Showing results by narrator "Christine Marshall" in All Categories

Unar dreams of greatness. Determined but destitute, she escapes her parents’ plot to sell her into slavery. Now she serves in the Garden of the goddess Audblayin, ruler of growth and fertility. But when Audblayin dies, Unar sees her opportunity for glory—at the risk of descending into the unknown dangers of Understorey to look for a reincarnated newborn god. In its depths, she discovers new forms of magic, lost family connections, and murmurs of a revolution that could cost Unar her chance…or grant it by destroying the home she loves.

Olivia Wallace has a birthday curse…or so she thinks. It was a broken heart on her 16th, a car accident on her 21st, pneumonia on her 30th, and a fall down a flight of stairs on her 35th. There were Ohio blizzards on her 38th, 39th, and 40th; and six days before her 45th, she lost the love of her life to a heart attack. Numbing grief stole that birthday and a couple more to follow and, on the morning of her 48th birthday, she received the call she'd dreaded ever since losing her mom so many years ago…

In 1949, during her junior year abroad in Paris, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis bought several inexpensive paintings of Marie-Antoinette by a little-known 18th-century female artist. She also had a romantic relationship with Virginia vineyard owner Lucie Montgomery’s French grandfather - until recently, a well-kept secret. Seventy years later, Cricket Delacroix, Lucie’s neighbor and Jackie’s schoolfriend, is donating the now priceless paintings to a Washington, DC, museum.

Great deeds are expected of Imeris. Raised by accomplished warriors and skilled healers, and being the sister to a goddess, Imeris always felt pressured to be the best fighter in Understorey. Yet during a mission to capture the body-snatching sorceress Kirrik, Imeris fails disastrously.

It's Boston, 1919, and the Cast Iron club is packed. Onstage, hemopaths - whose "afflicted" blood gives them the ability to create illusions through art - Corinne and Ada have been best friends ever since infamous gangster Johnny Dervish recruited them into his circle. By night they perform for Johnny's crowds, and by day they con Boston's elite. When a job goes wrong and Ada is imprisoned, she realizes how precarious their position is. After she escapes, two of the Cast Iron's hires are shot, and Johnny disappears.

The winter field was planted, the seedstones buried to the depth of a woman's wrist. Any deeper and they might decline to sprout. Any shallower and.... Well. There were tales enough of that. Children stayed up all night for the terror of them.

Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were, for centuries, at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science.

Lex Rhoades was finally making it on her own. She had settled into her new place, was making new friends, and had a job that she didn’t hate. The best part was she was far away from her father’s unyielding grasp and magic altogether. For the first time in a long time, she was beginning to feel like she could be happy. Cage Stone liked his life just the way it was. Then an elemental witch moves into his backyard and he’s tasked with discovering what it is she wants. However, the moment he lays eyes on her, his entire world begins to crumble around him.

Maggie is entirely devoted to her husband, Thomas, their two beautiful children, and God. But then what begins as innocent letter writing with poet James starts to become something far more erotically charged, their meeting of minds threatening to become a meeting of bodies. As everything Maggie believes in is thrown into doubt, the listener is drawn ever deeper into the battleground of her soul.

As language evolves faster than ever before, what is the future of 'correct' style? With wry cleverness and an uncanny intuition for the possibilities of Internet-age expressiveness, Favilla argues that rather than try to preserve the sanctity of the written language as laid out by Strunk and White, we should be concerned with the larger issues of clarity, flexibility, playfulness and political awareness. Her approach to the new rules - as practical as they are fun - will fascinate and delight believers and naysayers alike.

In 2004, 34 men, women, and children stepped out of a Southeast Asian rainforest and presented themselves as refugees from violence engulfing their native Cambodia. They did not know that the war they were fleeing had in fact ended - 25 years earlier. Corinne Purtill was one of the first journalists to meet the families upon their incredible return to society. Years later, she returned to Cambodia to learn the truth about their time on the run.

"Welcome to paradise," archeologist Susan Dunne hears on arrival at the Caribbean island to research petroglyphs and unravel the mystery of her brother's drowning. Was John murdered? This sunny tourist paradise conceals shadowy secrets - violent native unrest, a sunken treasure guarded by legendary Jumbies, and a bloodthirsty cult.

The astonishingly talented Valerie Trueblood has imbued each story with its own depth and mystery, so rescue comes as a surprise to the listener, who is in intimate sympathy for the soul in extremity. And these are diverse characters whose fates, in lesser hands, might be thought of as hopeless: the fired cop turned security guard, the stolid 19-year-old nurses' aide who will not be going to art school, the cynical radio producer who is dying of breast cancer and on a plane on her way to Lourdes.

Writer Kovie Biakolo became inspired to publish Conversations for Smart People while having rooftop drinks in Brooklyn with a few of her colleagues. In her classic uninhibited style, Kovie deftly weaves through such topics as: being a woman, growing up African, the meaning of beauty, and love. And of course the essay collection includes thoughtful commentary on sociopolitical issues--like race--that Kovie often finds herself discussing in her work.

Following her divorce, Regan McKinney moves to San Francisco to start a new life, but she couldn't have chosen a worse time to arrive. The city is gripped with fear as a brutal killer stalks the streets, murdering women - women who look a lot like Regan. Though disturbed by the vicious crimes, Regan is determined to get on with her life, landing a promising job and finding her confidence again when she catches the attention of her handsome dance instructor.

After her husband dies in a plane crash, psychic Gabriella Deveaux leaves Boston with her young daughter, returning to her Creole roots on the beloved Louisiana bayou where she was raised. But she soon finds her new life at her old home won't be the refuge she was hoping for: The estate is in ruins, her late husband's wealthy family is aggressively pursuing custody of her daughter, and her gift for connecting with the spirit world seems to have left her.

Of all the sports played across the globe, none has more curses, superstitions, or supernatural events like baseball, America's national pastime. While some of these can easily be explained, there are just as many that cannot. Field of Fantasies delves right into that superstition with short stories written by several key authors about baseball and the supernatural.

Rosemary O'Neal lived for eight years with William, in a rambling country house in Maine. Then William committed suicide on a trip to London, leaving her with questions, anger, and no way to say goodbye. When her zany family descends on the house, bringing a tidal wave of casseroles and their own petty problems, Rosemary retreats with her cat from the chaos of the world around them. (Her cat understands human nature better than Homo sapiens anyway.)

Slader Reems rides into town straddling a powerful motorcycle. The dark visor of his helmet hides a cold smile. After an enforced five year absence he is back to exact his revenge and to claim everything that was his rightful due. Lissa Jamison knows she can't ever allow herself to surrender to Slader's touch and risk another betrayal. Their childhood friendship had flamed into a passionate desire. Wary and wanting, she must now protect her heart. Hidden agendas and illicit longings are just beneath the deceptively calm surface of their small town.

Technology insider Alice Marwick contends in this insightful book, “Web 2.0” only encouraged a preoccupation with status and attention. Her original research - which includes conversations. Marwick analyzes status-building techniques - such as self-branding, micro-celebrity, and life-streaming - to show that Web 2.0 did not provide a cultural revolution, but only furthered inequality and reinforced traditional social stratification, demarcated by race, class, and gender.