Showing results by narrator "Susan Bennett" in All Categories

Open your heart to the holidays with these stories of unexpected love from best-selling authors Lisa Jackson, Maisey Yates, Stacy Finz, and Nicole Helm.

Zanna Krykos eagerly takes on her friend's sponging business as a way to use her legal skills and avoid her family's matchmaking. But the newly arrived Greek divers, led by Nico Kalos, mistrust a boss who knows nothing about the trade. Yet they must work together to rise above adversity after the mysterious death of a diver and the rumor of sunken treasure.

Kinship, Ohio, 1924: When Lily Ross learns that her husband, Daniel Ross, the town’s respected sheriff, is killed while transporting a prisoner, she is devastated and vows to avenge his death. Hours after his funeral, a stranger appears at her door. Marvena Whitcomb, a coal miner’s widow, is unaware Daniel has died and begs to speak with him about her missing daughter. From miles away but worlds apart, Lily and Marvena’s lives collide as they realize Daniel was not the man that either of them believed him to be - and that his murder is far more complex than they imagined.

There's no place like home - especially when home is Crocker County, Iowa. Jane Willow may have moved to Los Angeles to become a famous film critic, but when a family tragedy prompts her return to Crocker County, Iowa, for the first time in 18 years, she is forced to confront everything she left behind - including her local fame for the 1993 Corn Queen crowning fiasco. Before Jane can escape her past a second time, disaster strikes, and she will have to find a way to right her mistakes and save herself from her regrets.

The moment for "I do" has arrived, and all eyes are on the bride - until she turns heel, hijacks a Ducati, and speeds out of town! Now everyone entangled in the wedding that wasn't takes off on an unexpected adventure of the heart: a down-on-her-luck B&B owner who needs a little help finding her own bluebird of happiness. A big city cop with small-town roots who pulls over the girl he could never have.

I have something for you. When Quinn Cruz receives that cryptic text message from her older sister, Nora, she doesn’t think much of it. But when a haunted Nora shows up at the lake near Quinn's house just hours later, a chain reaction is set into motion that will change both of their lives forever. Nora’s 'something' is more shocking than Quinn could have ever imagined: a little girl, cowering, wide-eyed, and tight-lipped. Nora hands her over to Quinn with instructions to keep her safe and not to utter a word about the child to anyone.

Every day, Paige Redwine is haunted by a choice she made when she was only 17. Now, just past 40, still single, she lives a tidy, controlled life as a well-respected English professor at a college in Nashville. Nothing could prepare her for the day Treha Langsam - the daughter she secretly placed for adoption - walks into her classroom as a student, unknowingly confronting Paige with both her greatest longing and her greatest fear.

In Glory, Kansas, the bakery not only brings together ingredients for sweet treats but is the place where a wounded hero can forge a forever kind of love. Back in his hometown, Jack McConnell has returned battle scarred, but Betsy sees only the hero who once saved her life and set her heart on fire. Now she's burning to save him in return. However, Jack realizes the only way he'll be worthy of the hero's mantle she's pinned to his shoulders is to save Betsy one last time - from himself.

A job offer at Portland's Oregonian Times seems like an ideal placement, until she learns exactly what she'll be doing. Writing an advice column for lonely hearts wasn't quite what Carly Barnett envisioned, but it's a beginning. Mark Holbrook does nothing to disguise his disdain for the new staff reporter - if you can call Carly's column reporting. Still, he can't deny his attraction to her. But that doesn't mean he'll take her advice - not even if she holds the key to his own lonely heart.

Patricia "Patch" Kendrick arrives in Oak County, Tex., from Fort Benton, Mont., to claim Ethan Hawk, a man who jokingly promised to marry her eight years earlier when he was a 25-year-old running from the law and she was the precocious 12-year-old daughter of a man who befriended him. Patch has transformed herself from a tomboy into a well-bred woman, but Ethan's position remains largely unchanged.

