Showing results by narrator "Petrea Burchard" in All Categories

Verity Hawkes’ new life in Leafy Hollow almost feels whole. All the self-taught horticulturalist lacks are her Aunt Adeline and a stable relationship. Just when the second missing piece seems like it might be falling into place, Verity’s sleepy town welcomes back an all-too-familiar killer…. Suspicions run rampant when a body is found at the base of Pine Hill Peak, and the mother of Verity’s best friend is the number one suspect. To keep the wrong woman out of prison, Verity must rub shoulders with an arsonist, a hunky lawman, and a pair of dueling pastry chefs.

Mrs. Loretta Plansky, a widow in her seventies, is settling into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father and fielding requests for money from her beloved children and grandchildren. Thankfully, her new hip hasn't changed her killer tennis game one bit. One night Mrs. Plansky is startled awake by a phone call from a voice claiming to be her grandson Will, who needs ten thousand dollars to get out of a jam. By morning, Mrs Plansky has lost everything.

Murder hits close to home for Olivia Kendrick when her annoying neighbor at Cowboy's Corral Motor Lodge turns up dead. Did one of the other guests hold a grudge against Leonard Evers? Even while she's eyeing a few shady suspects, Olivia can't help but blame herself. Maybe she really is a conjuror, and maybe she accidentally killed her downstairs neighbor with magic. With the help of her supernatural friends at Nightmare Sanctuary Haunted House, Olivia will spy on a plumber, get an eerie prediction from a psychic, and face veiled threats.

Casey Clemens is having a bad day. And it’s going to get worse. It’s the day before Casey’s fortieth birthday and Hollywood doesn’t want her anymore (not that it ever did). Her career and personal life are a disaster. Frantic to escape her own emptiness, she hops on a plane to England and heads to the countryside to hide. But she can’t hide from herself. A lightning strike, a skidding car, and a horse that might be magical send her through a gap in time to the Dark Ages, where she inadvertently saves King Arthur from Saxon warriors.

Five authors, each with their own secrets, are chosen to complete a deceased novelist's unfinished manuscript. For single mom Risa Marr, the competition is the opportunity of a lifetime. At stake is a million dollars and a contract to continue the famous novelist's bestselling thriller series. Transported to the tropical paradise of Key Island, the finalists are cut off from the world and given seven days to draft their best ending for the book. But when one of them turns up dead, theories and accusations abound. Accident? Suicide? Or Murder?

Alison Jacobs needs brain surgery and places ultimate trust in her sister's husband, Grant Kaplan, a world-renowned neurosurgeon and expert in treating her condition. But Grant is hiding a dark secret which threatens the outcome: an addiction to prescription pills. As Alison struggles to rebuild her life, Grant's daughter, Sadie, spends more time with a new friend. Frustrated that her parents exclude her from the conversations about her beloved aunt, Sadie makes increasingly risky choices which could endanger not only her, but her entire family.

When retired nurse Frannie Greene moves into a senior living apartment, she finds a compelling friendship with her new neighbor Katherine—only to discover that Katherine is married to the judge Frannie believes is implicated in the death of her beloved granddaughter. Observing the medication cart sparks Frannie’s darkest imagination, and her desire for revenge combines with her medical expertise. In one dreadful, impulsive moment, she tampers with the medicine. However, the next day, someone is dead, and Frannie realizes the gravity of what she’s done.

One evening in 1980, ICU Nurse Maryann Foster walked into a patient room expecting nothing out of the ordinary. What she found on the other side of the door, however, changed her life forever.

Prominent Latin American historian John Charles Chasteen provides a concise history of the world, in which he explores the origins and persistence of the timeless phenomena of humanity's inhumanity to itself. Where did it come from? Why has it been so prevalent throughout our history? And, most importantly, can we overcome it? Chasteen argues that to do so, we must understand our shared past.

Matilda Case never thought of herself as a hero. But because she is galvanized-and nearly immortal in her stitched, endlessly healing body-she doesn't have much of a choice. Even if she doesn't want to save the world, she's the only one capable of traveling in time to do so. But her rescue attempt hasn't gone as planned. She's stuck in an alternate universe, and her world is in danger of disappearing.

Nine years have passed since Ana Koehl had sex with her pot-addicted anesthesiologist husband; seven since she began an affair with a gonzo journalist. She's gratified by her work as a book doula but burdened by her belief that she need always be on call. Her elderly mother's birthday greeting is an inflation-adjusted calculation of the cost of raising Ana in a mice-infested house, her brother has hijacked the will of their recently deceased starchitect father, her adult child is changing rapidly before her eyes, and her best friend advocates for the truth in lies.

Neil Gaiman is one of the most widely known writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He often attributes this eclecticism to his "compost heap" approach to writing, gathering inspiration from life, religion, literature, and mythology. Readers and listeners love to sink into Gaiman's medieval worlds—but what makes them "medieval"? Shiloh Carroll offers an introduction to the idea of medievalism, how the literature and culture of the Middle Ages have been reinterpreted and repurposed, and how the layers of interpretation have impacted Gaiman's own use of medieval material.