Showing results by narrator "Erin Bennett" in All Categories

Meghan Blaney comes from a long line of self-sufficient, gritty Maine lobstermen. She knows a thing or two about hard work, loyalty, and sacrifice. When she put off going to culinary school so she could take care of her aging father, she never expected to be schlepping pancakes at a local diner a decade later. Nor did she plan to be living in an old house that was too small for her partner, Lauren, and her cantankerous father.

Abigail loves her baby Rosie, her husband Thad, and food. She takes great joy and comfort in concocting culinary delights to show the depth of her love and commitment to her family. Imagine her surprise when Thad announces, "this whole marriage thing... just doesn't work for me." Abigail can't believe he really means what he's said, but he does. Abigail and Rosie move back in to her parents' house, where she regresses into her adolescent self.

As Daisy McGovern knows all too well, it isn’t easy being a young, small town waitress at the local diner. And it becomes even harder just as she’s trying to stitch her life back together and salvage her job by converting the diner into a bakery when a mysterious robbery occurs and one of the thieves ends up dead on the bakery floor with a chef’s knife in his chest.

Their odds were 100,000 to one. Her faith was 1 in a million. In The Gift of Love, bestselling fiction author Amy Clipston shares her story of almost losing the love of her life to kidney disease and the ultimate sacrifice that kept their family together. An ordinary woman who cherishes family...

A stirring portrait of a relationship at a crossroads, this digital original short story follows two irresistible young lovers as they cope with college life, and invites us into a world we don't want to leave. Clendenin Hughes first kissed Dabney Kimball during a Nantucket snowstorm freshman...

In a seaside Jersey town, a risk-averse illustrator on the brink of leaving her husband for another man spends one “perfect night with perfect people.” Warm, witty, and bursting with life, the friends of the man for whom she may or may not be leaving her husband thrill something deep inside her – and leave her grasping for a future she will chase down for years to come

What do you do when you love your farm...but it doesn’t love you? After 15 years of farming, Catherine Friend is tired. After all, while shepherding is one of the oldest professions, it’s not getting any easier. The number of sheep in America has fallen by 90 percent in the last 90 years. But just as Catherine thinks it’s time to hang up her shepherd’s crook, she discovers that sheep might be too valuable to give up. What ensues is a funny, thoughtful romp through the history of our woolly friends, why small farms are important, and how each one of us - and the planet - would benefit from being very sheepish, indeed.

Eleven-year-old Lauren O'Neil vanished one sunny afternoon as she walked home from school. Six years later, her parents Rachel and Dan still tirelessly scour their Oregon hometown and beyond, always believing Lauren will be found. Then one day, the call comes. Lauren has been rescued from a secluded farm mere miles away, and her abductor has confessed. Yet her return is nothing like Rachel imagined. Though the revelations about what Lauren endured are shocking, most heartbreaking of all is to see the bright-eyed, assertive daughter she knew transformed into a wary, polite stranger.

Did you know that the CIA once made use of a “spy cat”, or that, although delicious, eating the flesh of an armadillo can give you leprosy? And what about Terry, the small black Cairn Terrier from Kansas who was paid today’s equivalent of $2,000 a week for her work in The Wizard of Oz? Even if you think you have a handle on all things trivia, you're guaranteed a big surprise with Now I Know: Animals.

Paul Batista, one of the country's foremost defense lawyers, has written the ultimate legal thriller with murder in its heart. When Tom Perini, a legendary Heisman Trophy winner turned criminal lawyer, is found brutally murdered in Central Park, his widow, Julie, not only must unravel the mysteries of her husband's secret double life, but survive long enough to discover the truth. A thriller and courtroom drama of corruption and greed so authentic it reads like tomorrow's headlines.

Beth Lisick has had a lifelong phobia of anything slick, cheesy, or that remotely claims to provide self-empowerment. But on New Year's Day 2006, she wakes up finally able to admit that something has to change. Determined to confront her fears head-on, Beth sets out to fix her life by consulting the multimillion-dollar-earning experts. In Chicago, she gets proactive with The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. In Atlanta, she struggles to understand why "women are from Venus". She gamely sweats to the oldies on a weeklong Cruise to Lose with Richard Simmons on the high seas of the Caribbean.

Spanning 15 years of travel, beginning when she is a sophomore in college, Wanderlust documents Elisabeth Eaves’ insatiable hunger for the rush of the unfamiliar and the experience of encountering new people and cultures. Young and independent, she crisscrosses five continents and chases the exotic, both in culture and in romance.

Beth Lisick started out as a homecoming princess with a Crisco-aided tan and a bad perm. And then everything changed. Plunging headlong into America's deepest subcultures, while keeping both feet firmly planted in her parents' Leave It to Beaver values, Lisick makes her adult home on the fringe of mainstream culture and finds it rich with paradox and humor. Fans of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell will relish Lisick's scathingly funny, smart, very real take on the effluvia of daily living.

Peering into life's cringe-worthy moments, best-selling author Beth Lisick excavates territory that most would rather ignore. Funny, odd, deeply personal, yet somehow universal, these are the kind of memories that haunt us all, the small awful moments of shame and humiliation that we'd rather forget than relive. Beth Lisick has made a career of opening her life to her readers in all of its messy, smart hilarity, but this type of story doesn't usually find its way into a memoir.

"Break all rules, including these." So advises one of the stories in this audiobook collection. These stories jump - conscientiously - from a homage to Alexandre Dumas to an action-packed adventure set in the near future. There’s also an epic fantasy or space opera - take your pick - told in aphorisms, a contemplation on death, and a tale of what happens when walls begin to divide a place.

As she prepares dinner for her husband andtheir extended family, Suzanne hears on the radio that a jetliner has crashed and her lover is dead. Alex Elling was a renowned orchestra conductor. Suzanne is a concert violist, long unsatisfied withher marriage to a composer whose music turns emotion into thought. Now, more alone thanshe’s ever been, she must grieve secretly.

Retired Army Staff Sergeant Lee Winters is trying hard to adjust to civilian life. She was released from duty after a bomb in Ramadi injured her and killed her troops, the only people she ever considered her family. Living day-to-day with the knowledge that she was the only one left alive, she hits rock bottom, and an old army buddy persuades her into taking a bodyguard job.

Leigh Fielding wants a life. Seriously. Having spent the past five years on dialysis, she has one simple wish: to make it to her thirtieth birthday. Now, thanks to the generosity of the late Larry Resnick and his transplanted kidney, it looks like her wish may come true. With her newfound vitality (and Larry's kidney) in tow, Leigh hits the road for an excursion that will carry her from Wisconsin to California, with a few stops in between: Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the Rockies, Las Vegas - and a memorable visit to thank Larry's family for the second chance.

All small towns have secrets - and plenty of them - as every small-town waitress knows. Daisy is no different. A young, recently separated waitress at H & P's Diner in sleepy southwestern Virginia, she hears more than her fair share of neighborhood gossip while serving plates of hash and peach cobbler. But when a reclusive old man shows up at the diner one day, only to drop dead a few minutes later, Daisy quickly learns that some secrets are more dangerous to keep than others - especially when there are money and moonshine involved.

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