Showing results by publisher "Beacon Audiobooks" in Comedy & Humor

Is it too much to ask that a managed care facility refund a year’s advance payment when your grandfather dies before he can move in? Frank Johnson doesn’t think so, which is why the 33-year-old now lives in a nursing home, locked in a chess-match feud with management that doesn’t occupy nearly enough of his time. When foster kid Elroy is thrust into his life, Frank decides to turn this forced relationship to his advantage - launching a string of absurd decisions, inappropriate behaviors, and unexpected glimpses of tenderness that ultimately turn a New Jersey suburb upside down.

When Allison Montgomery's beloved father-in-law and long-time confidant passes away, her mother-in-law, Margaret, "temporarily" moves in. From rearranging the furniture and taking over the kitchen to undermining and embarrassing Allie at every turn, Margaret turns Allie's life upside down.

What sucks about waking up next to a dead girl on a Saturday is more than likely you're going to miss brunch. Just ask Sammy Junior—full-time house painter, part-time street artist, and, as of Saturday morning, prime suspect in a South Tampa homicide investigation. One more hassle he simply does not need. Then there's Penny Sullivan, a 15-year-old runaway who shows up in South Tampa that same Saturday morning with only her dead sister's street smarts, a whole lot of survivor's guilt, and a Canada backpack.

The good folk of Perpetuity Valley, Wyoming, have a secret. These modern-day citizens aren't just descended from the original settlers—they actually are the original settlers. They trekked here by wagon train in 1846, and for some mysterious reason, none of them has aged a day since. Of course, if word ever gets out about a miracle like this, the valley might get a wee bit crowded. So about a hundred years ago the townsfolk agreed to keep the secret to themselves and never allow any property to change hands.

Some genres were never meant to cross. Joe Slade is a detective with a hot lead and a warm gun. He no longer believes in happy ever afters, but his faith in plot twists is devout. Good thing. He is about to discover the biggest twist of all. Joe Slade is not real. He is a character in a series of mystery novels. And when he discovers all his pain has been in the name of book sales, there will be hell to pay. Vowing revenge on his author, he will set off for the World Where the Books Are Written.

For aspiring indie filmmaker Kevin Stacey, it's another day on the set of his first film, but when his estranged father, a failed Hollywood actor, arrives unexpectedly with a bundle of cash, a gun, and a stolen capuchin monkey, he's propelled toward the journey that will change his life. The monkey, Henry, has been liberated from a research lab by animal rights activists. Inspired by his friend Veronica to reevaluate his relationship with other species, Kevin learns about the pain and suffering inflicted on lab animals as he forges a bond with the capuchin.

A suicidal former platoon sergeant, sole survivor of a Vietnam War jungle ambush, is haunted by what he perceives as his cowardly past. Debilitated by guilt and mourning the death of his wife, small town newspaper publisher Stan Przewalski lives in a PTSD-fueled world where it is impossible to distinguish reality from fantasy. Returning from a Vietnam sightseeing tour, his suppressed memories resurface with a vengeance as he deals with a murder and a raging wildfire that threatens to destroy his hometown of Bull River Falls, Colorado.

Comes with Furniture and People tells the story of a daughter desperate to reach a mother trapped in depression. What’s more, the daughter intuits the mother has an incurable disease, one the mother hides even from herself, as she spends her days reading Greek dramas and studying the etymologies of words.

A mysterious cowboy is stalking the eccentric Trapnell siblings. Is he a supernatural entity or a hired killer? To complicate things, the will making them heirs to their billionaire father’s estate is missing and a relative has returned from a watery grave. Last time, the Trapnells saved the world from destruction. This time they may not be able to save themselves. Black Willows is a darkly funny Southern-fried adventure, complete with Voodoo, arson, and alligators.

A directionally-challenged woman with a dreaded fear of pain and the tendency to faint at the slightest physical malady goes on a soul search and winds up with an unconventional medical degree, an overweight chicken as a house guest, and a new road map for life. Spending years in a profession she’s wholly unsuited for gave her a unique perspective on human suffering. It also put her in the position of being able to entertain and inform listeners (and audiences) who are looking for a way to end their own suffering.

