Showing results by narrator "Maria Marquis" in All Categories

Lunch Ladies captures time and place with laugh-out-loud humor and reach-for-a-tissue heartache, as the people of Hanley, Minnesota—living and dead—come together for a community celebration.

Beatrice Leal’s personal life is complicated between her divorce and her precocious six-year-old. But the job she loves is the one thing she counts on to be straightforward—that is, until her boss’s own divorce prompts a move from NYC back to Ireland. Now Bea’s in Ireland twice a month for work. It’s wreaking havoc on the custody agreement she and her moody ex are sorting out while he lives downstairs in the brownstone they co-own. And to top it off, her company’s new CTO turns out to be the boy who once broke her heart: Jack Sander.

We all know it. Demanding accountability in the workplace is the quickest way to get your employees to start fidgeting nervously and looking at the door. Traditional accountability methods leave leaders frustrated with limited, ineffective tools and leave employees feeling criticized, discouraged, and even disengaged. Using a foundation of neuroscience and human dynamics, Inspiring Accountability in the Workplace brings a much-needed modern approach to inspiring employee engagement, productivity, and results.

Set in New Orleans at the close of the 19th century, The Awakening follows Edna Pontellier, who, while vacationing with her husband and their two sons, finds liberation from her prudish behavior and repressed emotions and desires. At the coastal resort of Madame Lebrun, Edna struggles to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South.

A Diamond in My Heart, audiobook two in the Unaltered series, follows teenaged Calli Courtnae as she learns how to control her new cosmic superpowers. She's afraid she's no match for some of the other people who are showing up with different paranormal powers, including a time-rewinding teen who apparently has some romantic fantasy about her going on in his head. She faces more challenges with him as he attempts to save the day.

It’s been a thousand years since the Avas Vatras tried to burn the world to ashes. A thousand years since they were imprisoned in the brutal wasteland called the Kiln. But revenge is a dish best served cold - even, apparently, by the children of fire. In Delphi, Nazafareen joins forces with the followers of Dionysius to rescue her friends from the Oracle’s dungeons and seek out the three talismans whose extraordinary powers stopped the Vatras before. With her own breaking magic growing stronger by the day, she must walk a razor’s edge to control her volatile temper.

In the last volume of the Fourth Talisman series, the worlds of the living and the dead collide in a final confrontation that will leave Nocturne and Solis forever changed...Three talismans adrift. Two mad kings. One poisonous crown. As dark forces gather at the Rock of Ariamazes in Samarqand, Nazafareen discovers that there are worse places than the afterlife. The twisted creature pulling the Vatras’ strings is holed up in the deepest level of the Dominion - and only she has the power to follow him there, though at the potential cost of her own soul.

On June 21, 2016, Pacific Gas & Electric Company announced a plan to shutter California’s last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, in 2025. The plan was hailed by environmental groups and politicians around the country. Then, suddenly, the state’s Democratic establishment reversed the decision, and in 2024 the Biden-Harris administration awarded the plant $1.1 billion in credits to extend its life. What happened in between? In Atomic Dreams, journalist and lifelong environmentalist Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow unearths the surprising answers—and the deep-seated conflicts behind them.

In the fourth volume of The Fourth Talisman series, Nazafareen risks everything on a desperate gamble to stop the Vatras, once and for all. Determined to confront Culach and make amends, Nazafareen goes to Val Moraine, setting off a chain of events that ultimately leads her deep into the perilous wasteland called the Kiln and the faceless enemy waiting there. But the ancient hatred that shattered the world a millennium before is stronger and far more devious than she and her companions imagine. Is the Viper truly dead? And can Nazafareen triumph without facing her own heart's darkness?

When you’re a cog in a cycle of generational trauma, how do you disrupt harmful patterns and build your own? How do you become a healthy mom when you never had one? In Mother Trauma, Emily Bowers shares her story to reveal the truth about emotional abuse and its lifelong impact on survivors. She reveals the steps she’s taken to heal old wounds, learn self-love, and grow into the mother she wanted and needed as a child. You can learn from trauma rather than live in it, but you need hope, healing, and compassion—from others and yourself.

On the White Sea, realm of smashers and sea monsters, a ship is carrying Nazafareen and Darius to the Isles of the Marakai, where the wise woman Sakhet-ra-katme has guarded the secret of the talismans for centuries. But another is searching, too - a daeva born in the brutal prison of the Kiln, who plans to use the talismans to free the Vatras and their mad king.

Calli learns about Chris's motives and tries to understand his dilemmas. Given no choice, the two of them travel with a mysterious companion back to General Harding's facility. They make an effort to dismantle the programs that are exterminating people with powers and wiping Diamond Bearers from the face of the Earth.

Nazafareen is a Breaker, a mortal who has the rare ability to shatter spell magic - although her power carries a high price. With the memories of her former self erased and nowhere else to turn, she comes to Nocturne hoping to start a new life under the triple moons of the darklands. But when an assassin forces Nazafareen to flee to the sunlit mortal city of Delphi, she finds herself embroiled in a deeper mystery whose origins lie far in the past. Why was the continent sundered into light and dark a thousand years before?

The Diamond of Freedom, book three in The Unaltered series, melds together history, geology, metaphysics, science, and fantasy in this non-stop nail biter. Calli and Chris race against the clock to identify the power-neutralizing stone that prevents Calli from healing her life-threatening injuries. She must also learn how to counter its effects before she can fight against the rogue Diamond Bearer named Freedom to save the boy she loves and the world of her friends.

Reader, Writer, and Maker: All three novels of the Daughter of Time series in one book. Speculative fiction with time travel, alien armageddon, metaphysical mysteries, action, adventure, cosmology, cybernetics, religion, and romance!

Journalist Justine Goodman, stifled by new motherhood, surrenders to an obsession with Project Nemesis—an all-women group of eco-anarchists set on dismantling dirty energy companies. She risks everything to gain entry into their inner circle, but tragedy strikes before she can even begin to savor her involvement. Zoe Rasmussen, wearied by her role as energy magnate Phil Rasmussen's wife, clings unhappily to her situation for her daughter's sake. When grief-stricken Justine, armed and unhinged, appears with a demand, Zoe is torn between terror and excitement.

A Western terrorist organization targets Muslims around the world, and FBI agent John Savas must put aside the loss of his son and work with a man who symbolizes all he has come to hate. Both are drawn into a race against time to stop the plot of an American bin Laden and prevent a global catastrophe.

Writer Carrie Colts hopes a move to Montauk will be a rejuvenating change of pace for her family. The last thing she expects to see is her former college roommate on her doorstep. Newly widowed, and with a daughter of her own, Maya would love to reconnect. As a gesture to an old friend in mourning, Carrie extends an invitation to stay. Just for a few days. After all, there are reasons that Carrie and Maya are estranged.

A detective, conspiracy thriller. Some people can’t let go of a grudge. Homicide Detective Sean Trann is learning this the hard way. He made the mistake of interrupting the killing spree of Boston’s most notorious serial killer, Spider. Intent on finishing what he started and infuriated at Sean’s previous involvement, Spider has decided to use those closest to Sean as pieces in his twisted game. Sean is the only one who can stop this executioner, but can he stay professional when his loved ones are on the line?

In this engrossing memoir, Marion Nestle reflects on how she achieved late-in-life success as a leading advocate for healthier and more sustainable diets. Slow Cooked recounts of how she built an unparalleled career at a time when few women worked in the sciences, and how she came to recognize and reveal the enormous influence of the food industry on our dietary choices.