Showing results by narrator "Samantha Desz" in All Categories

From the author of the “engrossing historical epic” (Booklist) The Scribe of Siena comes a thrilling tale set in the crumbling city of Mystras, Greece, in which a scientist’s vacation with her young son quickly turns into a fight for their lives after they cross paths with a man out of time.

Living Conjure is a beginner's guide to Conjure written by an authentic Conjure woman with over four decades of working experience. Starr Casas learned Conjure the old-fashioned way: at home, from her relatives and ancestors. She would like to share that knowledge with a new generation of practitioners.

A captivating blend of personal history detailing Eleanor’s struggle with issues of marriage, motherhood, financial independence, and femininity, and a vibrant portrait of one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world, this unique work examines the ways that the sensibility, mood, and various inhabitants of the neighborhood influenced the First Lady’s perception of herself and shaped her political views over four decades, up to her death in 1962.

Teenage Stella Blunt does not know how to win friends. Her size, her snark, and her trust issues are all big problems. Only one person seems to like her...and he's weird as hell. Shy, awkward Howie Mullins is smitten. Stella has curves and brains - what's not to love? Howie can't stop drooling over her in chemistry class. Now, he's offering Stella his heart. Literally. Can Howie convince Stella to take a chance on love? Or will she take him out with a chainsaw?

If you are one of the millions of Americans with Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA), you may not even know it. You may be one of the ten percent of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes who actually have LADA. Even if you do know that you have LADA, sometimes called “diabetes 1.5,” you’re likely to be inundated with unhelpful advice and potentially harmful treatments, leaving you feeling confused and overwhelmed. That was Jacqueline Haskins’ experience.

Desi is the mastermind behind her dream getaway house. Nestled high into the mountains of North Carolina, it is a sleek place, a luxurious place, a dark place. A place full of secrets. Secrets about the man she longs for, a man who is not her husband. Secrets about the roots of her family that must never, ever, see the light of day. When Desi and her family arrive from Chicago to spend the summer in the mountains, the seeds for the tumultuous months to follow are planted - her marriage on the rocks, not knowing which way they’ll go.

The job comes with a lot of perks–a mysterious new boss is one of them–and his deep pockets don’t hurt. In her first week, Gillian finds a note on her desk with two boxes and a question: Will you have dinner with me? Check yes or no. It was easily the best night of her whole young life. The second note arrived looking very much the same, only different. Do you have what it takes to be in my world? Gillian has been asked to handle a lot of tasks in her work. But covering up a murder might be the strangest one yet.

In June of 1889 in San Francisco, John Muir—iconic environmentalist, writer, and philosopher—meets face-to-face for the first time with his longtime editor Robert Underwood Johnson, an elegant and influential figure at The Century magazine. Before long, the pair, opposites in many ways, decide to venture to Yosemite Valley, the magnificent site where twenty years earlier, Muir experienced a personal and spiritual awakening that would set the course of the rest of his life.

In 2010, a brave whistleblower alerted the police to Dr. Stan Li's corrupt pain management clinic in Queens, New York. Li spent years supplying more than 70 patients a day with oxycodone and Xanax, trading prescriptions for cash. Emergency room doctors, psychiatrists, and desperate family members warned him that his patients were at risk of death, but he would not stop.

Conjure, hoodoo, rootwork - these are all names for Southern American folk magic. Conjure first emerged in the days of slavery and plantations and is widely considered among the most potent forms of magic. Its popularity continues to increase, both in the United States and worldwide. This audiobook is a guide to using conjure to achieve love, success, safety, prosperity, and spiritual fulfillment. Author Starr Casas, a hereditary master of the art, introduces listeners to the history and philosophy of conjure and provides practical information for using it.

Teenagers are tired, strapped for time, and often asked to wake up far earlier than they should due to school start times. In The Sleep-Deprived Teen, Lisa L. Lewis, who helped spark the first law in the nation requiring healthy school start times for adolescents, has written a book for parents who want to help their fatigued teens sleep well. Poor sleep affects mental health, athletic performance, and academic success. It contributes to adolescent depression, anxiety, and even drowsy driving. When teens are well-rested, they're happier, healthier, and more resilient.

