Showing results by narrator "Allyson Ryan" in All Categories

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....

When Holly White's fiancé cancels their Christmas Eve wedding with less than two weeks to go, Holly heads home with a broken heart. Lucky for her, home in historic Mistletoe, Maine is magical during Christmastime - exactly what the doctor prescribed. Except her plan to drown her troubles in peppermints and snickerdoodles is upended when local grouch and president of the Mistletoe Historical Society, Margaret Fenwick, is bludgeoned and left in the sleigh display at Reindeer Games, Holly's family tree farm.

Simone’s mother was murdered when she was thirteen. When her father was convicted, everything changed. Overnight, Simone went from living in a wealthy white neighborhood to scraping by. Ten years later, Simone has given up on her dreams and lives a quiet life, writing book reviews and getting serious with her boyfriend. But with a true crime documentarian hounding her for a scoop and a surprise encounter with her childhood next-door neighbor, Hunter, the past seems set on haunting her.

The Kellys are messy, loud, loving Australians. The Lees are sophisticated, aloof, buttoned-up Americans. They have nothing in common…except for the fact that their daughters are married. When a nearby volcano erupts during their short vacation to a remote tropical island off the coast of Queensland, the two families find themselves stranded together for six weeks. With only two island employees making up the rest of their party, everyone is forced to question what—or who—they really want.

All Duncan MacKeage wants is to keep his crew building roads and bridges up the mountain to the fancy resort overlooking Spellbound Falls' new inland sea. He doesn't want anything to do with his own family magic or with the beautiful widow Peg Thompson and her tribe of little heathens. But when Duncan is tasked with keeping an eye on the widow Thompson, trouble starts. Because of a family curse, Peg fears that giving in to her desires will mean killing off another lover.

Library director Lindsey Norris is happy to learn the Briar Creek Public Library is the beneficiary of the Dorchester family’s vast book collection. However, when Lindsey and the library staff arrive at the old Victorian estate to gather the books, things take a sinister turn. One of the bookcases reveals a secret passage, leading to a room where a skeleton is found, clutching an old copy of The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Willa Frank has one simple rule: never go on a date with anyone more than twice. Now that her business is providing the stability she’s always needed, she can’t afford distractions. Her two-date rule protects her just fine...until she meets smokejumper Grady Billman. After one date - one amazing, unforgettable date - Grady isn’t ready to call it quits, despite his own no-attachments policy, and he’s found a sneaky way around both their rules.

In just a few years, today's children and teens will forge careers that look nothing like those that were available to their parents or grandparents. While the US economy becomes ever more information-driven, our system of education seems stuck on the idea that "content is king", neglecting other skills that 21st century citizens sorely need.

Kevin Wilson’s characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. “Grand Stand-In” is narrated by an employee of the Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider—a company that supplies “stand-ins” for families with deceased, ill, or plain mean grandparents. And in “Blowing Up On the Spot,” a young woman works sorting tiles at a Scrabble factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted. These wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the ways we try to cope with both.

Maximilian Oceanus arrives in Spellbound Falls just in time to save Olivia Baldwin from an overly aggressive suitor, only to find himself attracted to the beautiful, if rather aloof, widow. And although Mac has come to Inglenook to get a handle on fatherhood, his newly discovered six-year-old son has set his sights on finding his father a wife. Olivia, however, is busy getting Inglenook ready for its new season, so she doesn't have time to deal with her growing attraction to the dangerously seductive Mac.

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.

Being the parent of a smart child is great - until your son or daughter starts asking whether global warming is real, if you are going to die, and what will happen if they don't get into college. Kids who are advanced intellectually often let their imaginations run wild and experience fears beyond their years. So what can you do to help? In Why Smart Kids Worry, Allison Edwards guides you through the mental and emotional process of where your child's fears come from and why they are so hard to move past. Edwards focuses on how to parent a child who is both smart and anxious.

The razor's gleaming blade slices effortlessly through skin and tendon, and he relishes the final anguished moments of his prey. There's only one thing he prizes more: their long, silken strands of red hair. But these women are merely stand-ins...a prelude to his ultimate victim.

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.

People are drawn to libraries for all kinds of reasons. Most come for the books themselves, of course; some come to borrow companionship. For head librarian Kit, the public library in Riverton, New Hampshire, offers what she craves most: peace. Here, no one expects Kit to talk about the calamitous events that catapulted her out of what she thought was a settled, suburban life. She can simply submerge herself in her beloved books and try to forget her problems. But that changes when 15-year-old, home-schooled Sunny gets arrested for shoplifting a dictionary.

Hard work is irrelevant. Be radically honest. Adequate performance gets a generous severance. And never, ever try to please your boss. These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail-order service into a streaming superpower - with 125 million fervent subscribers and a market capitalisation bigger than Disney. Finally Reed Hastings, Netflix chairman and CEO, is sharing the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment and tech industries.

In her debut book, Modern Etiquette Made Easy, the Queen of Good Manners Myka Meier takes formal etiquette that she learned while training under a former member of the queen of England's household and breaks it down into five easy steps to help you feel 100 percent confident in the areas of social, dining, business, and networking etiquette. 

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.