Showing results by narrator "Joyce Bean" in All Categories

Two years after Emperor Augustus's bloody defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, he triumphantly returns to Rome. To his only child, Julia, he brings an unlikely companion - Selene, the daughter of the conquered Egyptian queen and her lover. Under the watchful eye of Augustus's wife, Livia, Selene struggles to accept her new home among her parents' enemies. Bound together by kinship and spilled blood, these three women - Livia, Selene, and Julia - navigate the dangerous world of Rome's ruling elite.

The stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul will encourage listeners to stay upbeat, because there's always a brighter way to look at life. This collection includes 34 Stories about overcoming adversity, healing, and how to say goodbye.

After a year at the Mountain Vista Assisted Living Complex, Joyce Webster has yet to really settle in. Mountain Vista is just like high school with its cliques and gossip, not to mention its mind-numbing activities. Life gets a little more interesting, though, when one of Joyce's least favorite fellow residents - an old windbag with a big ego and a knack for making enemies - dies in a suspicious fall. Joyce and her friends try to puzzle out the whodunit but are at a loss until Benny the dog turns up a telling clue.

We all need to think more like entrepreneurs. Seeking and seizing opportunities, boldly taking risks, quickly changing course - achieving success today requires the kind of action-first, fake-it-'til-you-make-it ethos celebrated in the tech industry. This formula is not typically a female one. Women tend to be cautious. We overthink our next moves, become paralyzed by fear, and simply don't act. We might be safer...but we're also stuck.

When PR pro Anna Wallingham gets dumped by her last client, she finds herself running out of options in LA, where looks trump experience. Desperate to prove she is still relevant, the fiftysomething accepts a shady job offer from Pierre Barton, secretive billionaire owner of Barton Pharmaceuticals. Isolated in a facility outside London, she agrees to test a new top-secret product guaranteed to make her look thirty years younger.

P.I. Sharon McCone is sick and tired of San Francisco's persistent rainy weather, so she jumps at the chance to investigate the sabotage of a movie being filmed on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The documentary is based on the writings of Elson Wellbright, a descendant of a missionary family and scholar of Hawaiian culture and history. Wellbright's son is bankrolling the project and has angered many members of the family, who aren't anxious for the film to be completed.

Private investigator and former homicide detective Alice James was just six months old when her father, Leon Stapper, abandoned his family. Forty years later, Alice has convinced herself she’s over it - until her half sister, Corina, calls her up and wants to meet. But before Alice and Corina can get acquainted, everything goes terribly, tragically wrong. Determined to uncover the truth behind what happened to her sister, Alice calls in reinforcements: Jim Snow, her partner in Las Vegas’s James & James Detective Agency.

Detective Tess McCrae investigates a grisly crime scene in the ghost town of Credo, Arizona. The evidence suggests a cartel drug hit. But Tess, with a nearly faultless photographic memory, sees what others might miss: This is no drug killing. Someone went to gruesome lengths to cover their tracks. The killer’s trail leads from Tucson to California - from anti-government squatters to the heights of wealthy society. As Tess follows the trail of gore and betrayal, perfect and indelible in her memory, she uncovers far more than one man’s murder and solves much more than one isolated crime.

Dorothea's father, like all good parents, wanted to keep his children safe. But unlike other parents, Charles O'Brien believed the only way to do so was to leave everything behind, including his very successful life. In a rocky, desolate corner of New Mexico, on a 35 acre estate he called the "Sanctuary," Charles raised the children in complete isolation, with books and encyclopedias, records and a grand piano, but no television, computer, radio, or even a newspaper.

The stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul will encourage listeners to stay upbeat, because there's always a brighter way to look at life. This collection includess 31 Stories about family, courage, and how to listen.

Tiffany Wright never planned to become a torch singer, much less a pregnant and single one. It was only with the help of her Fat Fridays luncheon group of strong women - counting their blessings, not their calories - that she found the courage to leave Beau, her once wonderful husband destroyed by drug addiction.

Sonnet Romano’s life is almost perfect. She has the ideal career, the ideal boyfriend, and has just been offered a prestigious fellowship. There’s nothing more a woman wants - except maybe a baby…sister? When Sonnet finds out her mother is unexpectedly expecting, and that the pregnancy is high-risk, she puts everything on hold - the job, the fellowship, the boyfriend - and heads home to Avalon. Once her mom is out of danger, Sonnet intends to pick up her life where she left off.

Kyra and David Winter are happier than they ever expected to be. They have a comfortable home, stable careers, and a young son, Michael, whom they adore. Though everyone who knows the Winters considers them extremely overprotective parents, both Kyra and David believe they have good reasons for fearing that something will happen to their little boy. And then, on a perfectly average summer day, it does, when Michael disappears from his own backyard. The only question is whose past has finally caught up with them: David feels sure that Michael was taken by his troubled ex-wife....

Barbara O’Neal’s novel of food, friendship, and the freedom to grow your dreams brings together four very different women longing to savor the true taste of happiness. Popular blogger and foodie queen Lavender Wills reigns over Lavender Honey Farms, a serene slice of organic heaven nestled in Oregon wine country. Lavender is determined to keep her legacy from falling into the profit-driven hands of uncaring relatives, and she wants an heir to sustain her life’s work after she’s gone.

Minding Ben invites listeners into the private world of one of the anonymous West Indian babysitters who have peopled the lives of so many young urban families for decades. Grace left Trinidad for New York with hopes for a better life and education. As she struggles to adjust to her new life - and to determine just what shape her American Dream will take - Grace finds work as a nanny for the unconscionable Bruckners, a job that pays meager wages for its demanding and humiliating responsibilities.

Twelve years ago, Alyssa Rossi fled Louisiana under a cloud of scandal and criminal accusations. But her self-imposed exile in Italy comes to an abrupt end when she has to return to New Orleans for the sale of her jewelry company to an international conglomerate. There, she comes face-to-face with Clay Duvall, the duplicitous lover who betrayed her. TriTech CEO Jake Williams has no inkling that the employee behind his company's acquisition of Rossi Designs is a man obsessed with its owner.

Evie and Nicole Glass share a last name. They also shared a husband.When a tragic car accident ends the life of Richard Glass, it also upends the lives of Evie and Nicole, and their children. There’s no love lost between the widow and the ex. In fact, Evie sees a silver lining in all this heartache - the chance to rid herself of Nicole once and for all. But Evie wasn’t counting on her children’s bond with their baby half brother, and she wasn’t counting on Nicole’s desperate need to hang on to the threads of family.

The CliffsNotes study guide on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby supplements the original literary work, giving you background information about the author, an introduction to the work, a graphical character map, critical commentaries, expanded glossaries, and a comprehensive index, all for you to use as an educational tool that will allow you to better understand the work. This study guide was written with the assumption that you have read The Great Gatsby.

Serial killer Arnie Milhouse may be ready to end his thirteen-year killing spree, but he wants one last victim before leaving Annapolis - and the sexy new photographer in town promises to be his most satisfying score yet. He develops plans to seduce the mysterious Allison by luring her out to sea aboard his luxury catamaran for a secluded weekend he won't forget...and one she won't survive.

In Blood Lure, Anna returns to the West, where she is sent on a training assignment to study grizzly bears in Waterton/Glacier National Peace Park, straddling the border between Montana and Canada. But back in her beloved mountains, where the air is pure and cool, Anna fails to find the spiritual renewal she expected. Instead, nature seems to have become twisted, carrying a malevolence almost human in its focus.