Showing results by narrator "Thérèse Plummer" in All Categories

One of 12 children raised in a shack in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Dolly Parton grew to become an international superstar. She is a reflection of the American dream, a role model for the ages, and a mentor to a whole new generation of entertainers. There is much to be learned from her unique brand, her big heart and spirituality, her grit and work ethic, which prompt the question, "What Would Dolly Do?" This lively collection - part biography, part inspiration, part words of wisdom and life lessons - highlights the very best of the "Dolly Mama".

To the untrained eye, Cleopatra Gallier appears to lead a charmed life in Honolulu's paradise. She is impossibly beautiful, clever, wealthy and...trained to kill. When she enters into a love affair with the much younger, irresistibly handsome rogue, Jake Regan, she finds herself colliding with an intricate terrorist plot. Her secret past, like Hawaii's smoldering volcano, is ready to erupt. In the four days leading up to Christmas, two stunning betrayals and a terrorist attack threaten to reduce her and the island she loves to ashes.

Robin Lockwood is an increasingly prominent defense attorney in the Portland community. A Yale graduate and former MMA fighter, she's becoming known for her string of innovative and successful defense strategies. As a favor to a judge, Robin takes on the pro bono defense of a reprehensible defendant charged with even more reprehensible crimes. But what she doesn't know—what she can't know—is how this one decision, this one case, will wreak complete devastation on her life and plans.

An essential defense of the people the world loves to revile - the loners - yet without whom it would be lost. The Buddha. Rene Descartes. Emily Dickinson. Greta Garbo. Bobby Fischer. J. D. Salinger: Loners, all - along with as many as 25 percent of the world's population. Loners keep to themselves, and like it that way. Yet in the press, in films, in folklore, and nearly everywhere one looks, loners are tagged as losers and psychopaths, perverts and pity cases, ogres and mad bombers, elitists and wicked witches.

Cassidy Kincaide owns Trifles & Folly, an antique/curio store and high-end pawn shop in Charleston, South Carolina, that is more than what it seems. Dangerous magical and supernatural items sometimes find their way into mortal hands or onto the market, and Cassidy is part of a shadowy Alliance of mortals and mages whose job it is to take those deadly curiosities out of circulation.

Max Parkman - autistic and whip-smart, emotionally fragile and aggressive - is perfect in his mother's eyes. Until he's accused of murder. Attorney Danielle Parkman knows her teenage son Max's behavior has been getting worse - using drugs and lashing out. But she can't accept the diagnosis she receives at a top-notch adolescent psychiatric facility that her son is deeply disturbed. Dangerous. Until she finds Max, unconscious and bloodied, beside a patient who has been brutally stabbed to death.

Avi Hirsch has always known his daughter was different. But when others with incredible, otherworldly gifts reveal themselves to the world, Avi realizes that her oddness is something more - that she is something more. With this, he has a terrifying revelation: Emmeline is now entering a society where her unique abilities unfairly mark her as a potential threat. And even though he is her father, Avi cannot keep her safe forever.

With his father’s mysterious disappearance and his brother Ronnie enlisting in the Vietnam War, 13-year-old TJ Crowley is left alone with his racist, unstable mother, Kate. The newly enforced Fair Housing Act results in the unthinkable for the Crowleys when a Black family, headed by the eminent Dr. Washington, crosses the racial red line and moves in next door. Kate is quick to warn TJ that their new neighbors are strictly off-limits and makes a panicked call to beg Ray, her old flame, to travel to their home in Wichita Kansas to help deal with “the problem next door.”

Children today face an uncertain future, and parents and teachers can't fully predict what's in store for their daughter and sons. But one thing is clear: Our kids need a new set of skills to succeed. Girls, in particular, must nurture essential traits to fully flourish. Students hit the ground running today, entering a school system that carries high expectations on their way to a college application process that is more demanding than ever. After school, young women enter a competitive job market, still complicated by sexism and the possibility of harassment.