How do you inspire a diverse team to work together, going all out in pursuit of a single, challenging goal? How do you get your team to commit to bold goals? How do you stay motivated despite setbacks and disappointments? And what do you do when it looks like you're headed for failure? In Radical Focus, Christina Wodtke combines her hard earned experience as an executive at Zynga, Linkedin and many of Silicon Valley's hottest companies to answer those questions.

Emma Townsend. Five years old. Gray eyes. Brown hair. Missing since June. Emma is lonely. Living with her cruel mother and clueless father, Emma retreats into her own world of quiet and solitude. Sarah Walker. Successful entrepreneur. Broken-hearted. Kidnapper. Sarah has never seen a girl so precious as the gray-eyed child in a crowded airport terminal. When a second-chance encounter with Emma presents itself, Sarah takes her - far away from home. But if it’s to rescue a little girl from her damaging mother, is kidnapping wrong?

Not long after the Berlin Wall fell, three teenagers became friends in the East German town of Jena. It was a time of excitement, but also of economic crisis: some four million East Germans found themselves out of jobs. The friends began attending far-right rallies with people who called themselves National Socialists: Nazis. Like the Hitler-led Nazis before them, they blamed minorities for their ills. From 2000 to 2011, they embarked on the most horrific string of white nationalist killings since the Holocaust. Their target: immigrants.

What happens when a woman seeking an abortion is turned away? To answer this question, Diana Greene Foster assembled a team of scientists—psychologists, epidemiologists, demographers, nurses, physicians, economists, sociologists, and public health researchers—to conduct a 10-year study. They followed a thousand women from across America, some of whom received abortions, some of whom were turned away. Now, for the first time, Dr. Foster presents the results of this landmark study in one extraordinary, groundbreaking book.

In The Team That Managed Itself, Christina Wodtke teaches leaders how to build and lead high performing teams based on her long career in the trenches in Silicon Valley. Her book is engaging, actionable - and built around a story you’ll want to listen to. After her boss leaves suddenly, Allie finds herself responsible for the casual gaming titan Quiltworld and the dozens of people working on the highly dysfunctional team. Can Allie learn to competently hire, fire, and give feedback in time to make the product’s big sales goals? Or will the team fall apart?

Lucinda's boyfriend Dracula claims to be the Dracula - he sleeps in a coffin, hunts pigeons for blood, and only goes out at night. But is he really? Unsettlingly, there has been a spate of recent disappearances and Dracula may be connected. Lucinda doesn't know for sure or which is more dangerous: dating an immortal vampire or a UPS driver with a night shift who thinks he's one?

A young woman is swept into a life of intrigue, revenge, passion, and betrayal when she falls for the world's most notorious prince, Vlad Dracula. The year is 1464. King Matthias controls Hungary, his family, and the fate of the world's most notorious political prisoner, Prince Vlad Dracula. Ilona Szilágy, the king's cousin, is young and ambitious. Dracula is determined to marry into the family. It is love at first sight, but the king has other plans. The Impaler Prince, however, never takes no for an answer.

In today’s political climate, more and more presidential candidates are espousing socialist - or democratic socialist - policies. Once associated with oppression, socialism is now a current topic of conversation with everyday Americans, including policies like taxing the rich and healthcare for all. But what exactly is socialism and why does it spark such an intense debate? Socialism 101 provides an easy-to-understand, unbiased overview to the nearly 300-year-old origins of this mode of government, its complex history, basic constructs, and modern-day interpretations....

Journalist Joan Lurie has written a seething article exposing a notorious newspaper tycoon as a sexual predator. But the night it goes live, she is brutally attacked. Traumatized and suffering the effects of a concussion, she moves into a highly secure apartment in Manhattan called the Refuge, which was at one time a Magdalen Laundry. Joan should be safe here, so how can she explain the cryptic incidents that are happening?