Showing results by narrator "Courtney Patterson" in All Categories

A completely revised and updated values-based guide to navigating the first year of college that speaks to college students in their own language and offers practical tools that listeners need to keep from drinking, sleeping, or skipping their way out of college. In the four years since its initial publication, The Freshman Survival Guide has helped thousands of first year students make a successful transition to college life. However, much has changed on campuses.

Gwen, the straight-talking narrator of this poignant tale, has always kept herself moving from one place to the next. But when she meets Danny, a Blackfoot Indian, she glimpses what it might be like to feel grounded. Drawn to an increasingly longer stay in East Fork, Montana, amidst the trailer parks, stray dogs, and mountains, Gwen allows herself to hope. This story, about loss and something like love, is a skillful study of people and place.

Paris. 1968. A young woman has an affair. The one-night stand may be a failure, but the buttery croissant she eats on a snowy morning-after is not. Even after she marries and has children, time won't stop polishing that simple memory, until it glows in unexpected ways.

New Orleans novice detective, Brenda Shapira, investigates murders committed by a vengeful killer, only to discover that the killer has been dead for 100 years.

Set in San Francisco and North Carolina, the linked stories in Damn Love introduce us to characters struggling with love in all its complicated forms, including a young doctor getting over a breakup with the help of a patient, a newly married gay man who reconnects with his estranged mother, a trio of physicists caught in a surprising love triangle, and a soldier who takes secrets with her to the Iraqi desert.

These stories introduce us not only to ordinary people seeking to live extraordinary lives, but also to the skunk ape (a southern variant of Bigfoot), the ghost of Jesse James, and a bone-tired Jack the Giant Killer. Whether it's Appalachia, Nashville, the Carolina Coast, or a make-believe land of talking dogs, each world Earley creates is indelible.

Together as husband and wife, Nick Ward and Lena Grant ran a successful boutique law firm in Minneapolis, vanquishing all their legal foes side by side. When Nick’s charmingly erratic behavior finally became too much for Lena, the marriage and the partnership ended. But like C. K. Dexter Haven and Tracy Lord it seems that Lena and Nick just can’t quite separate. Lena works out fiercely, keeps her dates with the boring and conventional Preston Winter, and daily battles on against corporate greed. But Nick’s not doing so well. Still brilliant and devilishly clever, he is now also almost crazy....

From African American to Asian American, indigenous to immigrant, "multiracial" to "mixedblood," the diversity of cultures in this world is matched only by the diversity of stories explaining our cultural origins: stories of creation and destruction, displacement and heartbreak, hope and mystery.

In the political aftermath of the 1973 Chilean coup, Eugenia Aldunate is imprisoned and tortured. Her lover, Manuel, is savagely killed, one of the countless “disappeared” that would haunt Chile’s collective memory for decades. While still in the torture camp, Eugenia discovers she is pregnant and is exiled to Mexico and then to the United States to raise her daughter alone, forbidden to return. She builds a quiet life for herself, but the scars on her arms do not allow her to bury her past. Nearly twenty years after her exile, Eugenia is called back to Chile to testify in Manuel’s case and help seek justice for the others who disappeared.

Rosalie Whitwell has spent most of her life sailing the globe with her adventurous father, dreaming of the day she can settle in one place long enough to have a home and family of her own. When her father suffers a fatal heart attack in the middle of the North Atlantic, Rosalie turns in her panic to a fellow passenger - the cool, reclusive Lord Deal. For years David Linney, Marquess of Deal, has avoided the society of others. Even so, he's drawn to his lovely shipmate, like him, the victim of family tragedy.

After nearly 30 years of being a socialite wife and mother, Ellen is left alone to rattle around a mansion of a house with only the dog for company. It’s time to make a change, but to what? While she ponders what to do, she starts hearing her dog talk. Has she finally lost it? No, according to her mother. It’s an inherited gift that usually manifests at menopause, but, well, Ellen isn’t there, yet. And it’s not just the dog, but most animals. Then there’s the ability to actually see paranormal species, like gnomes, fairies, and yes, vampires. Lucky her.

Nervy Corvus had escaped the dark underbelly of Missouri’s meth world years ago. But when her husband, a well-established psychiatrist, dies unexpectedly, she finds herself widowed, and in danger. Her husband’s casket barely in the ground, a slew of killers, tweakers, lawyers, and judges converge on Nervy. Each one has their own reasons to ensnare, exploit, or even kill her, but she’s not going down without a fight. Desperate, cunning, and shameless, Nervy is willing to barter herself, her husband’s reputation, and an entire community’s psychiatric records to get her revenge.

Jennifer Peterson has been unlucky in love, but now, thanks to an Internet search, she's found a surefire formula for identifying the perfect man. Statistics seem to show that if she narrows her search to men of certain careers and physical attributes, she'll have a better shot at success. So now she's on the hunt for not-so-well-endowed, short and hairy podiatrists or funeral directors who've been dubbed less likely to cheat than their tall, good-looking counterparts.

Savanna Edwards is feeling downright Scrooge-like. Who can blame her? A truly unjolly Santa - suit, beard and all - just repossessed her car because of her ex's shady business dealings. She'd like to murder the no-good lying cheat, but somebody already did that for her - and left him right in the middle of her kitchen, wrapped up with a bow. Detective Mark Donaldson has a rule against getting involved with his neighbors. He can look - and he's studied every sweet curve of Savanna from across the street - but he can't touch.

Claire Britten's training never prepared her for this - the forensic psychology curriculum didn't cover plane crashes. Or how to help fellow survivors cope, seven frightened people huddled in two small rafts awaiting a rescue that may never come. Especially when three of them are your ex-husband, your young daughter - and the man you love, Nick Markwood, whose pursuit by a criminal mastermind forced you all to run in the first place.

It's been four months since forensic psychologist Claire Britten last crossed paths with danger. Finally feeling she can catch her breath, together with her partner, criminal lawyer Nick Markwood, Claire has settled into a new role, volunteering with a support group for children stressed by domestic violence. But a leisurely field trip to a wildlife sanctuary turns deadly, leaving Claire to question whether the death was an accident, suicide - or something far more sinister.

Everyone thought reckless, troubled Geraldine Monroe was the bad sister - especially when she fled town after her mother's death 25 years ago. But people don't know the truth. Marie Monroe knows. She was there for their father's cruel punishments, the constant manipulation, the lies. Everyone thinks she's the perfect daughter - patient and kind, and above all obedient. No one would suspect her of anything. Especially not murder. Now Geraldine's home again, and she and Marie have united in a plan for the ultimate revenge.

Forensic psychologist Claire Markwood has experienced her share of disaster. But nothing could prepare her for her sister, Darcy, going missing. Claire rushes to the butterfly sanctuary where Darcy has been working, prepared to do what she does best - work the clues. But her sister, along with her car and some of the sanctuary’s rarest species of butterflies, has seemingly vanished without a trace.

When an old college roommate invites Claire Britten to join her on an archaeological dig at a Florida peat bog, it's an offer the renowned forensic psychologist can't refuse. Claire's husband, criminal lawyer Nick Markwood, is comforted to see Claire working on a prehistoric burial site instead of an open grave for once. But Claire's investigative instincts kick in when some of The Black Bog's perfectly preserved corpses show signs of a grisly fate. What really happened to these people?

Truth: Sherri Griffin and her daughter, Katie, recently moved to the idyllic beach town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. They’ve been welcomed by Rebecca Coleman, unofficial former leader of the Newburyport Mom Squad, and her teenage daughter Alexa, Katie’s new babysitter. Truth: Alexa has time on her hands after a falling-out with her friends involving her popular YouTube channel.