Showing results by narrator "Sophie Amoss" in All Categories

Dark, profane, and hilarious, yet ultimately humane, these ten stories are the latest and best of Robin McLean’s reports from the eternal battlefront that is the United States. Ranging across the continent, from Alaska to Missouri, from the flatlands to the mountains, each tale is a snapshot of the political, racial, and sexual undercurrents roiling contemporary life, and each finds a way into the nerves and blood that pulse beneath the question of how to live a decent life.

The death of Donald Ray in a freak car accident becomes the catalyst for the release of passions, needs, and hurts. Clayton’s discovery of dead Donald Ray upends his longtime emotional numbness. Darlene, the seventeen-year-old widow, struggles to reconnect with her late husband while proving herself still alive. Soon Clayton and Darlene’s bond of loss and death works its magic, drawing them into an affair that brings the loneliness in Clayton’s marriage to a crisis. When Aurilla Cutter, Clayton’s mother-in-law, learns about the affair, her own memories are set loose.

London, 1881. There's something eerie about Manon—she's not like the other girls at the orphanage. Maybe it's her red eyes. Maybe it's her silence. Maybe it's the series of violent deaths that seem to follow her. What we do know: someone is hot on her tail. And there's a lot of money at stake in finding out where exactly she comes from—and what exactly she is. Concurrent to Manon's story are letters to Charles Darwin from Professor Humphrey, a scientist who has recently died under mysterious circumstances. Is it true that natural selection left humans at the top of the pyramid?

For thirteen-year-old Jillian Robichaux, three things are sacred: bayou sunsets, her grandmother Nonnie’s stories, and the coastal Louisiana town of Boutin that she calls home. When the worst flood in a century hits, Jillian and the rest of her community band together as they always do―but this time the damage may simply be too great. After the local school is padlocked and the bridges into town condemned, Jillian has no choice but to face the reality that she may be losing the only home she’s ever had.

Pregnant and divorced, Josie Hale seeks comfort in deep-fried food at the county fair, where she runs into two old friends from high school: Ben Romero and Kevin Lawrence. After sharing their disappointments in adult life, they devise a life pact to move in together and turn their lives around. Josie finds herself the third wheel in a comedy bromance—much-needed medicine as she deals with a mountain of debt, unemployment, an overbearing mother, and preparing for single parenthood. But stress levels rise when her high-school feelings for Ben resurface.

Devon Marsh is haunted by secrets. Like the identity of the person who killed her twin sister, Emily, in a hit and run accident last Halloween, which Devon has vowed to uncover. Like the things Devon said to Emily just before she died.

A haunted Aquarius finds love behind the veil. An ambitious Aries will do anything to stay in the spotlight. A foodie Taurus discovers the best eats in town (with a side of romance). A witchy Cancer stumbles into a curious meet-cute. Whether it’s romantic, platonic, familial, or something else you can’t quite define, love is the thing that connects us. All Signs Point to Yes will take you on a journey from your own backyard to the world beyond the living as it settles us among the stars for thirteen stories of love and life.

In the summer of 1932, Americans are coming to realize that the financial crash of 1929 was only the beginning of hard times. May Marshall has returned from Paris to settle at her family home in rural Keswick, Virginia. She struggles to keep her family farm and market afloat through the economic downturn. May finds herself juggling her marriage with a tempting opportunity to revamp the family business to adapt to changing times.

A young girl named Ginny and her family are dealing with the hardships of the Great Depression, and in order to survive, her dad decides they must sell their horse, and Ginny's best friend, Thimble. But Ginny will do anything in order to find a way for them to stay together and chooses to leave her family in Oklahoma and travel west to California.

Forced to flee the tyrannical state with her younger brother Simon in tow, Selena is now the last chance for peace in a continent on the verge of complete destruction. Between New Canaan and California stretch the Middle Wastes: thousands of desolate miles home to murderers, thieves, and a virulent strain of grass called yellow locust that has made growing food all but impossible. So when Selena and Simon stagger into Fallowfield, an oasis of prosperity amidst the poisoned plains, everything seems too good to be true.

A city of antebellum architecture, picturesque parks, and cobblestone streets, Savannah moves at a graceful pace. But for Harper McClain, the timeless beauty and culture that distinguishes her home’s Southern heritage vanishes during the dark and dangerous nights. She wouldn’t have it any other way. Not even finding her mother brutally murdered in their home when she was 12 has made her love Savannah any less.

A group of young girls descends on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and camp songs by the fire. Filled with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore traces these five girls through and beyond this fateful trip.

One sexy fire captain. One Cajun chef. One combustible kitchen. When chef Colby Robicheaux returned home to New Orleans to save her family restaurant, the last person she expected to reconnect with was her brother's best friend and her childhood crush. As tempting as a sugar-coated beignet, Jason is one dish she can't afford to taste. Colby can't wait to leave the place where her distrust of love and commitment originated and go back to Vegas.

The Sarrazins have always stood apart from the rest of their Bayou-born neighbors. Almost as far as they prefer to stand from each other. Blessed - or cursed - with the uncanny ability to see beyond the spectral plane, Aurie has raised his children, Sol, Baz, and Lutie, in the tradition of the traiteur, finding wayward spirits and using his special gift to release them along Deadroads into the afterworld. The family, however, fractured by their clashing egos, drifted apart, scattered high and low across the continent.

Robin had made the ultimate sacrifice; losing life, love, and fate in the process. Or so it seemed. When all hope was lost her destiny was finally made clear. What would you do if you were trapped in a prison where most were put there by you? You rise....

Corey Bennett knows how to handle loss: she buries her grief, just as she buried her loved ones. After losing her parents to a tragic car accident and then her husband to cancer, Corey has focused all her attention on her career - first in law school and then on the partner track at a prestigious Atlanta law firm. When her boss insists she take a vacation, Corey balks. But two weeks on the Florida Gulf Coast, where she reconnects with Tripp, a childhood friend, prove to be profoundly rejuvenating.

This is a guide on how to fight a bigfoot, or at least how to increase your chance of survival surrounding a fight with the giant apelike beast known as bigfoot. The odds are against you, but that doesn't mean it's absolutely impossible.

Beka and Charley were left alone by their parents more than a year ago. They are trapped in a city surrounded by a massive wall. Time is running out for the two of them to uncover the secrets behind their capture and to realize their best hope for survival could cost them everything.

What does it mean to be the executioner? Is it the struggle between good and evil and the fulfillment of a gypsy legend? For Robin, it's simply another day in the park in downtown L.A. It's killing the undead as she attempts to juggle life and love the same as any other ordinary woman would. That is until she meets Gordon, a crazed demon with a conscience. Now she must battle an ancient evil far more powerful then she's ever faced before or risk losing the world to Lilith, the mother of all vampires.

Cale Lambert, a bookish loner of mysterious parentage, lives in a dusty town near the California-Nevada border, a place where coyotes scavenge for backyard dogs and long-haul truckers scavenge for pills and girls. Cale was raised by her grandfather in a loving, if codependent, household, but as soon as she's left high school his health begins an agonizing decline. Set adrift for the first time, Cale starts waitressing at the local diner, where she reconnects with Penélope Reyes, a charismatic former classmate running mysterious side-hustles to fund her dreams.