Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Pickens" in All Categories

In her work as a 'death doula', Clover Brooks ushers people peacefully through their last days, collecting their final words into three notebooks: ADVICE, CONFESSIONS and REGRETS. But Clover spends so much time with the dying that she's forgotten how to live . . . Can her clients' hard-won wisdom - and the inspiring love story of a spirited old woman named Claudia - show Clover the way to a happy ending After all, what's the point of giving someone a beautiful death if you can't give yourself a beautiful life?

Now that Geraldine Porter is retired, she's got time to devote to her favorite craft. You'd think the world of shoe-box-sized Victorian shadow boxes and little ceramic bathtubs would be trouble free. But Gerry's problems are anything but tiny. Gerry likes working in a smaller scale, yet her to-do list is anything but. Between creating a miniature Victorian room box for the holiday auction, teaching crafts at the Mary Todd Retirement Home, and watching her granddaughter, her calendar is bursting with holiday cheer—until she has to add in a murder investigation.

What would it take for you to kill someone for money? And if you did, who - or what - would you have become? These are the questions one woman faces when she loses everyone she loves and everything she has. When the opportunity arrives to reinvent herself as a killer for hire, she takes it. She's good at it - and if she doesn't do it, someone else will. Then everything changes when she learns about a serial killer so horrible she vows to find him and kill him until - overcome by self-doubt - she seeks redemption rather than vengeance.

Diane Williams, "godmother of flash fiction" (The Paris Review), returns with thirty-three brilliant short stories. In Williams's stories, life is newly alive and dangerous; whether she is writing about an affair, a request for money, an afternoon in a garden, or the simple act of carrying a cake from one room to the next, she offers us beautiful and unsettling new ways of seeing everyday life.

Marcie is crazy in love with Dan, who has been using her and promising his love in return. And she'll do anything for him, which is fast becoming a one-way ticket to trouble. But in a freak accident, she loses her memory, landing in the path of sexy DEA Agent Sam Carre. For DEA Agent Sam Carre, when this attractive stranger lands in his path, he just can't resist helping her, even though he's haunted by a past that gives him no peace. But as the sparks fly, so do questions of what she's really involved in. This complex case pushes them both to explain the unexplainable.

Now that Geraldine Porter is retired, she's got time to devote to her favorite craft. You'd think the world of shoe-box-sized Victorian shadowboxes and little ceramic bathtubs would be trouble free. But Gerry's problems are anything but tiny. As chairwoman of the local Dollhouse and Miniatures Fair and babysitter for her precocious granddaughter, Gerry's got enough to think about without the curious behavior of her friend Linda Reed.

Keep your head up, put one foot in front of the other, and never stop. For Bunny Beckman, former cop-turned-stripper, that motto had always been enough to keep the gun out of her mouth. Now, her beliefs, and her life, will be challenged in a way she never even imagined as the dead rise with a hunger for the living. To survive, she must face the monsters outside, and the demons within.

In We Got This, 75 solo mom writers tell the truth about their lives—their hopes and fears, their resilience and setbacks, their embarrassments and triumphs. Some of these writers’ names will sound familiar, like Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Alexander, while others are about to become unforgettable. Bound together by their strength, pride, and—most of all— dedication to their children, they broadcast a universal and empowering message: "You are not alone, solo moms—and your tenacity, courage, and fierce love are worthy of celebration."

Another state. Another city. Another dead-end job. A stellar FBI agent until tragedy set her adrift, Karen Pantelli finds herself working at a pizza joint in Billings, Montana, trying to ignore the increasing global unrest dominating the news, when three armed men walk through the door. Soon a shocking turn of events launches her on a cross-country quest for a former college classmate, an alluring but manipulative woman with just one goal in life: to marry rich. Very rich.

Don't You Dare is a compelling story that weaves together a current-day journey of discovery and a true-life love story between two women that took place over a hundred years ago. Newspaper headlines and stories back then didn't mention LGBTQ people. The LGBTQ community loved and lived in the background of society because it was too dangerous to do otherwise. All were hidden, just like the wedding photos belonging to author Gayla Turner's grandmother–Ruby.

