Showing results by narrator "Traci Odom" in All Categories

From the gothic eccentricity of Asheville, North Carolina to the terrifying recesses of the Appalachian wilderness, from modern demonology to ancient Cherokee mythology, Soul Catcher follows the tormented journey of folk artist Livia Belane, who has been stalked through many lives by a sadistic and vengeful demon. Livia and her loved ones, including her frontier-era soulmate and husband, Ian, a Soul Hunter, have never beaten the demon before. Now, in this life, he s found them again....

Meg wants a normal life. Her new artistic style, born in the depression of her mother's death, is poised to take the art world by storm, if she could just overcome the debilitating anxiety caused by the car accident that scarred her boyfriend, Austin. Encouraged by her therapist, Meg pushes outside her comfort zone to befriend Haley, a guest instructor at the university. Haley is everything Meg wants to be: charismatic, confident, and perfect, but when Austin expresses his worry that Haley is changing Meg too fast, Meg kicks him out of her life. Or at least, she tries.

When attorney Olivia Murray opens a legal clinic for victims of domestic violence in Windy Ridge, she knows she will face legal and spiritual opposition. The New Age presence has grown stronger as alliances form between groups hoping to spread their destructive way of life and gain a stronghold in the community. While the forces of evil target Olivia's new clinic and her relationships, she refuses to let them stop her quest for justice.

An embezzling scandal breaks that rocks the community church to its core. The New Age groups are ready to declare victory when a high profile prosecutor files criminal charges against the local pastor. However, attorney Olivia Murray is not willing to give up on the community she's come to love. She takes on the defense pro bono knowing it could destroy her career, but it's a case that she is called to defend.

Over 100 years ago, a group of witches escaping a second wave of Witch Trials made their way from New England to Whitewater, Wisconsin, known as Second Salem. Others, seeking knowledge in spiritualism and the occult, also made their way to the city and, through their ignorance, unleashed an evil entity poised to destroy the city. Three sisters, the Willoughby Witches, created an incantation strong enough to ensnare the demon.

Once upon a time, she was Robyn Hart, a dogged journalist covering an arson case who saw too much and wasn't afraid to expose it. But that courage nearly cost Robyn her life. Now under the safety of the Witness Protection program, she has a new identity - Carly Quinn - with a new job in a new city. As she struggles to make the best of her new life in Boston, the terror of the past still lingers, and Carly lives in fear that her enemies will find her.

Whimsy can kill you.... Ask Jen Pierce, late of Baltimore, and now the proud owner of an old farmhouse in the country, a cat named Jasper, and an at-risk job at the local newspaper. Not long ago, she survived a run-in with a murderer from away. Now there are several new deaths in town, and she's the reporter on the spot.

Set in the 1980s, the Jennifer Pierce mystery series features a prototypical small town in Maine going through the transition from a self-reliant semi-rural mill town to distant suburb of the information age. In Barnburner, secretary turned reporter Jennifer Pierce finds the incendiary mix of a fundamentalist preacher and an unabashedly pagan back-to-the-earth couple could be worth a story - and someone's life. When a new computer BBS pops up in town around the same time, there are complications that reach far beyond Maine, and as close as her own front door.

The interwoven tales of three women unfold in the voices of Sarah, Miriam, and Beth, whose unshakable friendship takes root in a Buffalo college dorm in the late 1960s. Fueled by the optimism and bravado of that era, they charge into adulthood with high expectations and lofty ideas. They were, as Beth would later observe, the first generation of women to feel entitled to interesting lives. At times, they find themselves living long distances from each other as each of them seeks new directions and new locales. Nonetheless, they remain deeply connected in the decades after college.

In these edgy, unexpected tales, a body-hopping mercenary avenges his pet elephant, and an orphan falls in love with a sentient starship. Fighters ally to power a reality-bending engine, and a swamp-dwelling introvert tries to save the world - from her plague-casting former wife.

