Showing results by narrator "Melissa Kay Benson" in All Categories

Six decades ago, visionary doctors achieved the impossible: the humble kidney, acknowledged since ancient times to be as essential to life as the heart, became the first human organ to be successfully replaced with a machine. Yet huge dialysis corporations, ambitious doctor-entrepreneurs, and Beltway lobbyists soon turned this medical miracle into an early experiment in for-profit medicine—and one of the nation's worst healthcare catastrophes. With powerful insight and on-the-ground reporting, Tom Mueller introduces an unforgettable cast of characters.

The body of a missing priest was discovered in a small boat floating in the Atlantic Ocean. The corpse was identified as that of Father Jim Chamberlain, a Navy chaplain and close friend of retired Navy Commander Mike Gerard. Gerard was appointed to investigate the circumstances of Chamberlain’s death. Days after his friend’s body was discovered, Gerard received a series of letters written by Chamberlain before his death. He was being pursued by the secretive and sinister satanic cult known as the Order of the Eighth Realm. He had found and taken the Order’s guidebook.

In this enchanted family saga, Kate is a neuroscientist who reveres logic and order, unless she’s sleeping with her married lab director and then logic goes out the window. So does Kate’s orderly life in Manhattan after she takes the fall for their affair and Kate’s mother presses her to accept responsibility for her nephew, Teague, an orchid child who hears voices and talks to trees but rarely people. To salvage her career, Kate agrees to conduct a study in West Ireland.

Each year, the start of summer brings bustle and much-needed tourist dollars to the little town of Albany Beach, Delaware. For Natalie Sullivan, this season is proving more stressful than others. Their two children are thriving, but she’s experiencing pangs of loss at the end of her childbearing years. When sixteen-year-old McKenzie starts gushing about Bella, the new coworker at her summer job, Natalie suddenly finds her past and present in conflict. The more McKenzie talks about Bella, the more Natalie wonders: could Bella be her daughter?

Briony’s last boyfriend was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Jumping off the dating merry-go-round was a no-brainer. That decision sent shock waves through her nearest and dearest. She doesn’t expect them to understand. They’ve never walked in her shoes. They don’t know how stressful dating is when there’s a monkey on your back. It’s never been a matter of if the ax will fall but when and what form it’ll take. A girl can handle only so much rejection before she stops believing there’s a happily ever after in her future.

Being a pilot is all Reece has ever wanted to do. After graduating from the Naval Academy, he went on to have a distinguished military career before joining the family business. He took over the top spot at Diamond Jet Service when his father decided he’d rather spend his days on the golf course than run a billion-dollar charter company. The only area in his life where he lags behind the curve is finding a soulmate. His sister loves to tell him that he’s good at everything except love. He didn’t believe it until he was introduced to his stepbrother’s girlfriend.

In the woods of North Carolina, it awaits, ready to unleash a shocking plan of revenge. Soon, the victims will understand what it is to be helpless and alone. They will wish for mercy, but there will be none. Because actions have consequences, and someone must always pay.

Blair Bowman is the sleek, sharp, 35-year-old anchorwoman for a New Orleans TV station. Totally devoted to her career, she's never considered having a family - until she does a story on career women like herself who are creating a new baby boom. Then her long-buried feelings about children begin to surface. Blair is ready to have a child alone, until her sexy neighbor, 29-year-old Linc Langtry, offers to father the child and marry Blair, so her baby can be legitimate. Blair is sure she's not in love with Linc, but they arrange to marry and divorce in one year.

Seized by a rage more violent than the storm beating down on the South Florida coast, Attorney Frank Benedict aims his BMW at the first vehicle to cross his path. He hits the car - then backs up and hits it again. A woman stumbles out and collapses on the ground. FBI veteran Charlie Calloway is working on the case of her life - searching for the man who killed her husband and unborn child. And she's willing to do anything to find him...even enter the shadows of the human mind....