Mary floated across the room, shaking her hands in frustration. Finally, she turned back to Mike. “When will the men in my life realize that no one is responsible for watching over me?” she asked sadly. “I am a grown woman. I am a former police officer. I am not some hot-house flower that can’t handle my own life and my own safety.” Victoria sighed loudly and rolled her eyes.

Emily Scott is a stand-up comedian and one-time bank robber who came into possession of knowledge that could get her killed. She knows the identity of Big Wheel. When presented with a chance to run away with a bag full of cash, she didn’t hesitate. But now pout on the road she’s stuck between two worlds. After spending 20 years getting good at one thing, and building her identity around it, can she abandon all that work and become someone new? And what happens when she finds out Chloe Medina is on her tail, the hot girl who broke her nose at high school after one kiss?

When Diana of the cursed house Bellatrix loses her life, she is forced to admit to the king of the underworld that she had not become the hero she promised him. He did not rage, nor smite her soul where she stood. The king’s only demand for resurrection was her attendance at Afterlife Academy, a rehabilitation center for failed heroes of history. A place where she can learn to control her destructive, bloodthirsty power. As she adapts to her new home, she unexpectedly encounters a godchild of Mars known as Calix.

Marcie, Maggie, and Diane all have one thing in common: Dan McKenzie, an unscrupulous man who uses women. His motto in life is "Lie, cheat, and steal". He faked his death and tried to frame Maggie's husband with his murder. He blackmailed Marcie to run drugs for him. And Diane, a cop, had to stand by, knowing he was responsible for planting drugs in her partner's locker. He's always walked away scot free. Until now.

Most cops have a past. A past they can speak of. A past they can share. But not Diane.... That is until one night a body is discovered on the highway close to her home. But Diane Larsen, a tough cop chick who has had to prove herself over and over to the cops she works with, is ordered by her new boss to investigate the one case that could be her undoing.

Biography of a Body is a lyrical meander through the development of a messy, flawed, imperfect human and what it means to live in a society that both pulls a person into itself and fiercely pushes back. In personal essays and snippets of verse that shift back and forth through time and place, Lizz Schumer fidgets with the puzzle pieces of a life that are at once starkly unique and glaringly obvious. This is less a narrative than a trail of breadcrumbs through an experience, where strange things whisper from the shadows and draw the listener into the dappled darkness.

Intersexion is a life-giving true story about choosing between social acceptance or health, fear or authenticity. Cynthia, an adjunct professor with a trunk full of ungraded papers and snack wrappers, has been an LGBTQIA+ ally for years—in convenient ways. She enjoys the company of her queer friends—but her support isn’t risky; it hasn’t cost her anything. Until she meets Danny.

Diana Bellatrix has discovered the truth. She is the last surviving heir of the Athens throne, and the reason the Netherportal remains open. In her guilt, she leaves Afterlife Academy with the conviction of eradicating the curse on her bloodline and restoring the Overworld. In need of an army, she returns to her homeland to prove she is a worthy successor. And while queen Minerva accepts, it is with contempt and suspicion, for she has not forgotten the treachery of her son.

Her assignments were always to kill someone. That's what a hitman—or hitwoman—is paid to do—and that is what she does. Then comes a surprise assignment—keep someone alive! She is hired to protect Virginia Martin, the stunning and brilliant chief technology officer of a hot startup with an innovation that will change the world. This new job catches her at a time in her life when she's disillusioned, even depressed. She's confused about the “why”, but she addresses her charge as she always does, with skill and stealth, determined to keep this young CTO alive.

When Jess was thirteen, her mother went for a walk and never returned. Jess and her older sister, Liz, never found out what happened. Instead, they did what they hoped their mother had done: survive. As soon as she was old enough, Jess fled their small town of Knife River, wandering from girlfriend to girlfriend like a ghost in her own life, aimless in her attempts to outrun grief and confusion. But one morning, fifteen years after their mother’s disappearance, she gets the call she’s been bracing for: Her mother’s remains have been found.