Showing results by narrator "Eileen Smith" in All Categories

On the morning of May 18, 1924, households across America opened their newspapers to the headline: "Derby Winner Property of Indian Woman." The woman in question was Rosa Magnet Hoots, a member of the Oklahoma Osage Nation. The horse, draped in the iconic red roses signifying his victory in the fiftieth running of the Kentucky Derby, was Black Gold. Named for the oil that had been discovered in large quantities in Oklahoma at the time of his birth, Black Gold was born in 1921 to a mare named Useeit.

The stories shared with me about Lena, my husband’s mother, were extraordinary. I heard many of them over the years, tales told to me by her son and his father, accounts that were often shocking, sometimes heart-wrenching, and always fascinating.

When Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) published Three Stories and 10 Poems in 1923, he was 24, a wounded veteran of the Great War, and still three years away from publishing his debut novel (The Sun Also Rises). So the "Three Stories" give us a unique look into Hemingway's developing writing skills and his very particular areas of creative interest.

Both a memoir in travel essays and an anti-guidebook, Bad Tourist takes us across four continents to 15 countries, showing us what not to do when traveling. A woman learning to claim her own desires and adventures, Suzanne Roberts encounters lightning and landslides, sharks and piranha-infested waters, a nightclub drugging, burning bodies, and brief affairs as she searches for the love of her life and finally herself.

Carla has known nothing but the orphanage for all her life. Derided because of the birthmark that covers half of her face, her only friend is Sally. When Sally dies in childbirth, she begs Carla to save her baby’s life. With Baby Marsha wrapped in her arms, Carla runs for their lives, making the long walk to the next town, Carrick Plains. There she finds comfort and help in a way she never expected. Soon she begins to relax, but Sheriff Bud Jeffries is curious about this newcomer.

Joseph Collins had a near-death experience when he was 14 years old, after which his mother, who had committed suicide two years earlier, spoke to him. Doubted by his family and labeled psychotic, he lost that connection. Now, Joseph is 35 years old, divorced and resentful. He is also a professional psychic. Or is he crazy like his mother was?

Justice is blind, they say, but perhaps not to beauty. In supposedly dispassionate courts of law, attractive women have long avoided punishment, based largely on their looks, for cold-blooded crimes. The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial gathers the true stories of some of the most infamous femmes fatales in criminal history, collected by attorney and true crime historian Laura James.

Eighth in The Manhattan Stories by Wall Street Journal top 10 best-selling author Donna Foley Mabry, Dan Curran Quinn | The Manhattan Stories: The Currans, Book Four continues the saga of the Curran Family. After a romance that started when he was still in high school, Dan Curran Quinn marries his longtime love, Kathleen O’Malley. They begin their lives together with a bright future, but a vengeful killer from Dan’s past has other plans.

San Tran Croucher’s earliest memories are of fleeing ethnic attacks in her Vietnamese village, only to be later tortured in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. Katya Cengel met San when San was 75-years-old and living in California, having miraculously survived the Cambodian genocide with her three daughters, Sithy, Sithea, and Jennifer. But San’s family’s troubles didn’t end after their resettlement in California

On the Manhattan, Kansas, frontier of the 1870s, D’Arcy Curran, her adopted son, Dan, and her new husband, Royce Quinn, want nothing more than to raise a family and live in peace. Their plans are waylaid when the renegade Jayhawker who killed D’Arcy’s father returns from prison looking for revenge. Human treachery isn’t the only thing D’Arcy and Royce battle on their prairie home.

Living Folklore is a comprehensive, straightforward introduction to folklore as it is lived, shared and practiced in contemporary settings. Drawing on examples from diverse American groups and experiences, this text gives the student a strong foundation—from the field's history and major terms to theories and interpretive approaches. The volume moves beyond genres and classifications, and encourages students who are new to the field to see the study of folklore as a unique approach to understanding people, communities, and day-to-day artistic communication.

The Civil War ended, but the turmoil of D’Arcy Curran’s life did not. Rather than give up the child she raised from birth, 16-year-old D’Arcy kidnaps her sister Suzanne’s son. The only safe place for her and little Danny is home…Manhattan, Kansas. Once there, D’Arcy learns that danger comes in many forms, and some of them are too close for comfort. Her father is murdered by marauding Jayhawkers. Her mother is lost in grief. D’Arcy faces the disapproval of many when she wears trousers, carries a gun, and takes over the responsibility for the farm.

D’Arcy, 12, redheaded and freckled, curious and rebellious, wants to grow up and dominate her world. Suzanne, not yet 18, wants only to marry her handsome lieutenant from Fort Riley, Jonathan Taylor. The beginning of the Civil War and Suzanne’s one night of passion sends both girls' lives in an unexpected direction. A rash decision changes everything. Will D’Arcy and Suzanne be prepared for the consequences?

Veronica Miller is grateful for a temporary teaching job at the local Catholic school. Perhaps it will take her mind off her ex-husband’s betrayal and distract her from the divorce and her growing doubts that she will ever find true love. When she meets Father Francis Xavier, however, will she become distracted in a potentially damaging way? To complicate matters further, she discovers her ex and his very pregnant bride have moved in around the corner.

In the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the late 20th century was a time of unprecedented hope for democracy and freedom in Eastern Europe. Young writers, journalists, and adventurers such as Katya Cengel flocked from the West eastward to cities like Prague and Budapest, seeking out terra nova. Despite the region’s appeal, neither Kyiv in the Ukraine nor Riga in Latvia was the type of place you would expect to find a 22-year-old Californian just out of college. But Cengel ended up living and working in both. This book is her remarkable story.

Sierra Wells was told that a person could disappear in Misty Hollow. After the secret her mother shattered her world with, she certainly hopes so. Only the very person she’s running from finds her.

Kansas, 1852. Half-breed Everett Snipes discovers a newborn baby crying by the body of her mother. He recognizes the mother as the second wife of his cousin Wakiza, chief of the Village of Scouts located a few miles from the Army base. Everett rescues the infant and takes her to her family. The child’s people are being pushed out of their ancestral lands. In the East, rumblings of the coming war over slavery are already spreading across the nation, and Kansas, Bloody Kansas, will not escape the carnage.

Jessica is the quintessential 1920s wealthy bad girl from Montana with a penchant for running away from home if things don't go her way. As her brother's wedding to the sugary sweet Chastity nears, Jessica grows stir-crazy yet again. This time, however, fleeing south to Wyoming turns out to be much more dangerous than she ever could have predicted. When her brother hires skilled tracker Sleeping Fox to find her and bring her home, her life is forever changed.

Raymond O’Connell was the love of Iris’s life - from the day she met him, to the day a year later when she married him, to the tragic night before she never saw him again. Some would say they had the perfect all-American life. Now, 18 years later, questions arise about the night her husband disappeared, leaving a bloody knife and a letter addressed to her, in which he said goodbye and told her not to look for him, with not even a second thought for her and their six children.

Linda Wagner-Martin brings a wealth of new information to this detailed portrait of Hemingway and his world, concentrating particularly on his friendships with women and the history of his four marriages.