Showing results by narrator "Robin McAlpine" in All Categories

Never make a major life decision in the wake of emotional turmoil. Cassie Romano learned this the hard way, leaving sunny San Diego for a teaching position at a private school in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York after a painful break-up left her heart-broken and in need of a change. It all seemed so perfect in June when she came to interview. But now it’s December, and she’s stranded on top of a mountain surrounded by snow, ice, and acres of wilderness, lonelier than ever and bored out of her mind.

What leads to political turbulence and social breakdown? How do elites maintain their dominant position? And why do ruling classes sometimes suddenly lose their grip on power? For decades, complexity scientist Peter Turchin has been studying world history like no one else. Assembling vast databases mined from 10,000 years of human activity, and then developing new models, he has transformed the way we learn from the past. End Times is the result: a ground-breaking account of how society works.

This boxed set includes the first three books in the Martina Monroe crime thriller series: What She Left (Book 1), If She Ran (Book 2), All She Wanted (Book 3).

Ten years earlier, two teenage girls were found murdered by what appeared to be a satanic sacrifice. The case had dominated the news headlines for months before the original investigators failed to arrest the perpetrators of the crime—despite multiple suspects. Without solid evidence to prosecute, and even with the near-heroic efforts of the original detectives, the homicide investigation turned cold. For years, the families of the two victims fought to keep the young women’s memory alive and to get the attention of law enforcement to not give up on finding those responsible.

The Fullness of the Ground distills Dr. Judith Blackstone’s decades of teaching into the essentials of the nondual spiritual path. Embodied nondual realization can have a profound effect on your senses, your experience of your own authentic existence, and your relationships and ability to love.

PI Martina and Detective Hirsch accept the new sheriff’s request to reopen a ten-year-old serial killer case. Not that they could refuse. One victim was the sheriff’s brother, a married father of two. The case is strange. Someone has murdered three successful men within a six-month time period. There were no suspects and no motive. The only connection is their cause of death. The links are thin and the motive is unknown, but Martina and Hirsch know better than to ignore the similarities.

PI Martina Monroe has found her groove working cold cases alongside Detective Hirsch at the CoCo County Sheriff’s Department. With a growing team of cold case detectives, Martina and Hirsch are on the heels of bringing justice for Julie DeSoto—a woman Martina failed to protect one year earlier. But when Martina receives a haunting request from her past, it nearly tears her in two.

In the thick of the current cold case investigation, PI Martina Monroe receives a hand-written letter from a desperate mother pleading for Martina and Hirsch to reopen the cold case of the woman’s missing daughter and five-year-old grandson. Feeling a deep connection to the request, Martina knows that Hirsch and she have found their next case.

Embark on a transformative auditory journey with “The Orchid: The Secret Code of Modern Goddesses,” where the serene whispers of self-discovery meet the echoes of empowerment.

Martina and Detective Hirsch, still reeling from their last high-profile case, agree to reopen the missing person case of Sadie Jarreau, a friend of one member of the Cold Case Squad. At first glance, Sadie’s disappearance from the local marina looks like the typical unhappy marriage resulting in a deadly end. But between the marina’s surveillance cameras malfunctioning that day, her husband’s air-tight alibi, and no one with a motive to harm Sadie, Martina and Hirsch are forced to consider a less common scenario - a stranger abduction.

A remote cottage on the wild coast of Cornwall sounded to Blythe Barton Stoe like the perfect escape from the pain and humiliation of recent events in her Hollywood life. But soon she seems to be reliving a centuries-old tragedy, and the handsome owner of the shabby manor house on the hill appears vitally entwined in her destiny.

When a woman is discovered beaten and bloodied in a park, with no ID, no memory, and no past she can recall, Martina and her team at Drakos Monroe Security & Investigations are called in to uncover the truth. But from the start, this case defies all logic. The woman, known only as "Jane Doe," has no fingerprints or DNA matches. No social media. No records. It’s as if she never existed. Every lead Martina follows only deepens the mystery, raising questions that pull her further into an unsettling puzzle.

Using granular data and authoritative Chinese sources, Oriana Skylar Mastro demonstrates that China was able to climb to great power status through a careful mix of strategic emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship on the international stage. This “upstart approach”—determined by where and how China chose to compete—allowed China to rise economically, politically, and militarily, without triggering a catastrophic international backlash that would stem its rise.

Six weeks ago, Jess was picking up the shattered pieces of a bitter divorce, just trying to numb the sting of betrayal. Now she’s standing over a dead body, the gun still warm in her trembling hands wondering how it all went so wrong. Rewind to the night she first stumbled across a tattered box crammed with old pop-star memorabilia: relics of her teenage obsession, the only bright spot in her tumultuous youth. But buried beneath the ticket stubs and fan magazines lurks a secret that sends a chill through her veins and a warning she can’t ignore.

If Amber/Jane/Kelan chooses your neighborhood, it is because there is work to do. She will rent a house and be the perfect neighbor for a year, where she will tell you all about an aunt who raised her and passed along a lot of fabulous recipes that she will use to make friends with the other neighbors. Of course, the aunt does not exist. In the community garden, your new neighbor will hide the Poison Hemlock among Queen Anne Lace. If she gives you orange marmalade for your abusive husband, ensure only he eats it. And later, if the police ask you if you want an autopsy, say no.

Twenty years earlier, a set of female eighteen-year-old twins went missing in the Bay Area. There were no news reports or national coverage. The original investigators had barely touched the case, and like so many other cases of missing teens, were quickly labeled runaways, and the file sat on the shelf. Baffled by the lack of attention for the sisters, Martina insists it will be Hirsch and the Cold Case Squad’s next case.

In Echoes of Her, the 12th installment of the Martina Monroe series, a maze of family secrets and shocking revelations unravel. By the time Kay was six, she had lost both her mother and sister. With only fuzzy memories of them, she had pleaded with her father since she was a little girl to tell her stories about them and to visit their graves. He claimed it was too painful to discuss, and refused—up until the day he died.

Detective Leslie, once a key figure in the Cold Case Squad, is convinced she’s closed the case on Darren, Martina’s brother, for a cold-blooded murder. But Martina, shaken by her brother’s guilty plea and an anonymous tip claiming his innocence, starts questioning the conviction. As Martina delves into the details, she encounters a series of unsettling discrepancies. The investigation’s weak foundation, coupled with the lack of physical evidence and a dubious motive, ignites Martina’s suspicions.

Five years on from the adrenaline-fueled days of the Cold Case Squad, PI Martina Monroe is now a managing partner at the renowned, Drakos Monroe Security & Investigations. She spends her days running the firm—a safe desk job—allowing her to spend more time with her sixteen-year-old daughter and less time in the line of fire. But her quiet life shatters when a meeting with the desperate parents of Katie Kimble, a young woman missing for two years, pulls her back into the fray.

With haunted eyes, a survivor steps into the offices of Drakos Monroe Security & Investigations, asking for Martina’s help. Thirty-five years earlier, Nancy made a harrowing escape from the clutches of a ruthless sex-trafficking syndicate in San Francisco, forced to leave her best friend Victoria behind. Clean and with a family of her own, Nancy hires Martina to find Victoria in a search for closure, justice, and the friend she lost so many years ago.