Showing results by narrator "Renée Raudman" in All Categories

With everything happening on Helen Peppe's backwoods Maine farm - ferocious sibling rivalry, rock-bottom poverty, feral male chauvinism, sex in the hayloft - life was out of control, even for the animals. Despite the chaos, in telling her family's story, Peppe manages deadpan humor, an unerring eye for the absurd, and a touching compassion for her utterly overwhelmed parents. While her feisty resilience and candor will inevitably remind listeners of Jeannette Walls or Mary Karr, Peppe's wry insight and moments of tenderness with family and animals are entirely her own.

Maureen Coughlin is in a rut. At 29, the strong Staten Island native fears she may become a “lifer” at the Narrows, the faux-swank bar where she waits tables five nights a week. Nursing a strained relationship with her mother, she tries to find ambition in the little things—a gym membership, a plan to return to school, a dash of cocaine before work—but there’s no denying that she’s stuck.

Always looking for an adventure, Prince Marcus asks Gracie Gillypot to join him in some dwarf spotting, but their journey into the Unreliable Forest goes horribly wrong when Gracie disappears. Underground, the dwarves have struck a dangerous bargain with the King of the Trolls, and Dreghorn’s balance of power, held in a mysterious heart of glass, could change forever. Can the heroic Prince Marcus save both Princess Marigold and Gracie from the grips of a lonely troll and a scheming goblin?

When Joy Montrose received her commission to paint a mural depicting the healing miracles of Jesus at Good Samaritan Hospital, she never anticipated forming a close friendship with Evan Marshall. But the bond between the talented young artist and the gifted surgeon has grown, even though their lives are worlds apart. Now, with the family estate falling suddenly and unexpectedly into Joy's hands, she finds herself sifting not only through the memorabilia of generations but through her own heart and aspirations. Is it truly love that she feels for Evan?

The dog days of summer have arrived, and Tai Randolph is feeling the heat. Running her uncle’s gun shop is more demanding than she had ever imagined. Her best friend, Rico, is competing for a national slam poetry title, and Atlanta is overrun with hundreds of fame-hungry performance poets clogging all the good bars.

When Tai Randolph plans on some time out of Atlanta and a romantic rendezvous with her boyfriend Trey, her past shows up in the form of her ex-boyfriend, who spins a tale of a stolen Civil War artifact that Tai agrees to help recover. As it turns out, Trey’s on the case too, representing a wealthy client wanting the same prize. But where there’s money, there’s usually murder - this time involving the KKK and Tai’s kinfolk. As she unravels the clues to a 150-year-old mystery, she digs up secrets that force a confrontation....

After being kicked out of the Order of the Knights of Merciful Aid, Andrea's whole existence is in shambles. She tries to put herself back together by working for Cutting Edge, a small investigative firm owned by her best friend. When several shape-shifters working for Raphael Medrano - the male alpha of the Clan Bouda, and Andrea's former lover - die unexpectedly at a dig site, Andrea is assigned to investigate.

Jenna, Livvy, Heather, and Manda strive for their best in their respective sports: gymnastics, figure skating, ice dancing, and downhill skiing. Their ultimate goal: the Olympics.

Jenna, Livvy, Heather, and Manda strive for their best in their respective sports: gymnastics, figure skating, ice-dancing, and downhill skiing. Their ultimate goal: the Olympics. As each girl struggles with life's challenges and rejoices with each triumph, the encouragement of the other Girls Only club members and their faith in God give the girls the moral support needed to push their limits and learn important lessons. In this book, the spirit of competition has consumed Jenna; she's started making enemies. Her friends wonder if she'll ever come back to the Girls Only club.

Jenna, Livvy, Heather, and Manda strive for their best in their respective sports: gymnastics, figure skating, ice dancing, and downhill skiing. Their ultimate goal: the Olympics.

