Showing results by narrator "Meredith Mitchell" in All Categories

Coming from one empathetic parent to another, the tips in this book are real, clever, honest, and designed to make life with a terrible two- or three-year-old a little bit more manageable. Hilarious, helpful, and handy, this book will be appreciated by any parent who has asked: "Why didn't anybody warn me that unconditional love would be so much work?"

The Crozats feared that past murders at Crozat Plantation B&B might spell the death of their beloved estate, but they've managed to survive the scandal. Now there's a très bigger story in Pelican, Louisiana: the upcoming nuptials between Police Chief Rufus Durand and Vanessa Fleer. Maggie Crozat, inexplicably tasked with being Vanessa's maid of honor, quickly discovers why everyone else refused the assignment when the bridezilla hands her a long list of duties.

"You have to kill him." Imprisoned in the heart of a secret military base, Em has nothing except the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain. Only Em can complete the final instruction. She's tried everything to prevent the creation of a time machine that will tear the world apart. She holds the proof: a list she has never seen before, written in her own hand. Each failed attempt in the past has led her to the same terrible present - imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man called "the doctor" while war rages outside.

From an important new American writer comes this powerful collection of personal essays on fear, creativity, art, faith, academia, the Internet, and justice. In this poignant and inciting collection of literary essays, Megan Stielstra tells stories to ward off fears both personal and universal as she grapples toward a better way to live. In her titular piece, "The Wrong Way to Save Your Life", she answers the question of what has value in our lives - a question no longer rhetorical when the apartment above her family's goes up in flames.

In her warm and inimitable way, M. J. Ryan guides us to look at our lives from a different perspective. To imagine what they would be like if we practiced an attitude of self-trust, if we received the gifts trusting ourselves might give us. In an age of constant media messages and so-called expert advice telling us to be richer, thinner, smart, and faster, we're all dogged with worry and self-doubt. Best-selling author M. J. Ryan believes we've become so dependent on "experts" to tell us how to live our lives that we listen to everyone except ourselves.

Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services is a fixture in San Francisco at the dawn of a new century. While the future is unclear, Sabina and John know one thing for certain: they will protect their clients from flimflammers, thieves, and murderers, and do whatever it takes to run these dregs of society into the arms of the law. Sometimes, that requires a subtle touch. Professor A. Vargas, self-styled medium extraordinaire, and his partner Annabelle, use guile and trickery to swindle bereaved men and women eager to contact the spirits of deceased loved ones.

Amish quilter Sarah Bitler's dreams no longer feature a husband and family. Instead she searches for success in the quilt shop within Blackburn House, a place once tarnished with deadly secrets. She refuses to let the past influence her future - until an ominous fire forces them to collide. Firefighter Aaron King was the first to touch Sarah's heart - and the first to break it. Now a widower and father of two small girls, his return to Sarah's life brings her buried feelings to the surface.

This Is Why You're Sick and Tired goes to the root of your energy problem to give you the tools you need to rehabilitate your body on the cellular level to target the cells and hormones critical to energy, vitality, and weight loss. Each week of this three-phase plan will offer a new diet and exercise program that alters chemistry in stages, working with your brain and body to balance and release a new set of chemicals and patterns.

Meet Julie Chavan. Julie is trying to rescue the legendary New York publishing house West 57. Everyone else in her life is trying to rescue Julie - her mother, her ex-fiancé, her ex-best friend, and even the ghost of her dead father. They all think they know what Julie needs. What Julie actually needs is a big best seller for West 57, but her debut of the year's hottest book is spinning wildly out of control.

Breaking into the home of the woman who shared his bed three months ago isn't Weston Cade's usual MO. But the Texas Ranger is on a personal vendetta to catch a killer, and Addie Crockett is the man's biological daughter. The beautiful rancher also happens to be carrying Wes' child....

At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it's clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map. Let's face it: Most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We're awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit.

