Showing results by narrator "Katie Koster" in All Categories

Adam and Sophie Warner and their three-year-old daughter are vacationing in Washington State’s Hood Canal for Memorial Day weekend. It’s the perfect getaway to unplug—and to calm an uneasy marriage. But on Adam’s first day out on the water, he sees Sophie abducted by a stranger. A hundred yards from shore, Adam can’t save her. And Sophie disappears.

Elise is cursed. Every time she touches someone, she experiences how they will die. And when she predicts, but is unable to prevent, her brother's death, Elise is desperate to escape her terrible gift. Then she meets Claire, a vampire tasked with helping Elise master her rare powers - and recruiting her to the Veil, a secret organisation determined to protect the paranormal world at all cost.

Joseph and Evelyn’s New England beach homes have been side by side for generations. And in the summer of 1941, on the shores where they were raised, these two childhood friends fell in love. Now, more than sixty years later, Joseph and Evelyn gather their three grown children to share the staggering news: in one year’s time, they will end their lives on their own terms. She has received a diagnosis and he cannot – will not – live without her.

“Kill it with fire”, the typical first reaction to a legacy system falling into obsolescence, is a knee-jerk approach that often burns through tons of money and time only to result in a less efficient solution. This book offers a far more forgiving modernization framework, laying out smart value-add strategies and proven incremental techniques that work equally well for ancient systems and brand-new ones.

Ricky and Nini, who play Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez, share chemistry on and off the stage, but with their understudies, E.J. and Gina, plotting to take over their roles, will these talented performers make it to opening night?

Story isn't just one way to persuade. It's the way. It's built into the architecture of the brain, and has been since early humans gathered around the camp fire, trying to figure out how to outsmart the lion next door. In Story or Die, story coach Lisa Cron sets out to decode the power of story, first by examining how the brain processes information, translates it into narrative, and then guards it as if your life depends on it.

Ambitious intern Ashton Bailey is about to get closer to her dream of being a sports announcer. All she has to do is prove that too-perfect-to-be-true NFL quarterback Evan Dawson isn’t quite as wholesome as his contract requires. It’s also the perfect opportunity to get delicious payback on the boy who broke her teenage heart. At least that’s her plan. But she forgot just how easy it is to crush on the irresistible charmer. #OhNoNotAgain.

Dare Chase doesn’t believe in ghosts. But as the host of Attachments, her brand-new paranormal investigation podcast, she knows to keep her doubts to herself if she wants to win over listeners. Her first season’s subject is the Arrington Estate - a sprawling manor rumored to be haunted by the spirit of Atheleen Bell, who drowned in its lake almost 30 years ago. Dare’s more interested in investigating the suspicious circumstances of Atheleen’s death, which she thinks point to a decades-old murder, not something supernatural. But Arrington is full of surprises.

Lolly Blanchard's life only seems to give her lemons. Ten years ago, after her mother’s tragic death, she broke up with her first love and abandoned her dream of opening a restaurant in order to keep her family’s struggling Seattle diner afloat and care for her younger sister and grieving father. Now, a decade later, she dutifully whips up the diner’s famous lemon meringue pies each morning while still pining for all she's lost. As Lolly’s thirty-third birthday approaches, her quirky great-aunt gives her a mysterious gift.

For years, Edna Miller has found herself drawn to Emery Hoschtettler with an attraction she can explain no better than she can put a stop to it. Other suitors come and go, but none make her feel the way she feels around Emery - that incredible floating feeling, as if she was walking on air, mixed with a painful desperation to be ever nearer to him. Despite the fact that Emery seldom seems to pay her much attention, she decides it would be unfair to marry anyone else when her heart longs only for him. He hasn’t seriously dated anyone else either.

