cum-hospital run by a husband-and-wife team of doctors who are pioneering a cure, they say, to 'rectify the maternal environment'.

After thirteen months at war, Vittorio Gandy is haunted by memories. Once a gifted painter, now he can’t bear the vivid, bleeding colors on a canvas. His young son doesn’t remember him, and his wife, Valerie, is scared of him. But the most disconcerting change is in Vitto’s father, Robert Gandy, who has fallen from being a larger-than-life sculptor to a man whose heart has been broken by the death of his muse—Vitto’s mother. When Robert steals away in the night, Valerie, Vitto, and his new acquaintance and fellow veteran John go to the only place Robert might remember.

There has always been tension in "the blind house," where Valentina lives with her mother and grandmother in the Italian countryside. Valentina's pious grandmother often hints at a family curse, while Valentina's mother scoffs at superstition; it's one of the battlegrounds on which they fight to control Valentina's upbringing. But in the summer of 1996, when Valentina is twelve, she gets her period for the first time—and the curse suddenly becomes frighteningly real. Blood leaks from the walls; the house and farm are overrun with frogs; the kitchen crawls with flies.

When Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking a haven for her art, she faces instant opposition from the powerful Accademia, self-proclaimed guardians of the healing and necrotic magic that protect the city from plague and curses. As artists create their masterpieces, they add layer upon layer of magic drawn from their very life essence into the paint or marble, draining their power but producing works that will heal hundreds and inspire generations.

Behind anonymous screens, an army of cool and beautiful girls manage the dating service Ghost Lover, a forwarding system for text messages that promises to spare you the anguish of trying to stay composed while communicating with your crush. At a star-studded political fundraiser in a Los Angeles mansion, a trio of women compete to win the heart of the slick guest of honor. In a tense hospital waiting room, an inseparable pair of hard-partying friends crash into life’s responsibilities, but the magic of their glory days comes alive again at the moment they least expect it.

In a quiet forest in Belarus, two boys stumble across a long-kept secret: the mass grave where Stalin's police secretly murdered thousands in the 1930s. The results of the subsequent investigation have far-reaching effects, and across the Atlantic in Toronto, Leah Jarvis, a lively, curious young lawyer, finds herself tasked with an impossible case: the deportation of elderly Stefan Drozd, who fled his crimes in Kurapaty for a new identity in Canada.

Hector lives with his family at the Marina in an Italian coastal town where they organize tourist expeditions to explore the many wonders of the sea. Hector’s dream is to become a deep-sea diver, just like his father. Then, one day, an unscrupulous entrepreneur opens a much newer center next door, forcing them to close their business. This man has a single purpose, to find the legendary Pearl in order to sell it and make money. Hector decides to find a way to thwart the plan and save what matters most to him: the sea, his family, and his dream.

In 1946, Eva leaves behind the rubble of Berlin for the streets of New York City, stepping from the fiery aftermath of one war into another, far colder one, where power is more important than principles and lies are more plentiful than the truth. Eva holds the key to a deadly secret: Project Bluebird - a horrific experiment of the concentration camps, capable of tipping the balance of world power. Both the Americans and the Soviets want Bluebird, and it is something that neither should ever be allowed to possess.

Addie ha 11 anni, è autistica e ha una missione: convincere i suoi concittadini a costruire un memoriale per le streghe condannate ingiustamente. Perché quando la storia viene dimenticata, è destinata a ripetersi.

As a hospice nurse, Zara Mitchell has already seen more death than most people will experience in a lifetime. So when her older sister asks her to help care for their ailing grandmother, Zara agrees - despite strained family relationships. Though pale and tired, Nonna has lost none of her sharp mind. She’s fixated on finding something long forgotten, and she immediately puts Zara to work cleaning out the attic. Amid the tedium of sifting through knickknacks and heirlooms, Zara also reconnects with a man she’s attracted to but whose complicated past makes romance seem impossible.