Emily is juggling college with the opening up of a new server for the space battle game PlanetCrash. Not only is the game itself exciting but there is a way to make money from it. Despite loving the role of a marine, able to take on a variety of enemies, from space pirates to aliens, Emily finds that her new group of teammates are leading her into dubious moral territory.

At sixty-three with a failed marriage, a dead-end job, and a solid belief that all men leave their women, Jessamine Jo Woodley (Jessie) is feeling the loss of her one cheerleader in life, Auntie J, who has just passed away—leaving her a healthy trust and a cabin in the charming town of Woodcreek, Colorado. However, Auntie J stipulates that Jessie must complete a mysterious series of tasks before collecting . . . all proctored by a handsome lawyer, Finnegan Cooper Conrad.

Career-focused Audrey Summerlin (58) has never wanted or needed a caretaker, even when she breaks her ankle from a fall on her slippery sidewalk. A little help might be nice, but she’ll be fine on her own. Maybe. Newly retired Nolan Beckett (57), her former lover from college and her neighbor's holiday housesitter, comes to her rescue. He’s ready to play nursemaid and a whole lot more if she’ll let him.

To protect what little family she has left, Lady Catrin Fitzalan switches places with her cousin when King Edward orders the pious girl to wed his royal champion, a vicious knight called the King’s Raven. Rumors abound that this savage is responsible for the deaths of Lady Catrin’s father and brother. How can she allow her sweet cousin to wed a murderer?

With her brother in debt to the biggest loan shark of the slums, Marielle does the only thing she can to save him: she takes the debt on herself. Down on her luck and at the mercy of the thugs, she knows the only way she can repay it is to be claimed as mate by a Draekon Lord and deliver him an heir. She has no intention of following through with the deal, however. Her plan is to escape as soon as she's received payment and disappear far out of reach of the Draekon who would claim her.

Examples of antiracist conversations highlight different ways to initiate dialogue, raise awareness, speak one's truth, and make clear, doable requests or demands for change. Drawing on her experience as a clinical psychologist, a nonviolent communication practitioner, and an Afro-Caribbean immigrant, Dr. Manning provides a model of antiracist dialogue with practical applications for individuals and organizations.

Doors that close by themselves. Items that move without human help. Visions of a handsome spirit in the moonlight. Visiting the Welsh castle that is her ancestral home, Bria Leighton is frightened by eerie happenings. Unseen. Unheard. Untouched. Desperately lonely. For more than two hundred years, a curse has trapped Nicholas Pierce, the last Earl of Beaumarith, in his family castle. The words of the wicked sorceress hint that the curse can be broken, but the riddle of moonrise and true love's embrace seems impossible to solve.

John Ward, a stoic Calvinist preacher, marries free-thinking, kind-hearted Helen Jeffries. They are deeply in love. John is so taken with his new wife that when he discovers they have opposing views on religious doctrine, he tries to lovingly and gently lead her to the "truth". Helen, strong in her convictions, refuses to alter her beliefs, instead soothing her husband's worries with her loving words and actions. However, a tragedy in their small impoverished lumber town puts her beliefs in the spotlight.

Thirty years ago, torn by shock and guilt over the death of her mother, Darby York fled the dude ranch where she’d grown up in Montana. In her new life in the bluegrass of Kentucky, she’d become a horse groom, an artist, married a wealthy Thoroughbred owner, raised twins, and been widowed. But now, with word her father is growing feeble, Darby has to finally face the truth: no matter how far you run, the past has a way of catching up. Her father hadn’t been the only man Darby had left behind. Would the boyfriend she’d abandoned still be there?

Maggie McCoury, a generational healer woman, relies on family traditions, folklore, and beliefs gleaned from a local Cherokee tribe. Her daughter, Carrie Ann, believes her university training holds the answers. As they clash over the use of roots, herbs, and a dash of mountain magic versus the medicine available in the town’s apothecary, Josie Mae doesn’t know whom to follow. But what happens when neither family traditions nor science can save the ones you love most?