Showing results by narrator "Laurel Lefkow" in All Categories

Jessica Fletcher has had plenty to worry about over her storied career, both as a best-selling novelist and as a part-time sleuth. But she's never had any reason to doubt her longtime publisher and trusted friend, Lane Barfield. When mounting evidence of financial malfeasance leads to an FBI investigation of Lane, Jessica can't believe what she's reading. So when it appears that Barfield has committed suicide, Jessica takes on the task of clearing his name. Sure enough, Jessica turns up several inconsistencies in the case against Barfield, as well as signs he might have been murdered.

At the turn of the 20th century, Vivian Lesperance is determined to flee her origins in Utica, New York, and avoid repeating her parents’ dull, limited life. When she meets Oscar Schmidt, a middle manager at a soap company, Vivian finds a partner she can guide to build the life she wants—not least because, more interested in men himself, Oscar will leave Vivian to tend to her own romances with women.

How well do you really know the person you love the most? Billie is charismatic. She is beautiful. And she has the perfect life. So when she disappears without a trace, the police think she must be dead. But what if the truth is even worse? A year after Billie disappears, her daughter Olive and husband Jonathan are determined to find out what happened to her. Together they begin to examine Billie's past - for answers, for closure, and with the underlying hope they will bring her home alive. But their search unearths her darkest secrets and only raises more questions....

Baltimore, 1966. When Maddie Schwartz, having recently left her husband of over 20 years, helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl, her assistance leads to a job at the city’s afternoon newspaper. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the a city park lake. Cleo Sherwood was a young African American woman. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie - and the dead woman herself.

The last person Alice Shipley expected to see since arriving in Tangier with her new husband was Lucy Mason. After the horrific accident at Bennington, the two friends - once inseparable roommates - haven't spoken in over a year. But Lucy is standing there, trying to make things right. Perhaps Alice should be happy. She has not adjusted to life in Morocco, too afraid to venture out into the bustling medinas and oppressive heat. Lucy, always fearless and independent, helps Alice emerge from her flat and explore the country.

1940, Nazi-occupied Paris. A powerful story of love, tragedy and incredible courage, about one woman whose life is ripped apart by war and risks everything to seek justice. Paris, 2003. When the opportunity arises for aspiring journalist Emma Keane to interview world-renowned perfumer Madame De Cadieux about her life during World War Two, she is determined to take it. There are secrets from her own family history that she hopes Angéline may be able to help unlock. But nothing can prepare Emma for Angéline's story and one thing is for certain - it will change her own life forever.

Single-minded and spoilt, Undine Spragg arrives in New York determined to procure for herself a social status to match her family’s wealth. Ambition, greed and an arresting beauty soon secure her path to marriage...and also to divorce. The Custom of the Country is a sophisticated commentary on both, touching on the implications for a woman of ending a marriage at a time when the author herself was navigating that situation. As the mismatched Undine and Ralph travel to Europe, Wharton contrasts the pecuniary motivation of the nouveau riche in America with European tradition.

With Damien hell-bent on power, Reid unwaveringly loyal to him and Ari grappling to understand the voice in her head, Mikira is more alone than ever as the face of the underground rebellion, intent on overthrowing the corrupt royal family. But Damien is playing games of his own, and he won't hesitate to get rid of anyone who stands in his way . . .

It all hinges on one kiss. Whether Irina McGovern does or does not lean in to a specific pair of lips in London will determine whether she stays with her disciplined, intellectual partner Lawrence or runs off with Ramsey, a hard-living snooker player. Using a parallel universe structure, we follow Irina's life as it unfolds under the influence of two drastically different men.

When a young woman makes a distressing middle-of-the-night call to 911, apparently running for her life in a quiet, exclusive beachside neighbourhood, miles from her home, everything suggests a domestic incident. Except no one has seen her since, and something doesn't sit right with the officers at Hampstead County PD. With multiple suspects and witnesses throwing up startling inconsistencies, and interference from the top threatening the integrity of the investigation, lead detective Casey Wray is thrust into an increasingly puzzling case that looks like it's going to have only one ending…

Bringing together Susan Sontag's most fearless and incisive writing, On Women examines the oppression of women and the tools necessary for liberation. First written in the 1970s during the height of second-wave feminism, Sontag's essays examine the 'biological division of labour', the double standard for ageing and the struggle for real power, topics which are strikingly relevant to our contemporary conversations. For any Sontag fan, this collection of lost essays is a revelation into her achievements as an essayist.

In this trio of warm, witty, insightful stories, three very different women face questions of the heart that could change all their Christmases to come.

Juliana Chastain doesn't know anything about her family history. While her mother was alive she remained very secretive about her past. So when Juliana discovers a photograph of a glamorous French actress from World War Two amongst her mother's possessions, she is in shock to find herself looking at her grandmother - especially as she is arm in arm with a Nazi officer.... Desperate for answers, Juliana is determined to trace the journey of her grandmother. Surely there is more to the photograph than meets the eye?

When feminist writer Susan Faludi learned that her 76-year-old father - long estranged and living in Hungary - had undergone sex reassignment surgery, that investigation would turn personal and urgent. How was this new parent who claimed to be 'a complete woman now' connect to the silent, explosive and ultimately violent father that she had known, the photographer who'd built his career on the alteration of images? Faludi chases that mystery into the recesses of her suburban childhood and her father's many previous incarnations.

Three years after a virus wiped out 99 percent of the men on earth, a mother and son are on the run. All Cole has left in the world is her boy, Miles. With men now a prised commodity, keeping him safe means breaking hastily written new rules - and leaving her own sister for dead. All Miles has left in the world is his mother.

Daniel Bettridge provides us with an ultimate fan guide on an A to Z journey from Atari to the Upside Down. So you can brush up on your knowledge and get ready for what's yet to come! Providing an all new insight into one of the world's most popular television programmes, Bettridge explores the show, its many themes and influences and so much more, giving you the inside information from an outsider's perspective.

We tend to believe we have agency over our bodies, our minds and even our deaths. Yet emerging science challenges our assumptions of mastery: at the microscopic level, the cells in our bodies facilitate tumours and attack other cells, with life-threatening consequences. In this revelatory audiobook, Barbara Ehrenreich argues that our bodies are a battleground over which we have little control and lays bare the cultural charades that shield us from this knowledge.

When Caroline Williams wakes up in a hospital bed in Paris with no memory of her past, she finds that returning to the life she has forgotten is harder than she thought. Especially as her feet seem to know where to go and her cavernous apartment seems devoid of any memories...Taking her mind off her foggy past is the discovery of a stack of World War Two love letters written by a young mother named Celine to her beloved, Luc, found in a box in the spare room.

If humans are fundamentally good, why do we engage in acts of great cruelty? If we are evil, why do we sometimes help others at a cost to ourselves? Whether humans are good or evil is a question that has plagued philosophers and scientists for as long as there have been philosophers and scientists. Many argue that we are fundamentally selfish, and only the rules and laws of our societies and our own relentless efforts of will can save us from ourselves. But is this really true?

To those who live there, Herot Hall is a paradise. With picket fences, gabled buildings and wildflowers that seed themselves in ordered rows, the suburb is a self-sustaining community, enclosed and secure. But to those who live secretly along its periphery, Herot Hall is a fortress guarded by an intense network of gates, surveillance cameras and motion-activated lights. Dylan and Gren live on opposite sides of the perimeter, neither boy aware of the barriers erected to keep them apart.