Bøger af Brenda Novak

"Jane Tanner's friends are settling down, while she's been settling for less. She longs for adventure and the big city, but caring for her ailing grandfather means she's shackled to her small town. She's excited her vintage gift shop is finally up and running, but it's not enough. Longing to fulfill at least one dream--to become a mother before her biological clock ticks out--Jane drunkenly propositions the worst possible candidate for Dad. Kurt Elway is off-limits with a capital O. He's a good friend, but he's too young, too busy running his family's ranch. Plus, he and Jane's sister, Kate, used to date. That kind of off-limits. Unbeknownst to Jane, Kurt's pining for her. When he's fully on board to father her baby, she sees him in a new light. Then lingering baggage between Kate and Kurt suddenly surfaces and Jane is reminded of just how messy life is. But...so is parenting. Maybe it's time to embrace the mess?"--

She left her hometown following a scandal--but family loyalty is dragging her back... Despite their strained relationship, when Gia Rossi's sister, Margot, begs her to come home to Wakefield, Iowa, to help with their ailing mother, Gia knows she has no choice. After her rebellious and at-times tumultuous teen years, Gia left town with little reason to look back. But she knows Margot's borne the brunt of their mother's care and now it's Gia's turn to help, even if it means opening old wounds. As expected, Gia's homecoming is far from welcome. There's the Banned Books Club she started after the PTA overzealously slashed the high school reading list, which is right where she left it. But there is also Mr. Hart, her former favorite teacher. The one who was fired after Gia publicly and painfully accused him of sexual misconduct. The one who prompted Gia to leave behind a very conflicted town the minute she turned eighteen. The one person she hoped never to see again. When Margot leaves town without explanation, Gia sees the cracks in her sister's "perfect" life for the first time and plans to offer support. But as the town, including members of the book club, takes sides between Gia and Mr. Hart, everything gets harder. Fortunately, she learns that there are people she can depend on. And by standing up for the truth, she finds love and a future in the town she thought had rejected her.

"Ismay Chalmers is ready for a relaxing summer reconnecting with her fiancâe at his family's luxurious beachfront cottage. But before Remy can join her, a hurricane bears down on Mariners Island. Alone in the large house, Ismay makes a disturbing discovery in Remy's childhood closet. She's not sure what to make of it, but is relieved when the property's caretaker, Bo, checks in on her. Bo's home is damaged, so they temporarily shelter together, and Ismay is comforted by his quiet strength. But the unannounced arrival of a family member puts Bo back at his place and changes Ismay's summer into something other than what she wants--or ever expected. With so many reasons to feel unsettled, Ismay finds herself turning to Bo, who gives her more than a sense of security; there's something about him that makes her feel alive, stirring her to wonder what life might be like if she chose a different path... As Ismay grows closer to Bo, she begins to hope the reclusive caretaker might eventually let down his guard. But when she finds out that he has secrets, too, she begins to question how well she knows any of the men in her life--and how well she can trust her own heart." -- from Amazon.com

"Despite their strained relationship, when Gia Rossi's sister, Margot, begs her to come home to Wakefield, Iowa, to help with their ailing mother, Gia knows she has no choice. After her rebellious and at-times-tumultuous teen years, Gia left town with little reason to look back. But she knows Margot's borne the brunt of their mother's care and now it's Gia's turn to help, even if it means opening old wounds. As expected, Gia's homecoming is far from welcome. There's the Banned Books Club she started after the PTA overzealously slashed the high school reading list, which is right where she left it. But there is also Mr. Hart, her former favorite teacher. The one who was fired after Gia publicly and painfully accused him of sexual misconduct. The one who prompted Gia to leave behind a very conflicted town the minute she turned eighteen. The one person she hoped never to see again. When Margot leaves town without explanation, Gia sees the cracks in her sister's 'perfect' life for the first time and plans to offer support. But as the town, including members of the book club, takes sides between Gia and Mr. Hart, everything gets harder. Fortunately, she learns that there are people she can depend on. And by standing up for the truth, she finds love and a future in the town she thought had rejected her"--

"Tortured and left for dead at sixteen, Evelyn Talbot turned her personal nightmare into her life's work, studying the disturbing psychopathy of some of the world's most vicious serial killers. Now a leading psychiatrist at Hanover House in a small Alaskan town, she tries to believe the past will never come back to haunt her--until a woman goes missing from a cabin nearby, and every clue points to the man who once brutalized her"--

Eve Harmon siempre había disfrutado de la Navidad, sin embargo, aquel año le recordaba todo lo que no tenía. A aquellas alturas, casi todas sus amigas estaban casadas y eso era lo que ella quería. Amor, un marido e hijos. Además, de pronto, el hostal que dirigía e incluso Whiskey Creek, la pequeña población del País del Oro en la que había nacido y crecido, le resultaban... claustrofóbicos.Eve temía que su futuro se limitara a ser un reflejo de su pasado. No había un solo hombre en la zona al que pudiera imaginar como marido, hasta que llegó al pueblo un atractivo forastero. Eve se sintió definitivamente atraída por él, y él pareció sentir lo mismo. Pero su oscuro y misterioso pasado podía llegar a arruinar un futuro feliz para Eve justo cuando por fin lo tenía al alcance.

