Showing results by narrator "Suzanne Toren" in All Categories

Trudy, a college history professor, is collecting oral histories from World War II survivors (both German and Jewish). Her mother, Anna, refuses to talk to her, but Anna's story is revealed in flashback. She conducted an affair with a Jewish baker who was summarily killed. Afterward, Anna caught the eye of a high-ranking Nazi officer.

the near future, Los Angeles is an all but uninhabitable war zone, wracked by crime, violence, pollution and poverty. But above the blighted city, a Utopia has arisen: Todos Santos, a thousand-foot high single-structured city, designed to used state-of-the-art technology to create a completely human-friendly environment, offering its dwellers everything they could want in exchange for their oath of allegiance and their constant surveillance.

When The Cookie Jar becomes the setting of a star-studded TV special about movies filmed in Minnesota, Hannah hopes to shine the spotlight on her bakery - not the unsavory scandal swirling around her personal life. But that’s practically impossible with a disturbing visit from the shifty character she once believed was her one and only love, a group of bodyguards following her every move, and a murder victim in her bedroom.

For half a century, Betty Halbreich curated wardrobes and bore witness to the vicissitudes of life as Bergdorf Goodman’s original personal shopper. Of course, visitors to the store were awed by a 96-year-old woman who still held down a nine-to-five, let alone one in the youth-obsessed industry of fashion. But age is only half the story: Betty built that career by giving encouraging yet deeply honest advice. Much of it was about what to wear, but her insight was by no means relegated only to matters of the closet.

New York Times best-selling author Joanne Fluke’s cozy mysteries grow in popularity with each new series entry. One summer in Lake Eden, Minnesota, Hannah Swensen attends the grand opening of a newly refurbished hotel, where her famous red velvet cupcakes will be served in the new Red Velvet lounge. But when a party guest falls from the hotel roof, festivities come to a screeching halt - and Hannah becomes the surprising target of a murder investigation

At 24, Sally Hobart was a schoolteacher who was living a happy life in Southern California. Waking up one morning, she discovered that a gray cloud had descended upon everything around her. A trip to the ophthamologist’s office revealed that she was suffering from a retinal hemorrhage. Several treatments later, Sally began to understand that soon she would be completely blind. With courage and conviction, Sally has struggled to overcome her visual impairment, and her story is one of great inspiration.

A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities. Treasured by the ancient Mexicans, cochineal was sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune. Desperate to find their own sources of the elusive dye, the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans tried to crack the enigma of cochineal.

Hannah’s up to her ears with Easter orders rushing in at The Cookie Jar, plus a festive meal to prepare for a dinner party at her mother’s penthouse. But everything comes crashing to a halt when Hannah receives a panicked call from her sister Andrea - Mayor Richard Bascomb has been murdered...and Andrea is the prime suspect. Even with his reputation for being a bully, Mayor Bascomb - or “Ricky Ticky”, as Hannah’s mother likes to call him - had been unusually testy in the days leading up to his death, leaving Hannah to wonder if he knew he was in danger.

Consider for a moment 55 words. It's an absurdly tiny number. No, it's an impossible tiny number. It's what O. Henry might have conjured up if he'd only had the back of a business card to write upon. You'll find murder and suspense, horror and intrigue, love and betrayal, plus distant worlds and inner demons. All in a measly 55 words!

As Hannah prepares to run a bakery and move out of her mother's house, it'll be a true miracle if she can prevent another yuletide disaster by solving a mystery as dense as a Christmas fruitcake....

The undead are more alive today than ever. Immortal? Indeed! Nothing has sunk its teeth into 21st century popular culture as pervasively as the vampire. The fangsters have the freedom to fly across all genres and all mediums - there''s even apps for vamps. Whether roaming into romance, haunting horror, sneaking into science fiction, capering into humor, meandering through mystery - no icon is more versatile than the vampire.

The only female detective in the Miami PD's Homicide division, Joe Frye has memories that haunt her, and a past that not even her lover, detective Louis Kincaid, truly knows. It began when Joe was an ambitious rookie cop in a small Michigan town called Echo Bay. The bones found in the woods were the first clue in a string of unimaginably brutal murders of young women.

Polish Catholics believed she was one of them. A devoted Nazi family took her in as if she was their own daughter. She fell in love with a German engineer who built aeroplanes for the Luftwaffe. What none of these people knew was that Mala Rivka Kizel had been born into a large Orthodox Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, in 1926. By using her charm, intelligence, blonde hair, and blue eyes to assume different identities, she was the only member of her family to survive World War II.

Best-selling author Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen mysteries have earned her a loyal following. In this 16th delightful installment, the tour bus carrying the Cinnamon Roll Six overturns, sending the band members to the hospital - and the keyboard player to a bizarre and untimely death. Soon Hannah discovers the victim’s surprising secret - and becomes determined to bring the killer to justice.

Joan Price is talking out loud about a subject that is often ignored or ridiculed in our society: later-life sexuality. Naked at Our Age is a candid, straight-talking book addressing senior sexuality in all its colors - the challenges, the disappointments, and the surprises, as well as the delights and the love stories. Naked at Our Age gives real-life people over 50 a voice to tell stories of their past and present sex lives, ask questions, and get straightforward advice and information from experts. No topic related to elder sexuality is off-limits.

Sarah Malloy has just helped with the delivery of a bouncing baby girl at her women's clinic, when she receives a visit from an engaging and determined young woman writing an article for New Century Magazine. Louisa Rodgers explains that she is researching the dangers of patent remedies. Sarah is only too happy to tell Louisa exactly what she thinks of the so-called medicines. A few days later, Sarah receives a visit from a bereft Bernard Rodgers, who explains that his daughter, Louisa, has been found strangled in the lobby of the building where New Century has its offices.

This Very Short Introduction, written with both humor and flair, begins with a sampling of music as human activity and then goes on to consider the slippery phenomenon of how music has become an object of thought. Covering not only Western and classical music, Cook touches on all types from rock to Indonesian music and beyond. Incorporating musical forms from every continent, Music will be enjoyable for beginner and expert alike.

At nine, Maud, an English princess, was sent to Germany to become the bride of the Holy Roman Emperor - a political alliance with a man her father’s age. At 25, the widowed Maud must marry once again, this time to 14-year-old Geoffrey Plantagenet. But it is with Stephen of Blois, Maud’s fiercest rival for the British throne, that the headstrong princess discovers the true meaning of desire.

Here, collected in one volume and chosen by the author himself, are favorites such as "What Kind of Day Did You Have?", "Leaving the Yellow House", and a previously uncollected piece, "By the St. Lawrence". With his larger-than-life characters, irony, wisdom, and unique humor, Bellow presents a sharp, rich, and funny world that is infinitely surprising. With a preface by Janice Bellow and an introduction by James Wood, this is a collection to treasure for longtime Saul Bellow fans and an excellent introduction for new listeners.

The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue's latest fact-inspired fictions have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters. They cross other borders, too: those of race, law, sex, and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress. Donoghue describes the brutal plot hatched by a slave in conjunction with his master's wife to set them both free.