Showing results by narrator "Jill Smith" in All Categories

I'm the maid of honor. He's the father of the bride. Thanks to a snowstorm on the East Coast, I'm the only member of my best friend's wedding party to actually arrive in Vegas as planned. But she has a plan...her father will pick me up at the airport, and we'll take care of any last-minute wedding details together. Not in the plan is the unexpected sizzling chemistry with an older, off-limits man and being talked into sharing his suite.

It’s been two months. Two months since Gabrielle survived the horror that was Samhain. Two months since she slipped from the devil’s clutches. Two months since she learned that she might have to face him again. Her nights are plagued by dreams of him, and she wakes to find that she’s creeping closer to that unholy reunion. So when a ritualistic murder occurs on a ley line in Romania and Gabrielle is called in to investigate, it seems like a harbinger of things to come.

Twenty-four-year-old Catherine Fellingham keeps a low profile - in society and in her family. A practical young woman, she leaves the spotlight to her beautiful younger sister and prefers quiet pursuits such as reading. But all that changes the moment she learns of her mother’s very excellent scheme to keep the family out of debtors’ prison. The scatter-brained Lady Fellingham has been selling commissions in the king’s army, and Catherine must shake off her indifference in order to save her family from a potentially ruinous scandal.

I locked myself in the bathroom when my date pulled out a knife. Then a tall dark rescuer crashed through the door and kidnapped me. I know it's risky, posting my darkest fantasies anonymously online. Especially when they start going viral. But how was I to know the first guy I've ever dated would turn out to be an obsessed stalker-fan? Although I write about wanting a man to force himself upon me, this reality isn't nearly as appealing. It's locked bathroom, panic texting, terrified-for-my-life.

Stormy Morgan has accepted her life as a witch and is even looking forward to the future. That means training with the most powerful witches in the Midwest. She’s determined to follow through on her destiny. Despite her best intentions though, not everything is going to be as easy as she hoped. When Stormy steps in and uses her magic following a bus accident, she’s almost killed in the process. Worse than that, it seems the child she risked her life to save might be an ongoing target.

Hilarious and colorful episodes in the lives of families, many depicted from a kid's-eye-view, are the theme for this compilation. Being part of a family is often trying, and stranger than any fiction, but never dull and always worth it in the end. Join these very different families as they face the shrinking of parents, the pre-emptive guilt of First Confession, the secret worlds of children, and more!

I'm the coach's daughter, watching from the shadows as my father's best friend and star player wins the World Series for his team. Trick Lowry is almost twice my age and a bonafide celebrity, and I love him with my entire heart. It's the kind of secret, off-limits crush that feeds wild fantasies and reckless ideas—like sneaking into his hotel room while he's celebrating, just to have a little slice of him to myself. I innocently surround myself with his smell, thinking he doesn't have to know.

Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, emerges from a wretched night’s sleep to discover him embracing the most beautiful woman she has ever seen. His former mistress! It is shocking, yes, but not so very alarming, for Penelope Taylor is actually there to see Bea. Her dearest friend has been brutally slain, and as Millicent Lloyd happened to be sleeping in the courtesan’s bed at the time, Mrs. Taylor is the only suspect. The magistrate is impatient to cart her off to Newgate and refuses to acknowledge the truth that is glaringly obvious to her: She was the intended victim.

Having solved the two murders that somehow fell in her path, Beatrice Hyde-Clare is on the lookout for a third. Through a absurd quirk of stupid fate, the shy spinster has fallen in love with the thoroughly unattainable Duke of Kesgrave and is desperate for something, anything, to occupy her mind. A dead body would do nicely.

Armon Ellington died on Earth and was transported to Terra, a world governed by rules eerily similar to the RPG games he loved. In addition to finding a way to become more powerful, he also found the friends and family he’d always longed for. Unfortunately, he also discovered the pain of losing them. Now, Armon finally has the information he’s been searching for. He knows where the kidnapped kobolds that the Imperare took are. A city deep in the heart of the Imperare Empire and a place renowned for its gladiatorial arenas.

