Showing results by narrator "Sarah Naughton" in All Categories

Julia Derks loves the small town of Mapleton where she grew up and launched her business, On Deck Café. What Julia doesn’t love is change. So when a smooth-talking stranger arrives with plans to develop the site of Mapleton’s cherished, shuttered paper mill, she doesn’t even try to hide her contempt. First impressions aren’t everything, though.

In 1625, the Franconian village of Eisbach has been plagued by disease, famine, heinous crimes, and a merciless winter. Katarin Jaspers is the maidservant to the enigmatic Reverend Zacharias Engel, appointed by Rome to cure the village of suspected diabolism and save every God-fearing soul.

Trapped in a dead-end town, Justin Warren has had his life defined by the suspicious deaths of his grandparents. The unsolved crime happened long before Justin was born, but the ripple effects are still felt after thirty-eight years. Justin always knew he wouldn’t have much of a future. He just never imagined that his life might take him backward.

Recalling the great muckrakers of the past, an outraged team of America's best-selling writers unite to confront the disasters of wrongful convictions. Wrongful convictions, long regarded as statistical anomalies in an otherwise sound justice system, now appear with frightening regularity. But few people understand just how or why they happen and, more important, the immeasurable consequences that often haunt the lucky few who are acquitted years after they are proven innocent.

Josie Bianci was killed years ago on a train during a terrorist attack. Gone forever. It’s what her sister, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, has always believed. Yet all it takes is a few heart-wrenching seconds to upend Kit’s world. Live coverage of a club fire in Auckland has captured the image of a woman stumbling through the smoke and debris. Her resemblance to Josie is unbelievable. And unmistakable. With it comes a flood of emotions - grief, loss, and anger - that Kit finally has a chance to put to rest: by finding the sister who’s been living a lie.

Lucy Marshall has hit rock bottom. After failing to succeed as a single mom in Atlanta, she’s back home and moving in with her older brother, Drew. Reconnecting with her support system is the right thing to do, but Lucy can’t help but feel like a failure. Her four-year-old son deserves the world, and all she can give him is a spare bedroom. But Drew is the sweetest uncle, and some quality time might be exactly what they both need to start fresh. That is until she meets Cooper, her brother’s incredibly hot best friend.

Mia is reluctant to go camping with her boyfriend and sister, who are graduate students working on a dissertation about American folklore. But ultimately, they convince her to help document the trip. The group sets off to Black Creek, a remote destination in the Pacific Northwest where Bigfoot has allegedly been sighted. They think they’re prepared for anything, but their sense of terror grows as they find more and more evidence to suggest the monster really is out there. Eventually, Mia realizes she’ll be lucky just to make it out of the woods alive.

What you see isn’t always what you get. Take Ainsley. The gorgeous mother of two lives a picture-perfect life with her husband, Ben—aspiring politician and heir to a candy fortune—in suburban Washington, DC. But in reality, Ainsley has no idea what she’s doing and is terrified someone will figure out who she really is and where she came from.

Darby Thorne is a college student stranded by a blizzard at a highway rest stop in the middle of nowhere. She’s on the way home to see her sick mother. She’ll have to spend the night in the rest stop with four complete strangers. Then she stumbles across a little girl locked inside one of their parked cars. There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, no way out because of the snow, and she doesn’t know which one of the other travelers is the kidnapper.

Sutton and Ethan Montclair's idyllic life is not as it appears. They seem made for each other, but the truth is ugly. Consumed by professional and personal betrayals and financial woes, the two both love and hate each other. As tensions mount, Sutton disappears, leaving behind a note saying not to look for her. Ethan finds himself the target of vicious gossip as friends, family and the media speculate on what really happened to Sutton Montclair.

Detective Mia Hart never planned to return home. One terrifying summer night, Mia lost two of her closest friends to suicide. Scarred and broken, she fled St. Lucy’s, a small island off the coast of Maine. Now fifteen years later, when the body of a journalist is fished out of the bay near St. Lucy’s cliffs, Mia is forced to help with the case - and face all she’s been running from. As she approaches the island, the wintery winds of Black Rock Bay usher Mia home again.

1958. Kate Morgan is looking for an escape, and she gets her chance by honoring a cryptic plea from her grandfather: Find the beautiful stranger. The search takes her to Hotel del Coronado, the beachfront landmark on the Southern California coast where filming is underway on the movie Some Like It Hot. For a movie lover like Kate, it’s a fantasy come true. So is the offer of a position at the glamorous hotel. But as sure as she is that Coronado is her future, Kate discovers it’s also where the ghosts of the past have come to stay.

It's been 10 years since Sasha Keeton left her West Virginia hometown, since she escaped the twisted serial killer known as the Groom. Returning to help run her family inn means being whole again, except for one missing piece. The piece that falls into place when Sasha's threatened - and FBI agent Cole Landis vows to protect her the way he couldn't a decade ago.

Rachel Vinson is a bridesmaid for hire: part confidante, part wedding planner, and one hundred percent pretend BFF. Discretion guaranteed. Her next gig is a destination wedding - livestreamed and sponsored - for an Instagram influencer. That means a paradise of new contacts, which could be a boon to her already booming business. If Rachel can keep the very handsome and slightly too interested best man at bay, that is.

It's been years since Zoe Fairchild has been to the small Devon village of her birth, but the wounds she suffered there still ache. When she learns that her old friend and grandmother's caretaker has gone missing, Zoe and her fifteen-year-old daughter return to England to help. Zoe dreads seeing her estranged mother, who left when Zoe was seven to travel the world. As the four generations of women reunite, the emotional pain of the past is awakened. And to complicate matters further, Zoe must also confront the ex-boyfriend she betrayed many years before.

The future doesn’t just happen.... Somebody has to build it. Martin L. Shoemaker, author of "Today I Am Paul", presents stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary work. Planning, exploring, constructing...living and growing and dying...across the Solar System.

1915. In German-occupied Belgium, a tragic loss forces Josephine Descharmes to navigate dangerous new territory. By day it’s compliance, serving German officers at the Hotel Métropole. By night it’s resistance, working with her brothers underground to help Allied soldiers and civilians cross the border into Holland. Both paths put her and her family at great risk. As Josephine struggles to keep her family safe, Arthur, a grief-stricken English soldier trapped behind enemy lines, finds purpose and hope with Josephine and her work.

For her sixth birthday, Fiona Campbell’s mother, Claire, made her a peace-sign piñata filled with wishes for a better planet instead of candy. When she got her period, her mother held a womanhood ceremony at their café and invited the neighborhood. On her 16th birthday, they celebrated with a drum circle. Fiona grew up trying to keep the impulsive Claire in check and their struggling café afloat. She plans to move out, but first she must find a way to stop a big corporation from tearing down their business and destroying her mother’s livelihood.

When Isabel Marshall moved away from her hometown with hopes of making a name for herself in Los Angeles, she didn’t mean to abandon her roots, but that’s what happened. Now, four years later and having amassed an interior design empire, Isabel must return to Mapleton to film a home renovation special for her TV show. While most of the village welcomes her with open arms, her family and the ex-boyfriend she left in her dust are another story.

Florida journalism undergrad Rebecca Sorley is like any other college student. She tries to keep up with her studies, her friends, and her hot-tempered roommate, Ellie, who regularly courts trouble with the law. When a male student's remains are found in alligator-infested waters, the university warns students to stay away from the reptiles. But then a second body shows up, and the link is undeniable. Both men belonged to the same fraternity and had a reputation for preying on and hurting women.