En Whiskey Creek todo el mundo recordaba a Sophia DeBussi como a una adolescente mezquina. Especialmente Ted Dixon, cuyo amor ella despreció una vez. Pero Sophia había tenido que pagar un alto precio por todas sus transgresiones de juventud. Se había casado con un hombre rico y poderoso que había resultado ser un maltratador. Un buen día, su marido desapareció y Sophia no tardó en descubrir que lo había hecho huyendo de una investigación del FBI sobre su firma de inversiones. Y no solo se marchó dejando a Sophia en la miseria, sino obligándola a enfrentarse sola a todas las personas del pueblo a las que había estafado. Para pagar las cuentas y mantener a su hija no le quedó más remedio que aceptar un puesto de trabajo como empleada de hogar de Ted, convertido con los años en un exitoso escritor de novelas de misterio. Ted no podía darle la espalda, aunque se negaba a involucrarse sentimentalmente con ella...

Primer amor, ¿segunda oportunidad?Como hija de una mujer que vivía en la marginalidad, Phoenix Fuller había tenido una infancia difícil. Por esa razón, al conseguir que un chico tan atractivo y apreciado como Riley Stinson se convirtiera en su novio en el instituto, se había sentido como si por fin tuviera algo de lo que sentirse orgullosa. Phoenix no quería perderle, sobre todo tras enterarse de que estaba embarazada. Sí, a lo mejor se había obsesionado un poco con él cuando Riley había decidido romper. ¡Pero no había sido ella la que había atropellado a la chica con la que había empezado a salir después!Por desgracia, no había podido demostrar su inocencia. Años después, tras haber cumplido su condena, Phoenix fue liberada. Y lo único que quería era regresar a Whiskey Creek y conocer a su hijo. Pero el padre de Jacob no parecía muy dispuesto a darle la bienvenida.Riley no confiaba en Phoenix, no quería que formara parte de la vida de Jacob. Sin embargo, él por fin volvía a estar abierto al amor. Y quería una madre para su hijo. Lo que no sabía era que estaba a punto de encontrarla, siempre que ambos estuvieran preparados para perdonar los errores del pasado.

In No, Again? Harry is met with one "no" after another. But when he comes to understand that "no" is what saved him from being hurt, getting sick, breaking something in the house and falling behind on his schoolwork, he learns that "no" might not be the bad word he assumed it was. And when he uses it to get his dog out of the street, he realizes how important the lesson he's learned truly is.

Lieutenant Crawford Treynor has fought valiantly for everything he has. The bastard child of a noblewoman, he was handed over as an infant to a poor farmer-and beaten so badly that he ran away at age fourteen. Now a respected officer, he vows to command his own frigate one day. There is no place in his life for a woman, especially one of noble birth. He has no love for the aristocracy...After narrowly escaping the guillotine in the French Revolution, petite beauty Jeannette Boucher agrees to secure her family's future by marrying a wealthy English baron. But when she learns what her impotent husband has planned in order to produce an heir, she escapes on their wedding night, stowing away aboard Lieutenant Treynor's ship. Once she's discovered, the handsome, duty-bound lieutenant is tempted enough by her beauty and spirit to go against everything he believed he'd ever do-and soon he must decide between returning her to a husband he knows will abuse her, or risking everything to keep her all to himself.

Furious at his aristocratic father for abandoning him as an infant, Nathaniel Kent spends his days exacting revenge...in a most lucrative way. The handsome, blue-eyed pirate captain attacks his father's boats, plundering their cargo and reaping the rewards. When Nathaniel takes a lovely seamstress as his hostage, mistaking her for his spoiled and wealthy half sister, he feels elated over his clever capture. But his sense of triumph disappears as he slowly becomes tormented by his rising passion for the spirited young woman.After years of abuse from her violent stepfather, seamstress Alexandra Cogsworth finally planned her escape. But she never intended to wind up as a hostage on a pirate ship. Determined to ensure her safe passage on the Royal Vengeance, she keeps her true identity secret, playing the part of Nathaniel's blood relation. But as her desire for the charismatic yet dangerous Nathaniel grows, the rising current of their mutual longing could sweep them both away...forever.

