Showing results by narrator "Susan Ericksen" in All Categories

Part history, part memoir, I Am a Stranger Here Myself taps dimensions of human yearning: the need to belong, the snarl of family history, and embracing womanhood in the patriarchal American West. Gwartney becomes fascinated with the missionary Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, the first Caucasian woman to cross the Rocky Mountains and one of 14 people killed at the Whitman Mission in 1847 by Cayuse Indians. Whitman's role as a white woman drawn in to "settle" the West reflects the tough-as-nails women in Gwartney's own family.

Elizabeth Pantley, creator of the No-Cry revolution, gives you advice for raising well-behaved children, from ages two through eight. In The No-Cry Discipline Solution, parenting expert Elizabeth Pantley tells you how to deal with childhood's most common behavioral problems.

When Dr. David Hosack tilled the country's first botanical garden in the Manhattan soil more than 200 years ago, he didn't just dramatically alter the New York landscape; he left a monumental legacy of advocacy for public health and wide-ranging support for the sciences. In melodic prose, historian Victoria Johnson eloquently chronicles Hosack's tireless career to reveal the breadth of his impact. The result is a lush portrait of the man who gave voice to a new, deeply American understanding of the powers and perils of nature.

Beautiful New York socialite Lily Bart finds herself alone and nearly penniless as her thirtieth birthday approaches. To maintain her station in high society, Lily must wait for her miserly aunt to bequeath her fortune, or marry well. Blessed with wit and charm, she doesn’t lack for suitors, yet the most socially acceptable candidates fail to capture Lily’s interest. Instead, she’s intrigued by a young lawyer who is unafraid to speak his mind.

With the threat of the Third Reich looming, Eleanor Roosevelt employs the history of human rights to establish the idea that at the core of democracy is a spiritual responsibility to other citizens. Roosevelt then calls on all Americans, especially the youth, to prioritize the well-being of others and have faith that their fellow citizens will protect them in return. She defines this trust between people as a trait of true democracy. Roosevelt advances an optimistic model for the democracy of the future, and although we've taken some steps in the direction of her vision, it's still a long way from reality.

The promise of discretion and pampering - and a longer overdue reconciliation with her mother - draws Caroline Blessing, the young wife of a newly elected congressman, to the fancy Phoenix Spa. But after her first night in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, Caroline wakes to find the rich and famous guests in turmoil and under suspicion: the spa's flamboyant and ambitious owner has been murdered. As the secrets come out - and the body count rises - can Caroline keep herself from becoming the next victim?

Sharon McCone is hired by her husband's security firm to track down the "ever-running man", who has been setting off explosive devices at their various offices. She doesn't have to look for long. When McCone narrowly escapes an explosion in her apartment building, she catches a glimpse of his retreating figure. The ever-running man is dangerously close - and it seems that anyone connected to the firm is within his deadly range.

Following the death of her worthy liberal parents, Corlis McCrea moves back into her family's grand Reconstruction mansion in North Carolina, willed to all three siblings. Her timid younger brother has never left home. When her bullying black-sheep older brother moves into "his" house as well, it's war.

Rosie and Abigail are like family, Ina Merriweather used to say. That is, until the day Ina abruptly cast out her housekeeper, Rosie, and her 15-year-old daughter, Abigail. Abigail felt deeply betrayed, especially by Ina's daughter, Lila, who was her closest friend. Only Lila's twin brother, Vaughn, with whom Abigail had been exploring the joys and heartaches of first love, showed any compassion.

Complacency can make a person careless, and Sharon McCone, who makes crime her business, should know that better than most. One minute she's riding high with her detective agency expanding, her bank account growing, and her only "problem" a marriage proposal from her lover, Hy Ripinsky, that's kicking up her longtime fears of commitment. The next minute, in the time it takes for a single phone call to bring bad news, she stands to lose everything.

