Showing results by narrator "Cynthia Farrell" in All Categories

On a cool autumn morning, Torie Nash heads into her village pulling a rickety wagon filled with late-season peaches. As she nears an intersection, a mysterious drifter with grimy thumbs and smudged cheeks and eyes as dark as a raven's wing stops to ask her the way. She could turn left or cross over. But she does not. 'Go as a river,' he whispers. So begins a mesmerising story that unfolds over a tumultuous lifetime as Torie begins to absorb and follow his words.

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That's how war works. Right?

Ada loves her broad-shouldered, bashful husband and her job as a midwife. But her luck is running out. It is a woman's duty to have a child, to replace those lost in the Great Flu. Unable to get pregnant, Ada must flee from a town where barren women are hanged as witches. When Ada joins the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws planning to create a haven for women outcast from society, she must decide if she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all.

In 1968 we meet six teens confined at the Good Shepherd—a dark and secretive institution controlled by Sisters of Charity nuns—locked away merely for being gay, pregnant, or simply unruly. Wayward Girls is a haunting but thrilling tale of hope, solidarity, and the enduring strength of young women who find the courage to break free and find redemption...and justice.

Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion...she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests. Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas.

Ami is determined to break the Torres family wedding curse. Her own disaster of a reception ended with all the guests getting food poisoning, and she left her cheating husband soon after. But even though she's still processing her own divorce, Ami won't let her twin sister Olive's day be anything but perfect. Olive may think she wants a private ceremony in Maui, where she and her fiancé Ethan first fell in love, but Ami knows better and secretly flies the whole Torres family out to surprise the couple.

In the New Mexico desert badlands, a woman's skeleton is found with two rare artefacts clutched in her hands: lightning stones used by the ancient Chaco people to summon the gods. Was it suicide... or sacrifice? FBI Special Agent Corrie Swanson brings in archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate. When a second body is found in identical circumstances, they realise the case runs deeper than they imagined. As Corrie and Nora pursue their investigation into remote canyons, haunted ruins, and long-lost rituals, they find themselves confronting a dark power.

For two months, FBI Special Agent Oliver Jaxton has been searching for his wife. Even with the help of her friends and the Phoenix FBI office, he’s no closer now than the day she disappeared. Forced to face his weaknesses, Jax is ready to admit he needs help. But with no break in the case in sight, he’s about to lose hope. When evidence surfaces that Kenna now works for their enemy, he refuses to believe it, even if it puts his job in jeopardy. He won’t quit.

It would take a perfect plan to collect a billion-dollar ransom. So here’s the plan. Five innocent people. In different locations. All kidnapped at the same moment in time. Two children taken from a private school bus. A film producer and a movie star grabbed at a hideaway resort. A beautiful wife whisked off the streets of Beverly Hills. A billionaire wants his family back. The cash, gold, jewels, crypto are all ready. There’s only one problem: Stubborn and brilliant FBI agent Nicky Gordon also has a plan. And she doesn’t want to pay the kidnappers. Not a dime.

Do you struggle with having honest and open conversations with your child? Do you find yourself not knowing what to say when faced with a tricky topic? From homework hassles to temper tantrums, sibling rivalry to bedtime battles, every parent has felt the weight of escalating scenarios and ineffective punishment. How to Talk When Kids Won't Listen is filled with top tips, relatable stories and forward-thinking techniques designed to transform your relationship with your child.

When Heather obtains partial intel about a prisoner of war camp from a journalist who dies before revealing the camp's location, she's desperate to know more. Her missing family might be held there. Using a voice-altering device to sound like billionaire donor Martin Slade, she calls President Blockwell, demanding information about the secret camp. It's a risky move that backfires when Blockwell's guards lock Martin in an asylum to torture him for information that could compromise Heather.

HQ suspects that President Blockwell's right-hand man, the ruthless killer Senator Smith, conducts meetings inside his impenetrable mansion. Agent Heather Slade's mission: infiltrate Smith's home and extract secret intel. She devises an operation to throw an exclusive A-list Patriot officers party at the Smith mansion to celebrate his son being drafted into the Patriot Army. Heather leads a small team of spies on the high-risk op, where she schmoozes with her worst enemies while planting surveillance devices under their noses.

1956. A celebrated Russian author is writing a book, Doctor Zhivago, which could spark dissent in the Soviet Union. The Soviets, afraid of its subversive power, ban it. But in the rest of the world it’s fast becoming a sensation. The CIA plans to use the book to tip the Cold War in its favour. Their agents are not the usual spies, however. Two typists - the charming, experienced Sally and the talented novice Irina - are charged with the mission of a lifetime: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago back into Russia by any means necessary.

In Colorado near the Cheyenne Mountains, a team of topflight engineers venture on an ambitious cross country ski trip, using their newly invented outdoor equipment. The strapping group of young people are having the adventure of their lives—skiing, laughing, playing in the snow, and mugging for the camera. But when the gang was expected to arrive back from their trip—no one ever returned. Nora's excavation skills and Corrie's investigative talents are put to the test as they try to uncover what happened to the promising skiers on this cold and isolating mountain.

As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize that she was actually trying to write about how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. This gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers.

Nora Kelly, a young curator at the Santa Fe Institute of Archaeology, is approached by historian Clive Benton with a once-in-a-lifetime proposal: to lead a team in search of the so-called "Lost Camp" of the tragic Donner Party. This was a group of pioneers who earned a terrible place in American history when they became snow-bound in the California mountains in 1847, their fate unknown until the first skeletonized survivors stumbled out of the wilderness, raving about starvation, murder-and cannibalism. Benton tells Kelly he has stumbled upon an amazing find: the diary of one of the victims.

Pilot Dodge Kingston has always been the heir to Sky King Ranch. But after a terrible family fight, he left to become a pararescue jumper. A decade later, he's headed home to the destiny that awaits him. That's not all that's waiting for Dodge. His childhood best friend and former flame, Echo Yazzie, is a true Alaskan - a homesteader, dogsledder, and research guide for the DNR.

In this timely and terrifying thriller for listeners of Janelle Brown, Karin Slaughter, Stacy Willingham, and Jennifer Hillier, a woman with a side gig offering relationship advice on Twitch learns just how dangerous online anonymity can be....

As a successful social media journalist with half a million followers, 17-year-old Cal is used to sharing his life online. But when his pilot father is selected for a highly publicized NASA mission to Mars, Cal and his family relocate from Brooklyn to Houston and are thrust into a media circus. Amidst the chaos, Cal meets sensitive and mysterious Leon, another "Astrokid", and finds himself falling head over heels - fast. As the frenzy around the mission grows, so does their connection.

Male entitlement takes many forms. To sex, yes, but more insidiously to admiration, bodily autonomy, knowledge, power, even care. In this urgent intervention, philosopher Kate Manne offers a radical new framework for understanding misogyny. In clear-sighted, powerful prose, she ranges widely across the culture - from the Kavanaugh hearings and 'Cat Person' to Harvey Weinstein and Elizabeth Warren - to show how the idea that a privileged man is tacitly deemed to be owed something is a pervasive problem.