Difficult Relationships

Full of practical tips and how-tos, this audiobook will help you make your relationships better, deepen your intimacy with people you care for, and cultivate more love, understanding, and respect between you and others. Successful people confront well. They know that setting healthy boundaries...

It’s been three years since the Virgil County High School Massacre. Three years since my best friend, Sarah, was killed in a bathroom stall during the mass shooting. Everyone knows Sarah’s story - that she died proclaiming her faith. But it’s not true. I know because I was with her when she died. I didn’t say anything then, and people got hurt because of it. Now Sarah’s parents are publishing a book about her, so this might be my last chance to set the record straight. Except Sarah’s martyrdom is important to a lot of people, people who don’t take kindly to what I’m trying to do.

Juliet Young always writes letters to her mother, a world-traveling photojournalist. Even after her mother's death, she leaves letters at her grave. It's the only way Juliet can cope. Declan Murphy isn't the sort of guy you want to cross. In the midst of his court-ordered community service at the local cemetery, he's trying to escape the demons of his past. When Declan reads a haunting letter left beside a grave, he can't resist writing back. Soon, he's opening up to a perfect stranger, and their connection is immediate.

The night that changes everything in Andy's life begins as a great time. His basketball team wins a big game, and he and his best friend have some cold brews stashed in the car, just waiting for the rolling party to begin. Nothing anyone can say or do afterwards will convince Andy that what happens next isn't his fault.

"So, my beautiful fat girlfriend, Cassidy, is threatening to kick me to the curb again, my best friend suddenly wants to put the brakes on our lives of fabulous fun, my mom and big sister are plotting a future in which I turn into an atomic vampire, and my dad, well, my dad is a big fat question mark that I'm not sure I want the answer to."

Counselor Jim Newheiser understands the many types of challenges adults may face in their relationship with their parents, whether it be their parents' financial strain, a struggle to properly care for their home or their health, conflict related to care for the grandchildren, or destructive relational choices. He helps listeners understand their responsibility to honor their parents, and to be prepared to help with their needs, but also to recognize their first responsibility to their relationship with the Lord and their own marriage and children.

How to Do Boring, Tedious, Difficult, but Necessary Things: The Art of Sucking It up and Doing Things You Hate is your no-BS manual for building the self-discipline muscle. You’ll learn how to stop whining, start moving, and do the hard, ugly, necessary stuff that future-you will thank you for (once they stop cursing you). This isn’t easy. If it were, everyone would have six-pack abs, zero debt, and a color-coded closet. Are you tough enough to handle discomfort without tapping out? Can you find the grit to power through tasks that bore or terrify you?

Natalie Sterling wants to be in control. She wants her friends to be loyal. She wants her classmates to elect her student council president. She wants to find the right guy, not the usual jerk her school has to offer. She wants a good reputation, because she believes that will lead to good things. But life is messy, and it's very hard to be in control of it. Slut or saint? Winner or loser? Natalie is getting tired of these forced choices - and is now going to find a way to live life in the sometimes messy, sometimes wonderful in-between.

On Saturday morning, 13-year-old Dicey Tillerman sits in the car at the shopping mall with her younger sister and two brothers. Momma had said, "You be good." Then she walked away. They wait for a day and a night, but Momma never comes back. Finally, Dicey decides the children should go to Bridgeport, Connecticut where Aunt Cilla lives. Maybe Momma is waiting for them there. But they don't have enough money to take the bus. Determined to keep the family together, Dicey sets off on foot with her siblings.

The handsome son of wealthy parents, Connor has everything anyone could want...except his family's love and affection. Jailed for years after killing his mother's child-molesting boyfriend, Tony is confused about his sexuality. Manic-depressive Vanessa cuts herself. All three stories intertwine in a brutally honest story about pain and resilience.

Kaeleigh and Raeanne are 16-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for U.S. Congress. Everything on the surface seems fine, but underneath run very deep and damaging secrets. When the girls were nine, Daddy turned to his beloved Kaeleigh in ways a father never should. Raeanne needs to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite; Kaeleigh wants to do everything she can to feel something normal, even if it means cutting herself and vomiting after every binge.

Isabel has one rule: no dating. It's easier. It's safer. It's better...for the other person. She's got issues. She's got secrets. She's got rheumatoid arthritis. But then she meets another sick kid. He's got a chronic illness Isabel's never heard of, something she can't even pronounce. He understands what it means to be sick. He understands her more than her healthy friends. He understands her more than her own father, who's a doctor.

When 17-year-old Iranian American Kamran Smith learns that his brother has been labeled a terrorist, he knows something isn't right. In a race against time, it is up to Kamran to prove his brother's innocence, even as the country has turned against him and his family. With the help of a ragtag team of underground intelligence professionals, Kamran must piece together the clues and the codes that will save his brother's life - and save his country from possibly the largest terrorist attack since 9/11.

James and Alex have barely anything in common anymore - least of all their experiences in high school, where James is a popular senior and Alex is suddenly an outcast. But at home, there is Henry, the precocious 10-year-old across the street, who eagerly befriends them both. And when Alex takes up running, there is James’s friend Nathen, who unites the brothers in moving and unexpected ways.

Twelve-year-old Amy knows there's some connection between Aunt Claire's old dollhouse in her great-grandparents' attic and a deadly family secret from years ago. Aunt Claire seems upset about the dollhouse, which is a replica of the house they're in, but she's not talking.

Princess for president. Student body president, that is. It's all the fault of Princess Mia's power-mad best friend and campaign manager, Lilly, who nominates her in the first place. This is not how Mia imagined kicking off her sophomore year, even if Grandmere thinks ruling her high school makes good practice for ruling Genovia someday.

After Mia reveals a document that proclaims Genovia a Democratic Monarchy, a bitter election ensues. Mia's father is running against a cousin who is using some questionable tactics. Meanwhile, Mia's novel - written under a pen name - is getting denied just as quickly as Princess Mia Thermopolis' college applications are getting accepted. What's a princess to do?

First time I saw her was in the mirror on my locker door. I'd kicked my swim gear onto the bottom shelf and was reaching to the top for my calc book when she opened her locker across the hall. She had a streaked blonde ponytail dangling out the back of her baseball cap.... We slammed our lockers in unison and turned. Her eyes met mine. "Hi," she said, smiling. My stomach fluttered. "Hi," I answered automatically. She was new. Had to be. I would've noticed her. She sauntered away, but not before I caught a glimpse of her T-shirt. It said: IMRU? Am I what?

In My Bonny Light Horseman, the infamous pirate, riverboat seductress, master of disguise, and street-urchin-turned-sailor Jacky Faber has been captured by the French and beheaded in full view of her friends and crew.Inconceivable? Yes! The truth is she's secretly forced to pose as an American dancer behind enemy lines in Paris, where she entices a French general into revealing military secrets--all to save her dear friends.

Annabelle has a secret. When she was seven years old, she was approached by a neighborhood boy and invited into a "secret club". Unfortunately, this club was just a ruse for 13-year-old Joel to groom Annabelle for abuse. A few years later, when Annabelle turns eleven, she finds some bad feelings have returned for her.