Sharon McCone has chosen a guy who respects her as a professional and shares her passions. But living together in her beloved little house on Church Street may be another matter entirely. The looming crisis of who will compromise first is delayed when Hy heads out of town on business and McCone dives into one of her most baffling cases yet - the disappearance of Laurel Greenwood, who vanished twenty-two years before without a trace.

Have you ever heard of the “Mercury 13” women? Did you know that nearly twenty years before the first women were let into NASA’s astronaut program, there were others who tried? What are the requirements for being shot into space, piloting a hunk of metal while carrying the hopes and fears of your nation? Mastery of flying, as well as courage, intelligence, resistance to stress, and fitness – any checklist would certainly include these. But when America created NASA in 1958, there was an unspoken rule in place....

M. R. James was a prolific and hugely successful author, nowc redited with redefining the ghost story form. By abandoning many of the formal gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more contemporary settings, James set the stage for future generations of writers. Originally published in 1904, Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad is the story of a man who digs up a bronze whistle, which, after blowing it, leads to unexpected consequences.

The Wilde sisters dove headfirst into this world on fire with life and expectation. With hair black as midnight and eyes blazing blue, they grow into truly irresistible women. But as well as being blessed with beauty and determination, the Wilde sisters are cursed with equal tastes for mischief and bad men. And both of these appetites always lead to trouble. Love either lifts a woman up or drags her down. When a Wilde woman dies, they don't have to dig a hole.

Best friends Tracie and Jonny meet for coffee each Sunday night to discuss their forlorn love lives. Tracie loves boys with an affinity for leather jackets and poetry; Jonny falls for girls who never like him in that way until Jonny convinces Tracie to teach him some tricks of the trade. After a wardrobe makeover, learning to return from a dinner date with another phone number scrawled on his hand, scope for women at the airport baggage claim, and always carry a motorcycle helmet, Jonny becomes a heartbreaker.

One frigid, January morning in Manhattan, a new father, racked by sleep deprivation, decides to let his wife sleep in - then spontaneously flees lower Manhattan with the baby for a weekend in the Caribbean. It wasn’t a kidnapping, he wasn’t leaving his wife; he just wanted to spend a little time with the baby and give his wife a break. When the wife awakes, truly rested for the first time in nearly a year, she feels great - and embarks on a city adventure as misguided in its own way as her husband’s impulsive escape. Told from the couple’s alternating points of view, the story unfolds across one life-changing long weekend.

Los Angeles is gripped by the exploding celebrity of Allison Murietta, her real identity unknown, a modern-day Jesse James with the compulsion to steal beautiful things, the vanity to invite the media along, and the conscience to donate much of her bounty to charity. Nobody ever gets hurt - until a job ends with ten gangsters lying dead and a half-million dollars worth of glittering diamonds missing.

The School on Heart's Content Road spirals out from the story of Mickey Gammon, a disaffected 15-year-old dropout who has been evicted from his home by his overwrought half-brother. With the help of his new friend, Rex York, the captain of the local militia, Mickey is introduced to the secretive world of the Settlement. Run by a man known to many as "The Prophet", the Settlement is a rural cooperative in alternative energy, farm produce, and locally made goods.

Poppy Rice is home in her D.C. apartment with very little furniture and a stack of boxes she still hasn't unpacked after five years. It's three AM and she's suffering from her usual insomnia, so she watches a tape of the CBS Evening News. Dan Rather is interviewing convicted ax-murderer Rona Leigh Glueck who, in 10 days, will be the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War. Poppy pauses the tape on a close-up of Rona Leigh's delicate, child-like hands. So maybe it was a lightweight ax?

In Lion Eyes, Claire - the author of a novel about love among young CIA trainees - is unsuccessfully dodging a deadly Paris heat wave and her even deadlier ex-boyfriend. When she receives an e-mail from an Iranian admirer who wonders how to obtain a copy of Loose Lips in his native city of Esfahan, Claire wastes no time in replying. Her correspondence with the mysterious stranger quickly becomes personal, then intimate...then obsessive.