What is it about the South that has inspired so much of America's greatest literature? And why, when we think of Flannery O'Connor or William Faulkner or Harper Lee, do we think of them not just as writers but as Southern writers? In South Toward Home, Margaret Eby - herself a Southerner - travels through the South in search of answers to these questions, visiting the hometowns and stomping grounds of some of our most beloved authors.

Everyone knows that Gina Townsend is a saint, always taking care of everyone around her. And now she's trying to be a mother to her six-year-old niece, Amanda Jane. But the girl's biological father isn't helping matters. The scruffy, gangly boy Gina remembers has returned to Glory a sexy, successful man, but Reed Hollingsworth is the only thing standing between her and losing Amanda Jane to foster care.

Byron Hawkins doesn't want to be responsible for anyone ever again. The former Black Ops soldier is better at taking lives than saving them. But on a mission in Tunisia to deliver a package to safety, Byron is dismayed to find that the precious cargo is actually a hostage rescue, and that his orders are to take Damara Petrakis back to U.S. soil and hide her in plain sight - as his newlywed wife.

In Glory, Kansas, the best bakery in three counties not only brings together ingredients for sweet treats, but is the place where - through the powerful mix of friendship, community and a well-stocked kitchen - a wounded hero can forge a forever kind of love. Back in the hometown he left behind five years ago, Jack McConnell has returned battle-scarred and feeling like half a man. But Betsy Lewis only sees the hero who once saved her life and set her heart on fire. Now she's burning to save him in return.

Captain Tess Bailey and Shade Ganavan are still the galaxy's Most Wanted, and with revolution in the wind and the universe on the brink of catastrophic war, the situation couldn't be more desperate. Despite the Dark Watch scouring the known sectors for them, rebel leaders have handed the crew of the Endeavor a delicate and dangerous mission: break into Starbase 12 and free renowned scientist Reena Ahern. She's the only one who stands a chance of tipping the odds in their favor for the first time in decades.

Before Nicholas V. Landrew can enjoy more than a few weeks in his new role as emperor of the universe, his world begins to fall apart. His mortal enemies, the Craborzi, have cloned him, and are using these carbon copies to produce an intergalactic reality show called The Abominable Emperor - killing a clone in every episode! Worse, they've joined forces with his other mortal enemy, the Phlemhackian talent agent, Morglob Sputum, who is also out for vengeance. But worst of all, his parents want him to take out the garbage!

When seventh grader Nicholas V. Landrew, his beloved pet gerbil Henrietta, and a package of ground beef are beamed aboard an alien space ship, they soon find themselves on the run in a madcap chase across the universe. Now all Nicholas wants to do is get back home before his parents find out and ground him forever, but with the Universal Police hot on his trail, that won't be easy.

It's 1994 and Lenore Littlefield is a junior at Briarwood School for Girls. She plays basketball. She hates her roommate. History is her favorite subject. She has told no one that she's pregnant. Everything, in other words, is under control. Meanwhile, Disney has announced plans to build a new theme park just up the road in Virginia, a "Technicolor simulacrum of American history". When the threat of the theme park begins to intrude on the lives of the faculty and students at Briarwood, secrets will be revealed and unexpected alliances will form.

When The Risk of Us opens, we meet a 40-something woman who deeply wants to become a mother. The path that opens up to her and her husband takes them through the foster care system, with the goal of adoption. And when seven-year-old Maresa - with inch-deep dimples and a voice that can beam to the moon - comes into their lives, their hearts fill with love. But her rages and troubles threaten to crack open their marriage. Over the course of a year, the couple must decide if they can be the parents this child needs and finalize the adoption - or give her up.

Cool summer mornings begin with the rose orange sun and the smell of earth, and fade into hot summer nights with a yellow moon, covered in a quilt of stars. There are wagon rides, farm dogs, trips into town, and games of kick the can. These are prairie days. Patricia MacLachlan applies her lyrical, sparse voice and vibrant, tender art from Micha Archer to transport listeners to the prairie of her youth in this stunning celebration of the beauty in the world.