Showing results by narrator "Amy Melissa Bentley" in All Categories

Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital. Ricki’s dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur.

During the Great Depression, labor camps crop up in remote areas throughout the American South. Destitute workers live under terrible conditions. Trapped in these isolated locations, workers are entirely dependent on the often greedy, abusive camp owners who provide food and housing at grossly inflated prices. But for the most desperate among America's vast unemployed, these camps are often the last and only option.

Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser's daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she's concerned, moonshine caused her mother's death a dozen years ago. Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth - one that compels her to seek comfort in food.

When Mona the Mouse stumbles across the wondrous world of the Heartwood Hotel in the middle of a storm, she desperately hopes they'll let her stay. As it turns out, Mona is precisely the maid they need at the grandest hotel in Fernwood Forest, where animals come from far and wide for safety, luxury, and comfort. But the Heartwood Hotel is not all acorn souffles and soft moss-lined beds. Danger lurks, and as it approaches, Mona finds that this hotel is more than a warm place to spend the night. It might also be a home.

After a career on Wall Street, Lindsey is making a different kind of dough in a pretty lakeside village, and the upcoming blueberry festival—including the pie-eating contest her bakery is hosting—is the highlight of the summer. But soon Beacon Harbor runs into a patch of trouble. A local real estate agent gets pranked. A parade float gets pelted with water balloons. It's all laughed off until the stunts start escalating—and looking more like sabotage.

Everyone has three lives. A public life, a private life, and a secret life. I'm a junior in high school, and yet, I've never been on a date. Everybody says it's because my overprotective brothers scare all the guys away, but I can't help wondering if there's something wrong with me. That is, until I hear a rumor that I'm secretly dating my brothers' best friend. What?

Six years earlier, Trina Grissom disappeared, on the run for her life. Now living under an assumed identity - as Samantha Marsh - she still struggles with the dark secret she harbors and the fear she might one day be found. When she moves to the coastal town of Rarity Cove, South Carolina, to open a cafe, a handsome widower begins to chip away at the walls she's built to protect herself. Mark St. Clair lost his wife two years ago in a tragic accident. He distracts himself from his lingering grief by running the family business and caring for his troubled young daughter.

Eighteen-year-old Aribelle Weever has been on the run for the past two years. She and her cousin are being hunted by a group of crazed panther shifters. Ari is a Potential. It is said that Potentials unlock a great power from within their fated mates. The panthers don't care about fate, though, only power. She will not give up her freedom without a fight, but she can't shake her fear. Everything changes when she moves to the little town of Winago Heights....

It's an ordinary day at Harry's Hair Stop until Imogene hears her favorite client's dying wish. Two days later, she finds herself in the embalming room at Greener Pastures Mortuary, bottle of hair dye and scissors in hand. Styling her client's hair for the funeral is creepy. She'd expected that. But she hadn't expected the body to buzz like it was loaded with corpse caffeine. Was it her imagination, or was something more sinister at play? Determined to prove her sanity, she teams up with the mortuary's handsome night watchman to investigate.

Inheriting a cottage in Pine Lake was supposed to be the escape from her stressful life as a social worker. Instead, Amalie Holmes is taking witch lessons from her crazy, lightning-wielding grandmother, juggling guardianship of a sassy pre-teen, and taking over a pet shop, all while trying to get used to her super-loud, super-new family. Too bad she can't clone herself. Maybe there's a spell for that? When the head of the local Witch Council is found dead, and Amalie's Grandma Vivian is named the prime suspect, Amalie's new-found family is in jeopardy.

Lindsey prefers to keep her bakeshop's Halloween decor light and autumnal, rather than gruesome and ghoulish. But everyone knows her lighthouse home is haunted. Some intrepid teens have even tried to break in to witness the resident ghost themselves. Dreading Halloween night, Lindsey reluctantly allows her influencer and podcaster best friend, Kennedy, to host a live ghost hunting investigation in the lighthouse, conducted by a professional team. Protective of her ghost, Lyndsey is understandably nervous about what they might uncover.

It starts out as a bet....A way to forget about my latest in a string of bad relationships and move on. I know it's a mistake. Especially when I have a terrible knack for picking the wrong men. Then I see him. The gorgeous man in the dark suit, drowning his sorrows in a glass of scotch is only supposed to be one night of fun. No strings. Zero expectations. No one gets hurt. And when I wake up alone the next morning, it appears I've gotten everything I was after. That is until I find the shiny gold cuff links he left behind. Oh, and discover that he's my new boss.

Isabella Shay is usually a very honest person. But when she's running late for her first day at a dream job and the barista yells for "Amy" three times with no answer, she does the unthinkable. Izzy takes that PSL. But when she turns around and runs directly into the most attractive man she's ever seen, spilling the drink all over his GQ shirt and tie, she ends up having the ultimate meet-cute. Sparks fly and things feel beyond promising until he says the words, "See you tomorrow, Amy." Uh, oh-she'll definitely have to straighten him out the following day.

Jack Frost stole me away from Avilion for more than kicks and giggles: Someone is plotting an attempt on Queen Nicnevin's life, and I'm just the dryad to help hunt down the assassin. But the underworld of Annwyn holds more than just knives in the shadows - it holds the secrets of my past and future.

Josephine Moore loves the rodeo. She was born into it. She even made a career out of it—working as a physical therapist on her family's circuit. Not once has she wanted to leave what she knew, but ever since she first stepped foot in Kinleyville, she's felt something shift inside of her. Maybe she wants to stay in one place for a while . . .

At age 14, Zelda Rossi witnessed the unthinkable, and has spent the last 10 years hardening her heart against the guilt and grief. She channels her pain into her art: a dystopian graphic novel where vigilantes travel back in time to stop heinous crimes before they happen. Zelda pitches her graphic novel to several comic book publishers in New York City, only to have her hopes crash and burn. Circumstances leave her stranded in an unfamiliar city, and in an embarrassing moment of weakness, she meets a guarded young man with a past he'd do anything to change....

It's summer at the Heartwood Hotel, and everyone is in a flurry getting ready for Ms. Prickles's wedding to Mr. Quillson! Meanwhile, a new mouse guest named Strawberry comes to stay. She's sweet and soft-spoken like Mona, and gifted in the kitchen just as Mona's mother was—could Strawberry be a long-lost relative? But when lightning strikes part of Fernwood Forest and starts a fire, all thoughts go to the guests and staff hurrying to leave to make sure their homes and families are safe. Mona works to protect the Heartwood from harm, but as the fire rages on, it's becoming dangerous to stay.

It’s summertime in beautiful Bliss, Georgia, and while second-chance dress shop owner Bonnie Balfour would prefer to spend her time redesigning gowns for the upcoming Founder’s Day parade, her grandma Gigi is too hot under the collar to concentrate. It seems Gigi’s former friend is using her recipe to sell cobbler at the local festivities, and she’s claiming Gigi’s treat as her own!

Ruby always longed for adventure - hiking for months on end or living like a gypsy in an RV - but instead, she settled for a comfortable relationship with a man who worshipped her. That is until he died, leaving her a teardrop trailer and the permission to find her adventure and a true love who would curl her toes. What did she wind up with? A stray dog who just might be her dead husband reincarnated and a good-looking photographer sniffing after her who thinks Ruby is fantastic.

Life hasn't sparkled too brightly for Bonnie Balfour over the past few years, but a heart-breaking divorce has brought her back to her small rural hometown of Bliss, Georgia, and things are starting to shape up. The proud new owner of Bless Her Heart - a second chance dress shop and boutique on the town square - Bonnie thinks 38 might not be too late for a fresh start in life after all.