Years ago, a tragic accident robbed me of my mother and emotions. Because I find beauty in darkness and thrive outside social norms, I’ve been labeled a “freak” at school. I know my continued apathy hurts my loved ones, but I’m not about to change. Nothing will ever hurt me again. Then I wake up in an alternate reality...and everything else has changed. Goth is in. I’m considered cool, and my archenemy is the freak. But my real friends won’t talk to me...and the new boy is getting under my skin. As my world spins out of control, I’m desperate to return to normal.

At home, Maggie is the odd one out. Her parents are preoccupied with the new baby they're expecting, and her younger brothers are twins and always in their own world. Maggie thinks a new puppy is the answer, but when she goes to select one on her birthday, she breaks out in hives and rashes. She's severely allergic to anything with fur! Can Maggie outsmart her allergies and find the perfect pet? Megan Wagner Lloyd draws on her own childhood to tell a heartfelt story of family, friendship, and finding a place to belong.

As one of the most popular influencers on social media, Mia Bell has lived her life online for years. With her celebrity dog and gorgeous fiancé, she is planning the ultimate virtual wedding - expensive, elaborate, and entirely paid for by sponsors. But off-camera, her world is far from picture perfect. After being jilted by her fiancé and faking her nuptials to please her sponsors, Mia finally has had enough. She heaves her phone off a cliff, ready to live - and maybe find love - offline for a change.

Friends for over a decade, Amanda and Sophie decide it’s time to flip the script. Why not spend their lives with each other and keep men on the side for fun, sex, and occasionally fixing things around the house? Amanda is a lawyer who excels in her professional life but crumbles at the slightest sign of a common cold. Sophie is an aspiring artist who has lived all over the world and doesn’t crumble, period. Together, they’ve been through it all. But when their romantic lives implode at the same time, they decide enough is enough.

Welcome to the numberdemic, where a deluge of figures, stats and data manipulate your every move. From the way you work, date and exercise to the products you buy and the news you read, numbers have worked their way into every part of our lives. But is life better this way? How are all of those numbers affecting us? With fascinating, sometimes frightening and sometimes shrewdly funny research, behavioural economists Micael Dahlen and Helge Thorbjørnsen explain why we're so attached to numbers and how we can free ourselves from their tyranny.

1852 Illinois. Eva Thompson has her future mapped out. Marriage to David Clarke and a family is all she wants. Her Pa has other ideas. He insists on taking the Oregon Trail to a better life and favors Harold Chapman as Eva's suitor. Marriage to Harold will provide Eva with everything she needs except . . . love.

When the resurrectionists of Fissure's Whipp begin disappearing, 18-year-old Allie knows someone is after their blood - or, more accurately, the genetic mutation that allows their blood to heal wounds, save lives, and even bring back the recently deceased. She's trained her whole life to protect herself by any means necessary, from self-defense classes to extensive weapons training in knives. Now she’s gone so far as to befriend a homeless boy named Ploy who unknowingly trades a few nights a week on her couch in exchange for being a human tripwire to those hunting her.

Johanna Thompson understands her father's wish to go to Oregon. Can she use the time together to convince him to let her follow her dream? Rick Hughes inherits two small children, a wagon and a dream to go to Oregon. But it's not his dream. Johanna and Rick need to work together to save their families from disaster but doing so could comprise both their dreams. Can they find a way to overcome the difficulties on the trail and find a new life together?

Vampires and merpeople, angels and demons—the stories in this anthology imagine worlds where the only thing more powerful than the supernatural, is love. A girl in a graveyard goes on an unexpected date, a shipwrecked sailor makes a connection on a forbidden island, a piano melody summons a soul mate. Creatures of folktales and legend, of land and sea, of centuries past and life after life, all wrapped into one spellbinding compendium. Once you sink into its story, it’ll never let you go.

As a mom, you always want to give your best to your family. The Better Mom Devotional will help you focus who you are becoming rather than what you are accomplishing. Find freedom from mom-guilt, the myth of perfection, and the endless to-do list of motherhood and step into your greatest adventure yet: becoming the better mom.