With her piercings, tattoos and spiky blond hair, Ellen Truesdale doesn't quite fit in with the other folks in Coyote Canyon--and that's just fine with her. She's only here to put her father out of business, as payback for abandoning her when she was young. Or is she more interested in finally proving that she was worth keeping? Either way, she's struggling to keep her rival well-drilling company afloat. And being a single woman in a male-dominated field has started to take a toll. So when Hendrix Durrant steps in to help, Ellen has no choice but to let him--even though he happens to be her father's business partner and therefore her enemy. But the closer she works with him, the more she sees what she's been missing...in life and love. And once she lets go of her anger long enough to learn the truth about her past, she might just find the family she's always wanted.

From the New York Times bestseller Brenda Novak comes the next installment of Dr. Evelyn Talbot and her murderous home for psychopaths in Hello Again.SHE CAN MAKE SENSE OF A COMPLEX CRIMINAL MIND.Evelyn Talbot, a psychiatrist at a maximum-security prison in Alaska, studies some of the world's worst serial killers. But she's about to meet her most elusive patient at Hanover House yet: Dr. Lyman Bishop, AKA the Zombie Maker given his fondness for performing ice-pick lobotomies on his victims. A brilliant cancer researcher, Bishop is either the most cunning psychopath Evelyn has ever encountered-or he is wrongly convicted. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A CRIMINAL CAN SEE INTO HER OWN? When a new ice-pick fatality occurs, it seems Bishop really was wrongly convicted. Except...Evelyn has a personal connection to the victim and that suggests the killer may be someone from her own past: Jasper Moore, her high school boyfriend who tortured her and left her for dead when she was only sixteen. Jasper also murdered three of her friends-and was never caught. Is he trying to send a message with this copycat crime? The only thing Evelyn knows for sure is that if Jasper is on her trail, she might not be able to escape again . . .

"There are secrets that bring friends together, and others that drive them apart... Mariners Island is barely ten miles long, but when Ivy, Ariana and Cam were teenagers, it was their whole world. Beyond the pristine beaches and iconic lighthouse lies the beautiful old library that belongs to Ivy's family. While that bound Ivy to the island as an adult, Ariana could not leave Mariners behind fast enough. The town holds too many...memories. Not only her unrequited feelings for Cam, but the tragedy that left a scar on the community. When a young girl went missing, a teenage Cam was unthinkably the prime suspect. Ariana and Ivy knew he couldn't have hurt anyone, and they promised to protect him--even if it meant lying on his behalf. Now, twenty years later, Ariana returns to Mariners just as new evidence emerges on the case, calling into question everything the three friends thought they knew--and everyone they thought they could trust. What really happened that night? Over the course of one eventful summer, Ariana, Ivy and Cam will learn the truth--about their pasts, their futures and the ties that still bind them as closely as the pages of a book"--

Jada Brooks nunca podría haberse imaginado hasta qué punto iba a cambiar su vida cuando se enamoró de Maddox Richardson en el instituto. Jamás podría haber sabido que el perturbado hermano de Maddox acabaría por dejar tullido al suyo. Ni tampoco podría haber imaginado que iba a verse obligada a rechazar por completo a Maddox, y descubrir poco después que estaba embarazada de su bebé.Aunque Maddox quedó destrozado por los sucesos ocurridos aquella fatídica noche, perder a Jada fue lo peor de todo. Estaba de vuelta en Silver Springs, dispuesto a redimirse y proporcionar a los jóvenes un poco de esa ayuda que le salvó a él. De haber sabido que Jada también había vuelto a la ciudad, no habría regresado.Jada había regresado a Silver Springs para acompañar a su familia tras la muerte de su padre. Pero al ver a Maddox, cada una de las difíciles decisiones que había tenido que tomar en relación a su hija de doce años, empezaron a atormentarla. Enamorarse de nuevo de él resultaba de lo más tentador, pero no solo debía mantenerse firme para no ofender a su familia... si él descubriera lo de Maya, podría perder lo que más le importaba en el mundo.