Every year, the senior class at Lincoln High plays assassin. Lia Prince has been planning her strategy for years, and she's psyched that not only does she finally get to play, she's on a team with Devon Diaz. But this year, the game isn't any fun - it's real. Abby Ascher, Ben Barnard, and Cassidy Clarke have all turned up...dead. Can Lia stop the ABC killer before he reaches D?

Occupied Italy, 1944. In the mountain regions south of Bologna, Liliana Nicoletti’s family finds escaped POW James Foley behind German lines. Committed to the anti-Fascist cause, they deliver him to a powerful band of local partisans. But when the SS launches a brutal attack against the Resistance, Liliana’s community is destroyed. Forging an unbreakable bond, James and Liliana's only hope of survival is to make it to the Allied lines. Twelve years later, fate reunites Liliana, newly widowed, and James, now a journalist for a New York magazine.

From Annie Moore, the Irishwoman who was the first to be processed there, to Arne Peterssen, the Norwegian who was the last to be taken away from the island in 1954, Ellis Island weaves together the personal experiences of forgotten individuals with those who live on in history: Fiorello La Guardia, Lee Iacocca, and other American leaders whose paths led them to the island for various reasons.

Capucine Benoit works alongside her father to produce fans of rare feathers, beads, and intricate pleating for the haute couture fashion houses. But after the Germans invade Paris in June 1940, Capucine and her father must focus on mere survival - until they are betrayed to the secret police and arrested for his political beliefs. When Capucine saves herself from deportation to Auschwitz by highlighting her connections to Parisian design houses, she is sent to a little-known prison camp located in the heart of Paris, within the Lévitan department store.

Med school dropout Lena is desperate for a job, any job, to help her parents, who are approaching bankruptcy after her father was injured and laid off nearly simultaneously. So when she is offered a position, against all odds, working for one of Boston’s most elite families, the illustrious and secretive Verdeaus, she knows she must accept—no matter how bizarre the interview or how vague the job description. By day, she is assistant to the family doctor and his charge—the sickly, poetic, drunken heir to the family empire, who is as difficult as his illness is mysterious.

Amelie St. James, prima ballerina of the Paris Opera Ballet and sweetheart of Paris, is a fraud. Seven years ago, in the devastating aftermath of the Siege of Paris, she made a decision to protect her sister: she became the bland, sweet, pious “St. Amie” the ballet needed to restore its scandalous reputation. But when her first love reappears and the ghosts of her past come back to haunt her, all her hard-fought safety is threatened. Dr. Benedict Moore has never forgotten the girl who helped him embrace life again after he almost lost his. Now, years later, he’s back in Paris.

When the Nazi occupation of Rome begins, two courageous young women are plunged deep into the Italian Resistance to fight for their freedom in this captivating debut novel.

Lana Stone has never considered herself a stalker - until the night she impulsively follows a familiar face through the streets of New York's Upper West Side. Her target? The "anonymous" egg donor she'd selected through an agency, the one who's making motherhood possible for her. Hungry to learn more about her, Lana plans only to watch her from a distance. But when circumstances bring them face-to-face, an unexpected friendship is born.

Teodora di Sangro is used to hiding her magical ability to transform enemies into music boxes and mirrors. Nobody knows she’s a strega - and she aims to keep it that way. The she meets Cielo - and everything changes. A strega who can switch outward form effortlessly, Cielo shows Teodora what her life could be like if she masters the power she’s been keeping secret. And not a moment too soon: The ruler of Vinalia has poisoned the patriarchs of the country’s five controlling families, including Teodora’s father, and demands that each family send a son to the palace.

Non dover mai più dire addio a nessuno. Non è l’idea più meravigliosa del mondo? Di sicuro è quello che pensa Cora, brillante ragazza neurodivergente, quando finalmente scopre di che cosa si occupa la misteriosa azienda in cui lavora suo fratello Gregor. Il Melograno, fondata dal miliardario Magnus Hawkins, è una corporation hi tech con grandiosi piani per il futuro: sotto la visionaria guida dell’ingegner Gold, sfruttando l’intelligenza artificiale, mira a creare degli ologrammi—i Gram—del tutto identici alle persone reali.