For too long the subject of religion has been politicized by the right and largely ignored by the left, as American churches have become increasingly more concerned with what people do with their bodies than with their souls. Now Kathleen Kennedy Townsend issues a spiritual call to arms to all those who feel that churches in America today, Catholic and Protestant alike, are failing America's faithful.

Nikki Harper is a superstar among Hollywood realtors. Among private investigators however, she’s strictly amateur, and her first case was a Waterworld-sized disaster. But when a body turns up in a dumpster behind Victoria Bordeaux’s mansion, Nikki feels duty-bound to get involved. Before his demise, Eddie Bernard was the über-privileged son of one of the biggest television producers of all time - and a spoiled, violent, party-boy loser. The list of people glad to see him gone could stretch across Bel Air.

Carrie Host has given us a book on how to believe in the future---a future Host visualizes as a painting made up of a multitude of tiny dots called "right now." An intensely intimate journey into the unseen and unspoken aspects of catastrophic illness, told from the determined viewpoint of a 40-year-old stay-at-home mother of three

Jenna, Livvy, Heather, and Manda strive for their best in their respective sports: gymnastics, figure skating, ice-dancing, and downhill skiing. Their ultimate goal: the Olympics. As each girl struggles with life's challenges and rejoices with each triumph, the encouragement of the other Girls Only club members and their faith in God give the girls the moral support needed to push their limits and learn important lessons. In this book, Manda is concentrating so hard on winning the Dressel Hills Downhill Classic that she's turned her back on everyone that matters to her: her family, her friends....even God.

For many years, Davidson earned a living as a successful journalist and screenwriter, but in her 50s she saw her life come apart: she could no longer find work, she endured a break-up with her partner, and her children left for college. For the first time ever, she had nothing to do. She felt adrift, but she found that she was not alone. In Leap!, Davidson sets out on a passionate quest to learn how to do the coming years well.

Life couldn’t be any better for celebrity screenwriter Danny Masters: He’s dating a movie-star bombshell and his latest screenplay screams Oscar. But still, he feels empty. Enter Sunny Smith. After turning the big 4-0 with few prospects on the horizon, Sunny creates 40 goals for herself - and sleeping with her writing idol, Danny Masters, makes the list. The two meet outside the theater hosting Danny’s premiere. He’s everything she’s imagined him to be. And she captivates him, reminding him of simpler times before the hollowness of Hollywood.

The accident was tragic, yes. Bloody and horrific and claiming the life of a beautiful young sorority girl. Nicole was a straight-A student from a small town. Sweet-tempered, all-American, a former Girl Scout, and a virgin. But it was an accident. And that was last year. It’s fall again, a new semester, a fresh start.

Realtor Nikki Harper is often privy to the kind of celebrity secrets the tabloids would kill to hear - but the latest murder case to rock Tinsel Town is truly shocking. Ryan Melton is well known as the arm-candy husband of former child star Diara Elliott. Beautiful and ambitious, Diara appears on the television series Casa Capri, which stars none other than Nikki’s mother, Victoria Bordeaux. In fact, Nikki recently met Ryan and Diara at one of her mother’s parties. Now Ryan’s lifeless body has been found by his swimming pool, and the security tapes have mysteriously been erased....

Reckoning and ruin. That's what Savannah is to private eye Tai Randolph, who has gladly rebooted her life in Atlanta and is celebrating several landmarks: A year running the Confederate-themed gun shop she inherited with its busy schedule of reenactments. A year with her sexy, ex-SWAT lover, Trey, now working a corporate security gig, who's having to reboot his own life and brain after a terrible auto accident. A year of confronting a checkered list of ruffians and outright villains, mostly now put behind bars.

It's been a brutal year for rookie New Orleans cop Maureen Coughlin. Her first arrests, her first black eye, and, after a stinging brush with the corrupt heart of her adopted city, her first suspension. As she waits out the suspension, hoping to save her badge, Maureen finds increasingly dark and dangerous ways to pass the time. Justice, she tells herself, is being served. No need for the NOPD to know what she's doing.