June, 1998. Paris' sticky summer heat is even more oppressive than usual as rowdy French football fans riot in anticipation of the World Cup. Private investigator Aimée Leduc has been trying to slow down her hectic lifestyle, take on only computer security assignments, and maybe try to learn how to cook (quelle catastrophe!). She's vowed not to let herself get involved in any more dangerous shenanigans - she's five months pregnant and has the baby's well-being to think about now, too.

First someone tries to kill him. Then an achingly familiar beauty from his past drops the bombshell of a lifetime: He has a son. Two years ago Sheriff Jericho Crockett's attraction to Laurel Tate became a brief but intense affair - until an unsolved murder made them enemies. Now, with their son's life hanging in the balance, the Texas lawman must put aside the pain of Laurel's long-held secret in order to keep the little boy safe.

Paris, 1660: As the daughter of itinerant actors who once lit up the Parisian stages, Claudette always thought her future lay in the theater. But a series of chance encounters pulls her into the alluring orbit of the most beautiful woman in all of France: Athénaïs de Montespan, the mistress to Louis XIV and reigning "Shadow Queen". Impetuous by nature, Athénaïs wields a disconcerting amount of power - a fact that has ruffled many of the Sun King's key advisors. Needing someone to act as her eyes and ears, Athénaïs hires Claudette as a personal attendant. The young stagehand leaves the world of theater only to find that court is very much like a stage....

In The Bughouse Affair, this first of a new series of lighthearted historical mysteries set in 1890s San Francisco, former Pinkerton operative Sabina Carpenter and her detective partner, ex-Secret Service agent John Quincannon, undertake what initially appear to be two unrelated investigations. Sabina's case involves the hunt for a ruthless lady "dip" who uses fiendish means to relieve her victims of their valuables at Chutes Amusement Park and other crowded places. Quincannon, meanwhile, is after a slippery housebreaker who targets the homes of wealthy residents.

When a pleasant afternoon's bicycling through Golden Gate Park with a friend ends with the revelation of threatening letters, followed by a gunshot in a mansion garden, Sabina Carpenter knows this is a case that demands her immediate and undivided attention. The questions her partner John Quincannon has to unravel are not difficult: Wrixton, a wealthy banker, has met his extortionist's first demand, but the order to pay another $5,000 is too much to face. The banker's real problem is something he doesn't want to reveal.

Drug lords, missing millionaires, corrupt cops… just another day for Carpenter and Quincannon Detective Services. Two missing bodies and two separate investigations take Carpenter and Quincannon from the heights above San Francisco Bay to the depths of Chinatown's opium dens. For John Quincannon, this is a first: searching a Chinatown opium den for his client's husband, missing in the middle of a brewing tong war set to ignite over the stolen corpse of Bing Ah Kee.

For more than 25 years and counting, Rebecca Eatonhas presided over PBS's Masterpiece Theatre, the longest-running weekly prime-time drama series in American history. From the runaway hits Upstairs, Downstairs and The Buccaneers to the hugely popular Inspector Morse, Prime Suspect, and Poirot, Masterpiece Theatre and its sibling series Mystery! have been required viewing for fans of quality drama.

Georgia Waltz has things many people only dream of: A plush Manhattan apartment overlooking Central Park, a Hamptons beach house, valuable jewels and art, two bright daughters, and a husband she adores, even after decades of marriage. It's only when Ben suddenly drops dead from a massive coronary while training for the New York City Marathon that Georgia discovers her husband - a successful lawyer - has left them nearly penniless. Their wonderland was built on lies.

They say that behind every great man is a woman. Behind Edith Wharton, there was Anna Bahlmann - her governess turned literary secretary, and her mothering, nurturing friend. When, at the age of 45, Edith falls passionately in love with a dashing, younger journalist, Morton Fullerton, and is at last opened to the world of the sensual, it threatens everything certain in her life - but especially her abiding friendship with Anna.