Showing results by narrator "Courtney Patterson" in All Categories

Meghan Coleman has been head-over-heels for her husband, Hugo, for twenty-seven years. But one afternoon a few weeks before Thanksgiving, she discovers a box of letters from his ex-fiance, which illustrate a smoldering love, one he never mentioned. Not long after that, she learns her children already knew about the ex-fiance and kept it a secret. Tormented, she finds her world crumbling around her. Who can she trust?

Oriana Coleman is one of the most sought-after art dealers on the east coast, renowned in New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo. She fought tooth and nail to get to the top—and didn't always play by the rules. At the beginning of Oriana's career, her best friend and coworker swapped out a multi-million-dollar painting for a very convincing forgery. When she confessed to the crime, Oriana knew better than to tell anyone she hadn't noticed the painting was a fake. It would have destroyed her reputation and dropped her back on square one.

In September 2011, Erik Weissman and two friends were murdered in a brutal triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts. The case went unsolved for months and then years, with no discernible leads. Erik’s friend Susan Zalkind, an investigative journalist, needed closure and knew that finding it would be up to her. As Susan began digging, and as the Boston Marathon bombing exposed startling new leads, the case led her down a tangled and sometimes dangerous path to the truth.

When a storm hits Montana and makes it impossible for Blake Jones to head home on Christmas Eve, the last thing he expects is to end up hosting guests at his place. But when he finds Jasmine and her young daughter stranded on the side of the road, he doesn’t hesitate to rescue them and take them home. Jasmine hasn’t been back to Rancher’s Valley for years, and when her car gets stuck in snow she’s wishing she’d never returned. Although her sexy rescuer does make up for the inconvenience.

The last person she expected to see at her husband's funeral was his wife! But having learned her husband apparently bought his engagement rings in bulk, Penny Reynolds is shocked out of her well-ordered world. She can't bring herself to hate his wife, Susan, or toss his amazing piano-playing dog (another surprise) out on his rump. Still, she can get answers as to why her hubby led his secret life. All it takes is a little persuading before she and Susan embark on the trip of a lifetime with Harvey the Wonder Dog in tow.

New York City's Gilded Age shines as bright as the power-wielding men of the Knickerbocker Club. And one pragmatic industrialist is about to learn that a man may make his own destiny, but love is a matter of fortune . . . Born into one of New York's most respected families, William Sloane is a railroad baron who has all the right friends in all the right places. But no matter how much success he achieves, he always wants more. Having secured his place atop the city's highest echelons of society, he's now setting his sights on a political run.

Senatorial favorite Ida Berkowitz is headed for a win. Raised by a hardworking widowed mother, she’s authentic, relatable, and down-to-earth. Voters love her. Polls promise victory. Then her campaign manager utters four awful words: Who is Marissa Schuyler? She had almost managed to forget. Ida’s bunkmate at Camp Golden Hills when they were girls, Marissa was confident, sophisticated, and wealthy. Everything Ida wasn’t. Now the polished wife of a major conservative donor, Marissa’s announced a press conference. About Ida.

Carpenter Whitney Whitaker and her cousin Buck are looking once again to rehab and resell a house, only this particular house is made of fiberglass, floats, and has been dubbed the Skinny Dipper. The old houseboat sure could use some work, but the unusual project has Whitney bubbling with excitement. The charming and handsome Grant Hardisty lives on the cabin cruiser in the adjacent slip, but the cousins soon learn he's left a half dozen angry ex-wives in his wake and made enemies of all sorts of unsavory folks.

Hilary and Aria have never needed anyone but each other. Because Aria's father left Nantucket before she was born, Hilary isn't sure why anyone would fall in love on purpose, and she's fought hard to become a sought-after interior designer for Sotheby's. Plus, now that Aria left Tufts University, she's been tagging along with her mother as an interior design apprentice, which thrills them both.

At seventeen, Charlie Coleman was on top of the world. He was captain of the football team, dating the smart and beautiful Shawna David, and on his way to becoming another pillar of his Nantucket community, just like his father before him. But all that changed in the blink of an eye. It's been thirty years since the accident, and Charlie is still overwhelmed with guilt. Why has he been blessed with so much—a gorgeous wife, three children, and two grandchildren, while Nora is left with nothing? Why did he escape that night with his life?

When her Great-Aunt Jessabelle passes away and leaves her home to Samantha, Sam and her daughters, Darcy and Rachelle, begin refurbishment on The Jessabelle House, a glorious house not far from the town of Siasconset on Nantucket. Once there, Samantha discovers her aunt's diaries, which reveal dramatic secrets from the past—and still more reasons not to trust the Colemans.

In December 2008, twentysomething Jill Grunenwald graduated with her master’s degree in library science, ready to start living her dream of becoming a librarian. But the economy had a different idea. As the Great Recession reared its ugly head, jobs were scarce. After some searching, however, Jill was lucky enough to snag one of the few librarian gigs left in her home state of Ohio. The catch? The job was behind bars as the prison librarian at a men’s minimum-security prison. Talk about baptism by fire.

Postcards From Stella Maris is a collection of five short stories for fans of the series who might be interested, for example, in Colleen's backstory.

Blood and power bind three generations of women in the Ozark Mountains. So does an evil that’s followed them across the decades. 1931. Gracelynn Doherty lives peacefully on Tin Mountain, helping her adoptive granny work her cures. Despite whispers that the women are witches, the superstitious locals still seek them out, whether to remedy arthritis or a broken heart. But when evangelist Josiah Bellflower comes to town promising miracle healing, full bellies, and prosperity, his revivals soon hold Tin Mountain in thrall—and Granny in abject fear. Granny recognizes Josiah.

The Art of Coaching Teams is the manual you never received when you signed on to lead a team. Being a great teacher is one thing, but leading a team, or team development, is an entirely different dynamic. Your successes are public, but so are your failures-and there's no specific rubric or curriculum to give you direction. Team development is an art form, and this book is your how-to guide to doing it effectively. You'll learn the administrative tasks that keep your team on track.

Fifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T. Cullowee, the Kudzu King, arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina, in 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu—claiming that it will improve the soil, feed cattle at almost no cost, even cure headaches—Mattie is ready. Mr. Cullowee is determined to sell the entire county on the future of kudzu, and organizes a kudzu festival, complete with a beauty pageant. Mattie is determined to be crowned Kudzu Queen and capture the attentions of the Kudzu King.

Released early from a triple-max military prison, Berserker Lieutenant Allison Rave is given a second chance at a mercenary career. Ordered to the remote, ice-covered world of Lucent-2, she is assigned as a grav-tank platoon commander in Task Force Metal, a crack unit tasked with quelling a bloody insurgency. As her isolated unit pushes further into hostile territory, Rave witnesses the depravity and madness of war. Fanatical enemies and unforgiving weather aren't her only concerns.

As owner of a well-respected national newspaper, Calvin Cabot has the means to indulge his capricious taste for excess—and the power to bring the upper crust of society to its knees. So when a desperate heiress from his past begs for his help, Calvin agrees . . . as long as she promises to stay out of his way. Except, like the newsman, this willful beauty always gets what she wants . . .

In the spring of 1803, England's foreign secretary is dead, and his widow, Lady Violette Hawkestone, insists that Ravenna help discover the killer. Ravenna, only nine months a widow, doesn't want to get involved, but when an investigator, Mr. Chadwick, appears to suspect her, Ravenna fears he's going to uncover a past she'd rather forget. In an effort to protect her own secrets and to protect her stepson, who's in line for the foreign secretary position, she can lose no time in discovering the killer's identity.