Showing results by narrator "Cassandra Cassandra" in All Categories

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete.

When aspiring actress Pansy Arceneaux returns to Sinful, Louisiana, to head up the beauty pageant portion of the Summer Festival, CIA assassin Fortune Redding knows she's in for trouble. Her undercover identity as a former beauty queen makes Fortune the perfect choice to chair the event with Pansy, but Pansy's abrasive personality makes it impossible to get through a single rehearsal without a fight. When Pansy turns up dead, Fortune is the prime suspect.

Travis Devine has become a pro at accomplishing any mission he's given. But this time it’s not his skills that send him to Seattle to aid the FBI in escorting orphaned, twelve-year-old Betsy Odom to a meeting with her uncle, who’s under federal investigation. Instead, he’s hoping to lay low and keep off the radar of an enemy–the girl on the train. But as Devine gets to know Betsy, questions begin to arise around the death of her parents.

Can you keep a secret? Stella Batts has a lot of secrets to keep these days - there's the secret of what really happened to her little sister's pet fish, and there's the secret school project she's working on with her friend Lucy, and there's the secret on the second floor of her family's candy store. Actually, Stella doesn't know the candy store secret yet, because her dad won't tell her. Even though she's eight years old, and that's old enough to be trusted!

In the two weeks CIA assassin Fortune Redding has been hiding in Sinful, Louisiana, she's been harassed, poisoned, and shot at...and that was the easy part. But now she's about to face her biggest challenge since setting foot in the tiny bayou town. When mayoral candidate Ted Williams is murdered, everyone is surprised. Ted was a blowhole and a Yankee, but those usually weren't good reasons to kill someone.

Lieutenant Kiera Markov is a scout platoon leader for a peacekeeping force on the remote planet of Tanara, where little has happened for decades, and the only mission is to keep the lithium flowing up the space elevator to feed the galaxy’s incessant demand. But when an unprecedented attack kills the entirety of the brigade’s leadership, the untested lieutenant suddenly finds herself in command.

Ten years ago, Ryan Comeaux was convicted of killing his girlfriend and was sentenced to life in prison. Now a witness has come forward who claims she was with Ryan the entire night and it’s not possible that he was the killer. But the local police assume she’s mistaken and aren’t interested in reopening what they view as an open-and-shut case. The witness, Kelsey Spalding, has her own reasons for wanting Ryan’s conviction overturned and hires Swamp Team 3 to prove him innocent.

Venus Thibodeaux had a reputation for being trouble. Some said she started at birth. When she finally left Sinful shortly after turning 18, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. When she blew back into town four years later, no one was happy about her return. She immediately launched into her same old scams, picking off Sinful residents with ease before disappearing again as quickly as she’d appeared.

It’s official. Fortune Redding is out of the CIA and a newly minted resident of Sinful, Louisiana. She never expected her homecoming to be all apple pie and hugs, but a murder wasn’t on her list of things to deal with before she’d even gotten her name stenciled on her mailbox. Boone Carre-Hooch, to the locals - was a drunk and a louse and had shafted pretty much everyone he’d ever done business with. So when someone kills him, there is no shortage of suspects. Unfortunately, Ally is at the top of the list.

Stella Batts is back! Stella is in third grade, she wants to be a writer, and her parents own a wonderful candy shop. Life should be pretty good, right? In Pardon Me, Stella needs to find a new best friend after her friend Willa moves away. But finding a new best friend is not easy. Things are looking up when she meets Evie, the new girl in town. She is going to be in Stella s class at school and she needs a new best friend, too.Stella can t wait to introduce her to the other third graders. Except when they get to school, things don't exactly go the way Stella planned....

In the not too distant future, dinosaurs rule the world. Alan is deposited in a grassy field with all signs of humanity replaced. A few hundred of his peers are given a loincloth, spear, a few tools, and a mission: to integrate and survive... if they're not eaten first.

When 16-year-old Tess Kendrick is sent to live with her older sister, Ivy, she has no idea that the infamous Ivy Kendrick is Washington, DC's number-one "fixer" - known for making politicians' scandals go away for a price. No sooner does Tess enroll at Hardwicke Academy than she unwittingly follows in her sister's footsteps and becomes DC's premier high school fixer, solving problems for elite teens.

A poacher is at work in Sinful, Louisiana, and Deputy Carter LeBlanc is hot on the trail of the outlaw, trying to apprehend him before the state gets wind of the crime and sends a game warden to take over his investigation. Unfortunately, he's hindered every step of the way by Sinful's current mayor and all-around horrible person, Celia Arceneaux, who wants nothing more than to drive Carter to resign. When a game warden turns up with evidence that implicates a relative of Gertie's, Carter is left with no choice but to arrest the boy, even though no one thinks he did it.

Clumsy teenager Marinette struggles through everyday school life in Paris - the highlights of her day are the moments when she sees her big crush Adrien. When Marinette finds a "Miraculous" one day, she miraculously transforms into the superhero Ladybug. Ladybug must first get her newly acquired superpowers under control, but help comes from the charismatic superhero Cat Noir. What Marinette doesn't suspect: Adrien is hiding behind Cat Noir's mask! When a nasty mega-villain with dark magic threatens Paris, Ladybug and Cat Noir must team up.

Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, and Bob, a Legal Aid attorney who idolizes Jim, has always taken it in stride. But their long-standing dynamic is upended when their sister, Susan - the Burgess sibling who stayed behind - urgently calls them home.

When Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their Children's and Household Tales in 1812, followed by a second volume in 1815, they had no idea that such stories as "Rapunzel", "Hansel and Gretel", and "Cinderella" would become the most celebrated in the world. Yet few people today are familiar with the majority of tales from the two early volumes, since in the next four decades the Grimms would publish six other editions, each extensively revised in content and style.

In this fascinating account, Ann Rule delivers a tour de force: a whirlwind of misguided love, denial, guilt, and passions out of control; a series of brilliantly manipulated crimes; the bizarre and horrifying tale of two families brought to ruin; and, at the center of it all, the heartless, supremely selfish sociopath whose evil hid behind soft words and gentle manners, but who destroyed—without mercy—those who loved her.

Buckhead isn’t a place you live, it’s a place you survive. And that applies even to the wealthy housewives that have it all. Fancy cars, designer clothes, and daily salon appointments aren’t nearly enough to keep them fulfilled and happy. Because in this town, privilege and opulence go hand in hand with betrayal and revenge. Jenny, the owner of Glow, an exclusive membership-only beauty salon, knows that better than anyone, because she knows everything about these housewives—down to each individual strand of hair.

Join Rapunzel, Ariel, and Tiana for the fourth edition of this top-selling storybook collection, featuring 14 completely updated stories.

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.