Do you get up every morning, spend close to an hour or more getting ready, pick out the perfect outfit, make sure your makeup is suitable, then style your hair just so? Do you slip your feet into your favorite heels, lock your modest one-bedroom apartment, climb into your practical car? Do you drive 20 minutes to downtown, find a spot in the company parking garage? If you do, then you're very much like me. However, I think our stories will differ significantly once you get to your office and I get to mine.

When a body shows up near Peel Academy, all signs indicate the killer is a vampire. Ravaged throat, body drained of blood. At least that’s all it appears to be when the Politia, the supernatural police force, assigns Gabrielle to the case. Now it’s Gabrielle’s job to figure out who did it. But after a second body turns up with the same lethal wounds, it’s clear that a serial killer is stalking the island.

As much as Beatrice Hyde-Clare relished the challenge of figuring out who murdered a fellow guest during a house party in the Lake District, she certainly does not consider herself an amateur investigator. So when a London dandy falls dead at her feet in the entryway of a London Daily Gazette, she feels no compulsion to investigate. It was a newspaper office, after all, and reporters are already on the case as are the authorities.

It looks like a Merry Christmas is around the corner in Whiskey Springs. Fallon Foster’s ex-girlfriend, Olivia Nolan, has moved to Amsterdam. Fallon is settling into her life with Riley Main and their son, Owen. Andi Maguire has finally found love with Billie Steele. And the town is celebrating the birth of its newest resident, a little girl named Hope. The celebratory mood is cut short when Billie delivers the news that Olivia is dead. Olivia’s death sends shock waves through the small town. And it won’t be the last piece of unexpected news.

Katelyn (Kat) Summers’ family has just moved to Webster, Massachusetts. It’s the day before her 12th birthday, and all Katelyn wants to do is go back home to Pennsylvania. That is until a 10-year-old boy named Neil Masters crashes into her bicycle. When Katelyn looks up from her position on the ground, she finds a hand stretched out to greet her. As she’s pulled to her feet, Katelyn meets with the inquisitive gaze of Sarah Masters. Within minutes, Katelyn will never think of any other place as home again.

Ilsa Lynn has made it her life's goal to avoid the curse that binds her family to serve the Summer Court of Faerie. With her magically talented twin sister given the role of Gatekeeper, Ilsa is content to hide under the radar amongst the regular humans. At least until a mysterious spell book falls into her possession, granting Ilsa with a sudden and inconvenient affinity with the dead, and dangerous magic that paints a neon target on her head.

Once a sought-after assassin, a single error in judgment landed me in servitude to House August, the most powerful vampire family in North America. Now I use my special brand of magic as a member of their security team, fighting monsters in the city and keeping the royal family’s many enemies at bay.

I didn’t ask to be part of a prophecy, and I certainly didn’t ask to be held captive by zealots. They may call me a savior, but they treat me like a sacrifice they’re waiting to make to the gods. Not much of a sacrifice given what they think of me. My only saving grace is that I don’t have to face the dangers alone. This time, I have an ally in the form of a knight from Britannia City—London Hayes. Unfortunately, nobody knows where we are or what the group intends to do with us, which means we’re on our own.

Ford Gamble is my dad’s best friend. He’s also the reclusive keeper of the Conception Ridge lighthouse. But I remember a time when he was around more—the perfect hotter-than-sin fodder for all my fantasies. Now there’s just enough silver in his shock of sexy hair and thick beard that he looks a little bit like a hot forty-something Santa, with six-pack abs. And that’s what has me heading to the lighthouse on a dark, stormy Christmas Eve when the retirement home where I work needs a fill-in Mr. Claus for their annual celebration.

The Art of Change Leadership represents a major milestone in the study of change leadership. An approachable yet thorough guide for leaders and team members that illustrates how to increase speed and agility during times of intense technological innovation and fast change, this resource focuses on the ways in which you, as an individual, can harness your unique abilities to lead cultural change and personal leadership in a positive and proactive way.