When Daryn claimed she was seeing "visions" during her sophomore year of high school, no one believed the truth. She wasn't losing her mind; she was gaining the Sight - the ability to see the future. If she just paid attention to the visions, they'd provide her with clues and show her how she could help people. Really help them. Daryn embraced her role as a Seeker. The work she did was important. She saved lives. Until Sebastian. Sebastian was her first - and worst - mistake.

When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's just about out of options. She recently graduated from high school and is pregnant with her art teacher's baby. Her mother is dead, and her father is a drunk. The art teacher is too much of a head case to help raise the child. Izzy knows she can be a good mother, but without any money or prospects she's left searching. So when Dr. Grind offers her a space in The Infinite Family Project, she accepts. Housed in a spacious compound in Tennessee, she joins nine other couples, all with children the same age as her newborn son.

Cassidy Kincaide runs Trifles & Folly in modern-day Charleston, an antiques and curios shop with a dangerous secret. Cassidy can read the history of objects by touching them, and along with her business partners Teag and Sorren, they get rid of cursed objects and keep Charleston and the world safe from supernatural threats. When zombies rise in Charleston cemeteries, dead men fall from the sky, and the whole city succumbs to the "grouch flu", Cassidy, Teag, and Sorren suspect a vengeful dark witch who is gunning for Teag and planning to unleash an ancient horror.

When Benjamin Kline returns to the fold after eight years, Abigail Baughman welcomes him with an open heart. But all is not well in their Amish village. Mysterious happenings put Abby in harm’s way, forcing Ben to run to her rescue. He’s vowed never to let anyone hurt her, and suddenly everything is at risk—their community, their way of life…and their future together.

Someone very powerful is trying to destroy Sorren and everyone he cares about. That puts Cassidy, Teag and Trifles, and Folly in the crosshairs against an unknown enemy with strong magic and significant resources. Sorren has spent centuries shutting down the plans of powerful immortals, dark warlocks, and supernatural creatures, and now he's got to figure out which of those many enemies is out to get him before they pick off his friends one by one and come after him to finish an immortal vendetta.

Food consumption is a significant and complex social activity - and what a society chooses to feed its children reveals much about its tastes and ideas regarding health. In this groundbreaking historical work, Amy Bentley explores how the invention of commercial baby food shaped American notions of infancy and influenced the evolution of parental and pediatric care. Until the late 19th century, infants were almost exclusively fed breast milk. But over the course of a few short decades, Americans began feeding their babies formula and solid foods....

The second book in author Jo Clayton’s phenomenal Diadem science fiction space opera series continues the adventures of Aleytys, blessed and cursed by an alien power that has both marked and altered her, as she crosses the galaxy on an epic fantasy quest that rivals anything imagined by Andre Norton or C. J. Cherryh.

The torments that courageous young Aleytys has endured throughout her lifetime have only intensified since she first donned the alien Diadem, which permanently connected with her central nervous system to grant her astonishing psi abilities. But never before has she faced a greater - or graver - trial. Drugged and sold into slavery by the evil Maissa - the twisted villain who stole her infant son, Sharl - Aleytys must now serve the hive queen of an alien insect/humanoid race on the planet Irsud. She has been purchased to act as host body for the queen’s consciousness....

Anyone Who Had a Heart is the story of a man who has always expressed his deepest feelings through his music. Filled with the emotional power that defines Burt Bacharach's most unforgettable songs, his memoir offers a candid backstage look at show business as well as the personal struggles of an artist whose incredible body of work has earned him a unique position in the American cultural landscape.

When two rookie cops are killed in a fiery crash near Richmond, Virginia, crime reporter Nichelle Clarke is sent in to investigate. But as Nichelle digs deeper into the case, she discovers this was no ordinary accident. People and evidence soon begin to disappear. Someone is one step ahead of her. A master criminal with a deadly secret, covering their tracks with ruthless efficiency. The killer will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden. But as she draws closer to unraveling the mystery of two dead cops, Nichelle realizes that she's become the next target.

For the longest time, I was Bren Monroe. I lived in Roussou, California. I had no parents, no brother, but I had a crew. Then things started to change. I never planned for any of it. I didn’t think I’d fall in love. I didn’t think I’d have a relationship with my brother again. I didn’t think that he’d come back.