Teddy Greenwald and Ray Starck have known one another since the Truman Administration. They, along with two other boys, formed the core of a group of kids who did everything together. As teenagers, they discovered that restaurants gave free coffee refills even if you didn’t order anything else, leading to a lifetime’s worth of bottomless cups and frustrated restaurant owners. Now in advanced age, Teddy and Ray still meet regularly to drink too much coffee and flashback to the various times and events which helped shape their lives.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Jack Sullivan, former CEO and current stay-at-home dad, struggles to find an outlet for his frustrations with the unfair financial systems of corporate America. Meanwhile, Daisy, his precocious 12-year-old daughter, has recently garnered a substantial following for her new blog, documenting surreptitious “social experiments” performed on her unaware family.

On her 50th birthday, Missouri Rothman did not get the Tahiti vacation she dreamed of or the surprise birthday party she expected. Instead, a university student totaled her car, her boss - after 16 years of loyal and excellent service - gave her a letter of termination, and her professor husband of 32 years asked for a divorce so he could marry his post-doc student with the 18-inch waist and perky boobs. Half a century old, jobless, and with only a high school diploma, Missouri must take the lemons that life has thrown her and make the best lemonade ever.

Part American Gangster, part Real Housewives of New Jersey, Hair Club Burning takes the most dangerous creature on Earth - a woman scorned - and throws her into an improbable comradery with two young highly active gangbangers, all in search of the same thing. Justice. Just how far will the housewife go to find the gangsta within? And how far will the bangers trust a white woman from the suburbs? All will be revealed as they chase the millions hidden offshore by the soon-to-be ex-husband in this hilarious novel of a suburban housewife and gangster team.

Murder has come yet again to the seaside town of Crab Cove, testing the mettle of Detective Simon Grave, his “almost invisible” partner, Sergeant Barry Blunt, and his new assistant, Charlize, a simdroid (an android lookalike of a famous person) who fancies herself a match for Sherlock Holmes, in the simulated body of Charlize Theron. When a body is discovered on a deserted beach, alongside a deactivated Betty White simdroid, the game is afoot.

Murder has come once more to the seaside town of Crab Cove, testing the mettle of “almost handsome” Detective Simon Grave and his “nearly invisible” partner, Sergeant Barry Blunt, who investigate a locked-room mystery with a significant twist: the prime suspects are in the locked room, not the victim, a logic-defying situation that challenges the team at every turn. As if murder weren’t enough, they must also investigate the simultaneous disappearance of The MacGuffin Trophy from that same locked room, the studio of artist Whitney Waters, famous for her stylized paintings of red herrings.

“I wish he was dead!” Have you ever had that wicked thought? If not, then you’ve never met the contemptible Mike DiMarco, a man that gets his solitary pleasure from wrecking lives. Hypothetically, if DiMarco ruined your life and left you penniless, beaten, and broken, could you kill him? Well, you’re off the hook because Sturgis will do it for you - or try. Your mission now becomes that of a cheering supporter as you hear about the efforts of a lovable, clumsy man as he humorously, yet doggedly, discovers the ins and outs of getting even as an entry-level assassin.

Join author Katrina Majkut on a personal and powerful prenuptial journey. With cheeky insights into the origins of Western wedding traditions, Majkut uncovers eye-opening truths about how social traditions impact people’s lives. Listeners will learn how to modernize outdated traditions that support the wage gap, street harassment, sex and gender discrimination, and that limit reproductive rights. The Adventures and Discoveries of a Feminist Bride is an invigorating and heartening guide to inspire a new generation of fiancés to walk down the aisle as equals.

"The Opposite" wasn't just the classic Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza followed the opposite of his instincts to land success. The method behind the madness has been championed in industries worldwide and even likened to the rise of Trump. The award-winning writer who helped Costanza win, and first pondered "the opposite" in his own life, identifies traces of it in the legends he mined for anecdotes before the cameras rolled at his first high-profile Hollywood job.

Tombstone: Not a Western is a comic novel about the funerary business. It begins with its two protagonists, Robert and Marsha Bernstein, making their arrangements. Cremation versus interment are debated with a mortician at a prominent Manhattan funeral home. Wills and trusts are complicated by a financial scandal which lands Robert and Marsha at El Rancho de Campo, an all-inclusive resort in Tombstone, Arizona, catering to those whose concerns lie with the afterlife and where graveyards and golf courses collide.