Showing results by narrator "Ann Marie Gideon"

In 2014, Elizabeth and Nate Thames were conventional 9-5 young urban professionals. But the couple had a dream to become modern-day homesteaders in rural Vermont. Determined to retire as early as possible in order to start living each day - as opposed to wishing time away working for the weekends - they enacted a plan to save an enormous amount of money: well over 70 percent of their joint take-home pay. Dubbing themselves the Frugalwoods, Elizabeth began documenting their unconventional frugality and the resulting wholesale lifestyle transformation on their eponymous blog.

Once happily married, Jenna Jones is about to turn 40, and this year for her birthday - lucky her - she’s getting a divorce. She’s barely able to support herself and her teenage daughter. Her aging aunt Edie is finding it difficult to keep up her business running The Driftwood Inn, so she invites Jenna to come live with her and run the place. It looks like Jenna’s financial problems are solved! Or not. The town is a little more run-down than Jenna remembers, but that’s nothing compared to the ramshackle state of The Driftwood Inn.

Lady Miranda Hawthorne acts every inch the lady, but inside she longs to be bold and carefree. Entering her fourth Season and approaching spinsterhood in the eyes of society, she pours her innermost feelings out not in a diary but in letters to her brother's old school friend, a duke - with no intention of ever sending these private thoughts to a man she's heard stories about but never met.

The Duke of Riverton has chosen his future wife with the same logic he uses to make every decision. However, his perfect bride eludes his suit, while the beautiful Isabella Berkeley seems to be everywhere. When the time comes, will Griffith and Isabella be able to set aside their pride and initial notions to embrace their very own happily-ever-after?

In "Books and Roses", one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers' fates. In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?", an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" involves a "house of locks", where doors can be closed only with a key - with surprising unobservable developments. And in "If a Book Is Locked There's Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think", a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason).

They say you can't have your cake and eat it too. But who would want a cake they couldn't eat? Just ask Emma Rae Travis about that. A baker of confections who is diabetic and can't enjoy them. When Emma meets Jackson Drake, the escapee from corporate America who is starting a wedding destination hotel to fulfill a dream that belonged to someone else, this twosome and their crazy family ties bring new meaning to the term "family circus". The Atlanta social scene will never be the same!

With Everland and Umberland both destroyed, the survivors have taken refuge in a small village tucked within the shadows of the Bloodred Queen's castle. Doc has found an actual cure for the Horologia virus, while Gwen, Pete, and Alyssa begin plotting the assassination of the queen with the help of Gail, an excellent huntress. But killing the queen won't be enough. The world has been destroyed and its needs a ruler to set things right again. A ruler who is good, kind, and fair. Someone like the former king of Germany. But he's dead...or is he?

With two biological sons and a promising career, Coleman Carter seems set to fulfill his promise as a resourceful trial lawyer, devoted husband, and dutiful father until his wife, Elizabeth, champions their adoption of a Korean orphan. This seemingly altruistic mission estranges Coleman's conservative parents and demands that he now embrace the unknown as fully as he has always entrenched himself in the familiar.

Halloween is coming and everyone knows what that means: costume party! For Brooklyn Prescott, the best thing about being the new school liaison was supposed to be planning the Halloween dance. Who doesn't want to escape themselves, even if it's just for one night? But The Rosewood School for Academic Excellence has banned costumes and now Brooklyn's faced with the possibility of her first event being a total flop. Not to mention that she's planning the dance with Dave, the sexy and neglected boyfriend of her roommate, Emmie. Awkward!

Acclaimed author Lian Tanner's Icebreaker was shortlisted for Australia's Aurealis Award for Best Children's Book. Here 12-year-old Petrel is an outcast surviving in the shadows aboard the Oyster, a 300-year-old icebreaker. Risking everything to save a frozen boy found adrift, Petrel quickly uncovers the disturbing truth about both the ship and a secret mission of death and destruction.

It's taken Audrey Regan years to establish herself as a wedding dress designer, and to date she's been roped into creating dresses for nine of her girlfriends. Request number 10 follows her vow to "just say no!" and comes from her very best friend. She can hardly turn Carly down! Audrey arrives in Atlanta early to perform all of her maid-of-honor duties along with final fittings for a one-of-a-kind dress.

As a wedding planner, Sherilyn Caine should have the perfect wedding experience.... After all, she just landed her dream job at the wedding destination hotel The Tanglewood. The rest should be a piece of cake for Sherilyn's type-A personality. But while everything else goes smoothly, her own wedding plans start to sink right before her eyes. One way or the other, Sherilyn is determined to make this wedding work - until the latest development threatens to call the whole thing off. Is it possible that Sherilyn is allergic to her fiancé?

When Rachel was taken to live in a tower by a woman she calls Mama, she was excited. She felt like a princess in a castle. But many years later, Rachel knows her palace is really a prison, and begins to plan her escape. She is encouraged by the speed that her golden hair has been growing. It’s gotten long enough to reach the ground. And she’s begun dreaming of a green-eyed man. Could he be out there in the world? Is he coming to save her? Or will she find a way to save herself?

Julie has an obsession with fire that began after her parents died when she was 12 years old. Her pyromania leads her to take an unlikely job as a forest firefighter on an elite, Type 1 "Hotshot" crew of forest firefighters who travel the American West battling wildfires. The only woman on the 20-person crew, Julie struggles both to prove her worth and find a place of belonging in the dangerous, insular, and very masculine world of fire.

In the center of the verdant Monarchy lies Dreadwillow Carse, a black and desolate bog that the happy people of the land do their best to ignore. Little is known about it except for one dire warning: If any monarch enters Dreadwillow Carse, then the Monarchy will fall. Twelve-year-old Princess Jeniah yearns to know what the marsh could possibly conceal that might topple her family's thousand-year reign of peace and prosperity.

What would you do if you were going to die soon? What wisdom would you impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance? Sara Frankl's eventual death was indeed tragic, but the vignettes she presents are unforgettable. Choose Joy is a must-have for those searching for meaning and beauty in a world full of tragedy. Her words breathe with vitality and life, and her stories will inspire smiles, tears, and the desire to "choose joy".

Brooklyn Prescott (if that's even her real name) is the new girl at The Rosewood Academy for Academic Excellence, now that she's moved back to the States after two years living in London. Rosewood, a boarding school for children of the rich and famous and known for its celebutantes, is missing just one element important to any junior's education: boys. But luckily for Brooklyn, and the rest of the Rosewood girls, there's a boys' boarding school, The Westwood Academy, just a few miles away.

Everyone has their own idea of romance- a candlelight dinner, a stroll on the beach or a sprinkling of rose petals on a bed. Now, Chicken Soup for the Romantic Soul brings brand new inspiration to expressions of romance.

Merry Strand spent all her days in a rural North Carolina mountain town before being lured to the Atlantic coast by the promise of an inheritance from the biological father she never knew existed. The windfall could save her adopted family from financial ruin, but in order to receive it she must earn it by completing a series of tasks.

Gwin is a Fetcher. With her papa and twin brother, Nat, she travels West Norn, bringing joy to its downtrodden people through song and story. But ever since Mama died, it's been hard to keep the joy alive. Proud and defiant, Fetchers have always been hunted by the Devouts for preserving the old ways. So when devious Brother Poosk captures Papa, Gwin must rescue him - whatever the cost.