Aquella noche, Sloane McBride, una niña de cinco años, no podía dormir. Sus padres estaban discutiendo de nuevo. De pronto se oyó un golpe horrible y después se hizo el silencio.A la mañana siguiente, su madre había desaparecido.Según la historia oficial, se había marchado, pero Sloane no lo creía. Ni siquiera después de haberse forjado una carrera profesional de modelo en Nueva York podía superar el miedo a que su padre fuera un hombre letal.Tras otra pérdida dolorosa, Sloane se dio cuenta de que tenía que averiguar la verdad porque se lo debía a su madre. Para conseguirlo, tenía que volver al pequeño pueblo de Texas en el que había nacido, donde se encontraría con el novio de adolescencia al que había abandonado y con un hermano y un padre que querían silenciarla. Y, cuando empezó a investigar el pasado, Sloane se dio cuenta de que la cuestión no era solo si podría descubrir lo que ocurrió aquella noche, sino, también, ¿qué quedaría de su familia si lo conseguía?

Cuando el marido de Harper Devlin, una estrella del rock, la dejó para seguir su ascenso a la cumbre, ella se llevó a sus dos hijas a Silver Springs con la esperanza de que su familia pudiera ayudarla a recuperarse del duro golpe. Pero el consuelo llegó de un sitio inesperado al cruzarse con Tobias Richardson.En cuanto vio a Harper, Tobias reconoció su tristeza, porque era la misma que sentía él. Después de cumplir una condena de trece años de cárcel estaba dispuesto a reparar el daño que había hecho y, tal vez, ayudar a Harper fuera la manera de conseguirlo. Sin embargo, ofrecerle un hombro sobre el que llorar hizo saltar la chispa de una fuerte atracción y de un deseo que él no se esperaba.Como temía la reacción de Harper, Tobias no le habló de su pasado. Se estaba enamorando perdidamente de ella y, si Harper se enteraba, la perdería para siempre, sobre todo ahora que su exmarido estaba intentando recuperarla. Los secretos siempre terminaban por salir a la luz, aunque, quizás, Tobias recibiera el perdón y el amor que merecía.

¿Cómo se empieza un nuevo capítulo en la vida cuando aún no se ha terminado el libro de la vida anterior? Hacía dieciocho meses que el marido de Autumn Divac había desaparecido, y ella no se imaginaba cómo iba a vivir sin él. Sin embargo, por el bien de sus dos hijos, tenía que intentarlo. Autumn se llevó a sus hijos a pasar el verano a su pueblo natal, la preciosa localidad costera donde se había criado. Quería encontrar consuelo junto a su madre y su tía en la librería que regentaban. Aunque al poco tiempo supo que su hija se enfrentaba a un profundo cambio vital y que su madre había estado ocultando un secreto horrible. Y, cuando se encontró con el chico que le había robado el corazón durante el instituto, comenzó a sentir algo por él otra vez. Pero... ¿era realmente libre para poder enamorarse de nuevo, o debía continuar esperando el regreso de su esposo? Lo único que podía hacer era seguir los dictados de su corazón... y confiar en que no la llevara por el camino equivocado.

Cuando Serenity Alston se hizo una prueba de ADN para experimentar el proceso y poder plasmarlo con más exactitud en sus libros, hizo bromas con la idea de sacar a la luz algún escándalo oscuro sobre sus ancestros. Lo que menos esperaba era descubrir que tenía dos hermanastras. De repente, todo lo relativo a su adorada familia quedó en entredicho, y supo que solo conociendo a aquellas dos mujeres obtendría respuestas. Las tres decidieron investigar aquel misterio refugiadas en la cabaña que los padres de Serenity tenían a orillas del lago Tahoe.Reagan estaba capeando una difícil situación en su trabajo y Lorelei estaba enfrentándose al colapso de su matrimonio. Todas se encontraban en una encrucijada vital, y, antes de que terminara aquel verano, tendrían que afrontar el pasado y decidir cómo iban a continuar sabiendo que todo en lo que creían era una mentira.Sin embargo, era más fácil mirar al futuro al lado de la familia.

Did she once have a sister? Has her mother lied all these years? Why? After a painful divorce, Maisey Lazarow returns to Fairham, the small island off the South Carolina coast where she grew up. She goes there to heal-and to help her brother, Keith, a deeply troubled man who's asked her to come home. But she refuses to stay in the family house. The last person she wants to see is the wealthy, controlling mother she escaped years ago. Instead, she finds herself living next door to someone else she'd prefer to avoid-Rafe Romero, the wild, reckless boy to whom she lost her virginity at sixteen. He's back on the island, and to her surprise, he's raising a young daughter alone. Maisey's still attracted to him, but her heart's too broken to risk... Then something even more disturbing happens. She discovers a box of photographs that evoke distant memories of a little girl, a child Keith remembers, too. Maisey believes the girl must've been their sister, but their mother claims there was no sister. Maisey's convinced that child existed. So where is she now?