Showing results by narrator "Joyce Bean" in All Categories

Kate Malick, a former Carmelite nun turned security professional to the stars, is dedicated to protecting her clients. Celebrities are her specialty, and right now teenage celebutante and slow-motion train wreck Chelsea Brewer is testing Kate’s devotion. A poster child for the pitfalls of childhood fame and fortune, Chelsea is careening past the boundaries of “poor choices” and into the deep waters of self-destruction. On LA’s mean streets, young lives are often cut short, and Chelsea’s is no exception.

When Reuben Tarz meets Marchioness Michelene Fonsard, known as Madame Mickey, he is a wounded American soldier desperate to escape the hell of the French trenches. Madame Mickey offers another option - for Reuben and his best friend, Daniel Bishop, to live at her lavish chateau, where she will help them heal in body and soul. Madame Mickey’s sophistication captivates the ambitious Reuben, and their affair is as tender as it is sensual.

Gina Rudan lays out a life-changing plan to help listeners tap into practical, street-level, everyday genius that can unleash hidden potential and bring extraordinary success and satisfaction to work and life. The problem with the concept of genius is that it's a quality - like creativity - that has a magical, elusive connotation. Most people consider genius to be a gift, a "lightning bolt from the gods" that strikes people like Einstein or Mozart, but not the rest of us.

As the lawlessness of Prohibition pushes against the desperation of the Depression, there are two ways to make a living in Los Angeles: join the criminals or collar them. Kitty Pangborn has chosen the crime-fighters, becoming secretary to Dexter J. Theroux, one of the hard-drinking, tough-talking PIs who pepper the city's stew.

There's a myth out there that good relations between brothers and sisters do not include conflict, annoyance, disagreement, or mixed feelings. Jane Isay believes this is a destructive myth, one that makes people doubt the strength of the connection with their siblings. Brothers and sisters may love and hate, fight and forgive, but they never forget their early bonds.

Friends fall out of touch, we run out of time, or sometimes our courage simply fails us - and thank-yous, regrets, feelings, and secrets are left unshared. In 2009, Jackie Hooper came up with a way to help people recapture a moment that had once passed them by. She began asking them to write letters that answered one question: If you had another chance, what would you do differently? Based on the popular blog of the same name, this captivating collection of letters presents the stories of ordinary people.

At the age of 15, Kelle Groom found that alcohol allowed her to connect with people and explore intimacy in ways she'd never been able to experience before. She began drinking before class, often blacked out at bars, and fell into destructive relationships. At 19, already an out-of-control alcoholic, she was pregnant. Accepting the heartbreaking fact that she was incapable of taking care of her son herself, she gave him up for adoption to her aunt and uncle. When he was nine months old, the boy was diagnosed with leukemia....

When caregiver Faith McCallum arrives at the enchanted lakeside estate of Avalon's renowned Bellamy family, she's intent on rebuilding her shattered life and giving her two daughters a chance at a better future. But she faces a formidable challenge in the form of her stubborn and difficult new employer, Alice Bellamy. While Faith proves a worthy match for her sharp-tongued client, she often finds herself at a loss for words in the presence of Mason Bellamy - Alice's charismatic son, who clearly longs to escape the family mansion.

A single mother of five, Ellen Rogers has endured her fair share of tragedy, having lost both her first husband and stepdaughter to cancer. But nothing could have prepared Rogers for the June 2005 car accident that left her son Ned - now 25 years old - a quadriplegic with a brain injury. The road to Ned's recovery was long and discouraging, but when Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers for the Disabled stepped in to provide him with a service animal to help him cope with his disabilities, things turned around.

The unsolved murders at a remote Wisconsin farmhouse half a century ago have receded into time. But one deranged man will do anything to make sure that all of Pepin County remembers that bloody day. When a quantity of dangerous pesticides is stolen from the local co-op, Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins is called in to investigate. The thief has left one bizarre clue: the finger bone of a child long dead.

As our society continues its transition from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age, new challenges are being introduced into the workplace, giving rise to a new phenomenon, Virtual Distance.

Still, in the City is a collection of stories about the practice of urban Buddhism - when a New York City subway becomes a mobile temple, when Los Angeles traffic becomes a vehicle for awakening, when a Fifth Avenue sidewalk offers a spiritual path through craving, generosity, and sorrow. Practicing in the city comes with its own set of challenges and opportunities, and this book is attuned to both.

The Ask Deepak series was created to encourage people to live healthier, fuller lives and to be more aware. Deepak Chopra delivers this inspiring project for personal and global transformation. In this collection, Deepak answers questions about success, including maintaining balance toward personal and career goals, desires, and discipline toward achieving your desires.

Sent to live with a wealthy family on a West Indies plantation, Rachel carries with her a past shrouded in mystery. Drawn to her grit and fortitude, charming widower and fanciful inventor Henry is willing to overlook the vague explanations about her history. But after years of marriage, Rachel leaves Henry and their oldest son without explanation and sets off for New York City with their other four children. Is her flight the ultimate act of betrayal or one of extraordinary courage? Using real family letters, Laurel Saville reconstructs the secrets, tensions, and longings surrounding Rachel in this densely layered, poignant novel.

No one likes to diet, but this book will encourage and inspire listeners with its positive, practical, and purposeful stories of dieting and fitness. You'll find hope, help, and hints on getting fit and staying healthy in these stories from those who have been there, done that, and maintained it. Stories about wake-up calls and realizations, moving more and eating better, self-esteem and support, will motivate any listener looking to start fresh or needing a boost.

The two scientists meet when a lab rat escapes from its cage after giving birth. When they find the rat, they also discover one tiny, raw-pink baby, mewling despairingly at a frequency inaudible to human ears. From there, love - or some disjointed, broken version of it - develops between the scientists.

Single mother Harpa has always been a misfit. Her physical description is like no other Icelander: so small she self-deprecatingly refers to herself as a dwarf, so dark-skinned she doubts her genetic link to her parents, so strange she nearly believed the children who mistook her for a mythical creature of the forest. Even as an adult, she struggles to make sense of her place in the world. When she sees how her teenage daughter, Edda, has suffered since a friend’s drug overdose, Harpa has no choice but to tear her away from her friends.

Brother and sister Jerry and Daisy Lou Malone leave behind their provincial Midwestern upbringing to test their mettle in the big, beckoning world of 1920s America. For Jerry, the future lies west, with like-minded pioneer souls keen to play the “land game” as homesteaders on the Great Plains. Daisy, in turn, heads for the lights and luxe life of New York City, hoping to sing her way to stardom.

Laura, a 40-something journalist with a fertile imagination, tries to escape her mother's influence and shuns all contact with her. She receives a call one morning from a spiritual center where her mother had been a regular. She had not called in four days. As Laura enters her mother’s apartment she finds her lying on the floor, completely famished. In the hospital she is diagnosed with a fatal cancer.

It doesn't get more romantic than Andy Beck's cottage on Martha's Vineyard. But love is the last thing on his mind - he just wants to get the cottage ready for his best friend's honeymoon. At least that's the plan, until he finds the gorgeous Maid of Honor ransacking his house - in the most irresistible way...