Showing results by publisher "Simon & Schuster Audio" in Romance

Maddie Baxter West is shaken to the core when she finds out everything she believed about her life was a lie. Her parents had always planned to tell her the truth about her past: that she was adopted as an embryo. But somehow the right moment never happened. Then a total stranger confronts Maddie with the truth and tells her something else that rocks her world - Maddie had a sister she never knew about. Betrayed, angry, and confused, Maddie leaves her new job and fiancé, rejects her family's requests for forgiveness, and moves to Portland to find out who she really is.

Years ago, the day before Ellie moved from Georgia to California, she and her best friend, Nolan, sat beneath the Spanish moss of an ancient oak tree where they wrote letters to each other, and sealed them in a rusty old metal box. The plan was to return 11 years later and read them. But now, as that date arrives, much has changed. Ellie, bereft of the faith she grew up with, is a single mom living in a tired apartment trying to make ends meet. Sometimes she watches television to catch a glimpse of her old friend - Nolan, now an NBA star, whose terrible personal tragedies fueled his faith and athletic drive in equal measure.

In 1941, beautiful Irvel Holland is too focused on her secret to take much notice of the war raging overseas. She’s dating Sam but in love with his younger brother, Hank—her longtime best friend—and Irvel has no idea how to break the news. Then the unthinkable happens—Pearl Harbor is attacked. With their lives turned upside down overnight, Sam is drafted and convinces Hank to remain in Indiana, where he and Irvel take up the battle on the home front.

This warmhearted prequel to the “heart-tugging and emotional” (RT Book Reviews) #1 New York Times bestselling Baxter Family Series—now a television series—follows the family members as they face rising tensions during a wedding and a colossal storm.

Thinking no one is reading, a blogger who calls herself LBH writes about her most personal feelings, especially her overwhelming loneliness. She goes from day to day showing a brave face to the world while inside she longs to know how it would feel if one person cared about her. Alex Bartlett cares. He's reading her posts in Daytona Beach, Florida. Nursing his own broken heart and trust issues, he finds himself falling for this sensitive, vulnerable woman whose feelings mirror his own.

The Christmas season is supposed to be full of joy, but not for Mark Smart. Life has dealt him one blow after another, until one snowy November night, when he meets a beautiful young woman who will change his life forever. Macy Wood has little memory of her birth parents, and memories she'd rather forget of her adopted home.

From number-one New York Times best-selling author Karen Kingsbury comes this prequel to her upcoming novel The Bridge, shedding light on the love story behind the bookstore and how it came to be a place of hope and encouragement.

Hamilton High principal Wendell Quinn is tired of the violence, drug abuse, teen pregnancies, and low expectations at his Indianapolis school. A single father of four, Quinn is a Christian and a family man. He wants to see change in his community, so he starts a voluntary after-school Bible Study and prayer program. He knows he is risking his job by leading the program, but the high turnout at every meeting encourages him.

In Indiana, Ashley Baxter Blake and her husband are about to take an anniversary trip to Paris, but she is hesitant. More than two decades ago, she made her most grievous mistake in that same city. She has never forgiven herself for what happened there, and she still harbors secrets that she’s afraid will come to light. Just before the trip, Ashley gets a call from her niece. Jessie explains that her French boyfriend’s mother remembers working at a bakery with an American named Ashley. “Could that be you?”

Zack Dylan has a dream. He wants to sing on the biggest stages, for the biggest crowds, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make it come true. But Zack also made a promise to his college sweetheart when he left Kentucky to compete on the popular TV show Fifteen Minutes: If he made it, nothing would change him or his faith in God. Overnight, Zack becomes the nation’s most popular contestant. As his star rises, Zack is often asked to compromise his beliefs. Just as he’s on the verge of winning it all, his choices lead him to the brink of personal disaster.

At 32, Kimberly Rossetti, a finance officer at a Lexus car dealership, has had her heart broken more times than she wants to remember. With two failed engagements and a divorce, and again alone with no prospects, she hardly seems the type to dream of being a published romance author. Dreading another holiday alone, she signs up for The Mistletoe Retreat, a nine-day writing retreat in Savannah, Georgia. Deep inside Kimberly knows she's at a junction in her life, and it's time to either fulfill her dream or let it go.