The club was my life. It was all I had ever known. Becoming the next president of the Devil's Knights is all I have ever wanted. The gavel in my hand and the wind at my back. Sometimes, dreams don't always come true like you plan.

Madeline had it all. A handsome, successful husband. A coveted spot near the top of Santa Barbara’s elite social pyramid. A country-club lifestyle with every luxury money could buy. If only she knew how quickly she’d lose everything. Madeline wakes up naked in a five-star hotel with no memory of how she got there. At home, her husband is threatening to file for divorce. Someone sent him a series of incriminating pictures from last night, all featuring Madeline…in bed with a man she doesn’t recognize.

Ireland Jacobson is desperately trying to survive the death of her fiancé, one day at a time, one breath at a time, while working for her cold, controlling mother. When a shocking secret about Ireland's father comes to light, she makes an impromptu trip to find answers. But rather than finding answers, Ireland stirs up painful complications with the man's current family. Ireland returns home and attempts to resume life as it was before.

A dog activist buys Michael Vick’s dogfighting compound. What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out...everything. The decision Tamira would make that fateful day in February 2011 would lead not only to a home for her nonprofit’s rescue dogs, but also to the most turbulent four years of her life: She faced down allegations of racism, community harassment, poisoning, and, ultimately, false charges aimed at driving her and Dogs Deserve Better from the county.

2005. The greatest natural disaster in American history is fast approaching New Orleans. Friend, family, stranger, and foe alike will meet their fates as a killer named Katrina tries to drown the Gulf Coast. Who will live and who will not? The survivors must pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Can the kindness of strangers make up for the bureaucratic bumbling of government officials? Will those left in the Crescent City ever find normalcy again?

2004. Five years after the scandals of their college days, our heroines have settled down in New Orleans. Some are looking for love, some are searching for reconciliation, and others are trying to save their relationships. Happiness, heartache, and new friends are in the cards. Meanwhile, threats from the past are still lurking. And a monster appears on the horizon. With greater maturity come greater challenges, and the three friends learn it takes courage to seize happiness, especially in a place as magical and dangerous as the Crescent City.

The year is 1998. This story is about three friends: Elizabeth, a Cajun from the swamps; Emma, an uptown Jew; and Marianne, a Mississippi girl. These ladies will have a year that will change their lives. They will meet the men who love them and the men who will break their hearts. It will be a time of love and friendship, trials and tribulations, tragedy and murder.

Completed after eight years of writing and research, Nicole Waybright's memoir tells the true story of her coming-of-age struggles while deployed as an officer on a US Navy destroyer. With heartbreaking and fearless realism, the author chronicles the despair and psychological crisis that she experienced while yet in the early days of a five-year military obligation.

When Zach Mason, former army sergeant turned veterinarian for war-wounded animals, returns home, the decision to stay is easy. Convincing the only other vet in town to hire him is a good deal harder. It doesn't help that the beautiful, intelligent, and stubborn Stella Lane is determined to make his life hell. Stella doesn't take outside help easily—she's been let down before, most recently by her ex, just as she'd begun to plan their wedding. Trusting Zach with her animals is one thing, but trusting him with more is a hard pass. Too bad the handsome vet is nothing but temptation.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. We were supposed to have time—to figure it out. But that’s not the way it went down. Immortality crashed into the world like a tidal wave. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, some people began to take seriously the possibility of cracking the genetic code and beating back the inevitability of growing old. But for most, the dream was put in a box labeled, someday. Nobody ever thought it would be tomorrow. Then, geneticist, Simon Barstow, stumbled on the secret. He was not prepared. The world was not prepared—that is, except for one man.

After the brutal murder of her mother and brother twelve years ago, Corina Roberts built a new life in Kentucky. But when strange things begin to happen, she is thrust into a perilous game of life and death. With nowhere else to turn, her best hope of survival depends on her ex-boyfriend, army veteran Bryce Jessup.