Showing results by narrator "Christa Lewis" in All Categories

It's 1971 when Louise leaves Oregon for Düsseldorf, a city grappling with its nation's horrific recent history, to study art. Soon she's embroiled in a scene dramatically different from the one at home, thanks in large part to Dieter, a mercurial musician. Their romance ignites quickly, but life gets in the way: an unplanned pregnancy, hasty marriage, the tense balance of their creative ambitions, and - finally, fatally - a family secret that shatters Dieter, and drives Louise home. But in 2008 she's headed to Dieter's mother's funeral.

When Mallory Shepard discovers some old lace at a Port Quincy antique shop, she knows it’ll make a perfect headpiece. But she’s barely gotten it out of the store before Helene Pierce tears it from her hands. Helene claims it’s a family heirloom that went missing when her late husband died in a hit-and-run 25 years ago. The conflict gets more complicated when the veil is attributed to none other than famed seamstress Betsy Ross. Mallory may have a genuine museum piece on her hands.

When the Nancy Drew Clue Colloquium converges on Castleton Manor in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts, scholars and fans, dressed as their favorite detective, arrive in their 1930s roadsters. But it turns into a bumpy ride when Nancy A. and Nancy Z. - the good-natured bad girls of Nancy Drew fandom - start pulling pranks. Their group, the River Heights Roundtable, clashes with the Nancy Drew Clue Society, and librarian Faith Newberry strives to keep the peace between the two rival groups.

It's Gatsby Week at Castleton Manor, the elegant retreat for booklovers in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts, and the roaring '20s are in full swing. Charlotte Jaxon, owner of the manor, arrives to put on the ritz and oversee the festivities celebrating the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Faith Newberry is sitting pretty when she receives a brief respite from her duties in the library to assist Charlotte in organizing the events that have everyone jazzed up, including a fashion show, an antique car race, and a Gatsby Ball.

It's late March in Lighthouse Bay, and Castleton Manor is undergoing spring-cleaning. Librarian and archivist, Faith Newberry, envisions a little downtime while the manor is closed to guests. But her reverie is cut short when she is pressed into service for the organizers of the Gothic Studies Conference, who are meeting in a nearby seaside home. Though reluctant to leave her cozy cottage on the Castleton estate, Faith agrees, especially since her faithful cat, Watson, is invited along.

Christmas is no humbug affair in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts. The merry festivities are well underway in the quaint seaside village, and the halls of the posh Castleton Manor literary retreat are decked out in full Victorian décor. This year, the manor is hosting the Charles Dickens Society's annual gala, compete with parlor games and dramatic readings of A Christmas Carol, and culminating in a costume ball. Faith Newberry, Castleton's private librarian and archivist, loves being part of the holiday hustle and bustle while catering to the eccentric guests' bookish whims.

It is early 20th-century Greece. Theodosia, a teenage girl and her younger sister, lose their parents in Constantinople and are thrown into a massive population exchange between Greece and Turkey. They arrive at a refugee camp in Northern Greece, where their choice is to perish or to use the resources at hand in order to survive. Despite all the difficulties they encounter, the sisters decide not to give up, and fight for a better life. Theodosia's story carries on throughout a century and is peppered with horrific events, likable characters, and a great love story.

Sera Donner has lost everything, perhaps even her own humanity. She's been denied her chance for vengeance against the praetor and her brother, and her own horrific crimes have chased her far from home. Descending into an abyss of isolation and doubt, she fears that Heaven has abandoned her. But Yahweh still has plans for the fledgling believer. Plans that will thrust her to the forefront of an ancient prophecy overlooked for more than two millennia.

Set against the backdrop of the construction of the Berlin Wall, The Last Secret Kept explores the beauty of individualism while demolishing the invisible walls built between ourselves and our loved ones.

In 1790 the United States has a new Constitution. George Washington presides as the first elected president. Abroad, France and Britain are at war. And by 1795 seafaring Americans are accosted on the high seas by French privateers and British naval ships. Tensions rise as American merchants continue to trade. Among them, Hasket Derby and Captain George Crowninshield busily build maritime empires while their sons seek a new way forward.

Eliza heard the words retirement and club followed by gunfire. It was over quickly, and they were gone...with her voice. A pregnant ex-assassin has days to recall a lifetime, retrieve two stolen chips that control the US defense system and save two children from termination by the Club, which trained her. Only she can't remember the Club, and the children belong to the woman she terminated, and the Club wants them dead.

Inspector Victoria Rhodes works long hours as one of the last clean cops on San Francisco's crumbling police force. When a double murder claims the life of a city prosecutor in the exclusive covenant community of Atlantis, Rhodes is assigned as liaison between the SFPD investigation and the investigation run by the private security force known as the ASM.

FBI Special Agent Ilona Farris has barely recovered from her first escapade with the newly formed Unsolvable Crimes Unit when a bizarre case lands on her desk. A man has been chained to a sack of stones and pushed into the water at Seattle Marina. However, the victim supposedly died in a plane crash over twenty years ago. Witnesses report seeing a man in a straw hat and long coat at the scene. There one moment, then disappearing without a trace.

When a five-year-old girl reports being saved by a mysterious being in the middle of a tornado, her story is readily dismissed. But less so the computer-assisted discovery of a pattern in a series of deaths that suggests they are no accident. Special agent Ilona Farris of the FBI puzzles over how a killer could predict the storm events so accurately, yet stops short at believing they are dealing with the thunder beings of Native American legend.

Trillium Bay, 1889. Alexander Bostwick doesn't believe in ghosts, but the unexpected death of his bride has him feeling haunted. The lingering scent of her perfume—along with her personal possessions popping up in the most peculiar places—has him worried he's lost his senses as well as his wife. With half of Chicago feeling sorry for him and the other half suspecting he had a hand in her demise, Alex escapes to Trillium Bay, hoping peace and quiet might ease his troubled mind.

In 1735, Richard Derby, a ship’s master in colonial Salem, Massachusetts, married Mary Hodges, a merchant’s daughter. The alliance was good business, and Mary Hodges was a willing bride. Richard prospered, retired from the sea, and founded his own merchant house. With one exception, Richard’s sons went to sea. Hasket Derby stayed ashore, learning to manage the trading network his father built.

Swiss equestrian William "Zen" Griegg skyrockets to the top of the European show jumping circuit. As he sets his sights on the 2000 Olympic Games, his beloved horse Tiger is abducted en route to a competition in the United States. Zen's father, Sigmund Griegg, again teams with American Alana Eastwood to solve an international mystery that leads them from a secret tunnel in the Owl Mountains of Poland, through the art galleries of Zürich, to the Hamilton Farm Equestrian Center in Gladstone, New Jersey.

American Alana Eastwood's grandfather, and her only living relative, has taken ill at his home in Germany. Alana travels to be by his side, and while staying at his country cottage, she finds an unopened letter, postmarked 1945, that thrusts her into one of the most notable unsolved mysteries from postwar Germany. When people turn up dead, the local police are ill equipped to grasp the entire chain of events that the mysterious letter has put into play.

In 1982, amid the nuclear paranoia that engulfed the US and the Soviet Union, Samantha Smith, a fifth grader from Manchester, Maine, wrote a letter to the Kremlin asking the Soviet leader if he was going to start a war. When Pravda, the biggest Soviet newspaper, published her letter—and Samantha received an unprecedented invitation to visit the Soviet Union—her family embarked on a historic journey.

In a world on the brink, US President Dani Mitchell fights to advance her net zero-carbon agenda, battling the cartel—a shadowy assembly of ruthless capitalists controlling global economies and governments. When a Native American elder offers a bold proposition, Dani finds an unexpected ally.