Molly Allen lives alone in Portland, but her heart is back in Franklin, Tennessee, where five years ago she walked away from a man she cannot forget, a rare sort of love she hasn’t found since. Ryan Kelly lives in Franklin and spends plenty of time at The Bridge - the oldest bookstore in historic downtown Franklin - remembering the long hours he and Kelly once spent there. Now, Ryan and Molly’s favorite bookstore is in trouble....

A solitary sort, 42-year-old Atle Petersheim spends his time hard at work in his wood shop. But as the days get longer, he realizes just how lonely he’s become. When his longtime crush, Sadie Mast, a widow and mother of three, asks him to help her build a room in their barn for her son, Atle can’t say no. Eager to pursue Sadie at last, he turns to bookmobile librarian Sarah Anne Miller for courting advice. More than happy to help, Sarah Anne decides the best way to learn about love is through books - romance novels, to be precise.

Cole Blake, son of Landon and Ashley Baxter Blake, is months away from going off to college and taking the first steps toward his dream - a career in medicine. But as he starts his final semester of high school he meets Elise, a mysterious new girl who captures his attention - and heart - from day one. Elise has her heart set on mending her wild ways and rediscovering the good girl she used to be. But not long after the semester starts, she discovers she’s pregnant. Eighteen and alone, she shares her secret with Cole.

She was a child caught in a riptide in the Caribbean Sea. He was a teenager from the East Coast on vacation with his family. He dove in to save her, and that single terrifying moment changed both of their lives forever. Ten years later Jack Ryder is a daring undercover agent with the FBI and Eliza Lawrence still lives on that pristine island. She’s an untainted princess in a kingdom of darkness and evil, on the brink of a forced marriage with a dangerous neighboring drug lord, a marriage arranged by her father.

Brady Bradshaw was a child when the Oklahoma City bombing killed his mother. Every year, Brady visits the memorial site on the anniversary to remember her. A decade ago on that day, he met Jenna Phillips, who was also a child when her parents were killed in the attack. Brady and Jenna shared a deep heart connection and a single beautiful day together at the memorial. But after that, Brady never saw Jenna again. Every year when he returns, he leaves a note for her in hopes that he might find her again.

A New England inn seems like the picture-perfect place to spend the holidays. But when a snowstorm shuts the roads and keeps them all inside, the guests find themselves worrying that this Christmas may not be exactly what they dreamed. As the characters’ stories intertwine, they start to find hope where they thought it had been lost. With faith, and a little bit of Christmas magic, the inn - and its inhabitants - might just make it through the holidays after all.

Aaron Coblentz has a secret: he’s been studying to take the GED. But he can’t let his Amish family know, not when his older brother already left the faith just a year after getting baptized, practically crippling the family. When Aaron asks bookmobile librarian Sarah Anne Miller for additional study guides, she arranges for Kayla Kaufman to be his tutor. Kayla has a secret, too. Her mother’s death propelled her father into a constant state of depression, and unable to deal with his erratic behavior, her longtime boyfriend has broken things off. But she hasn’t given up on love.

When former national baseball star Tyler Ames suffers a career-ending injury, all he can think about is putting his life back together the way it was before. He has lost everyone he loves on his way to the big leagues. Then just when things seem to be turning around, Tyler hits rock bottom. Across the country, Tyler’s one true love Sami Dawson has moved on.

Chastity Jeffries and Xavier King come from very different backgrounds, though they have one thing in common: they’re both living with family secrets. Chastity is the only child of a prominent pastor and has been raised with privilege, but her father’s testimony as a philanderer and her mom’s role as dutiful wife have tainted her view of love. Xavier never knew his father, and his mother abandoned him. His grandmother raised him in a household built on cruelty and violence instead of love and acceptance, instilling in him a fear of abandonment and an enormous sense of insecurity.