Showing results by narrator "Carrington Macduffie" in All Categories

A compassionate, humorous story of faith, betrayal, and coming of age on the sawdust trail. She was just three years old when her mother signed on as the organist of tent revivalist David Terrell, and before long, Donna Johnson was part of the hugely popular evangelical preacher’s inner circle. At seventeen, she left the ministry for good, with a trove of stranger-than-fiction memories.

For Gwen Merchant, love has always been doled out in little packets - from her father, who buried himself in work after her mother's death, and from her husband, Peter, who's always been respectable and safe. But then an old college boyfriend, the irrepressible Elliot Hull, invites himself back into Gwen's life with a surprising proposition. Elliot, it turns out, is in need of a pretend wife, just for the weekend, in order to fulfill his dying mother's last wish.

For Lucy Jane Bledsoe, wilderness had always been a source of peace. But during one disastrous solo trip in the wintry High Sierra she came face to face with a crisis: the wilderness no longer felt like home. The Ice Cave recounts Bledsoe's wilderness journeys as she recovers her connection with the wild and discovers the meanings of fear and grace.

A mix-up with their reservations forces Harvey from New York, Mistral from Paris, and Sheng from Shanghai to share a room with the hotel owner's daughter, Elettra. The four kids discover an amazing coincidence - they all have birthdays on February 29, Leap Day. That night, a strange man gives them a briefcase and asks them to take care of it until he returns. Soon afterward, the man is murdered.

There was a time when March Monroe thought that she and her daughter, Olivia, would never really cut the cord. They'd just upgrade to a wireless connection. Now, Olivia is heading off to college, and March hasn't even told her that she's decided to continue her own higher education. So it's hard to say who's more shocked when they run into each other at a local radio station where, it turns out, they're both student interns.

When Artemus Ackerman, retired magician and mayor of Calendar, hears about the first fire on Sabbath Street, he sends his publicist, Maggie Wakeling, to the fire department to find out what caused it. Artemus, who still performs conjuring tricks for his constituents, has his heart set on turning the shabbily elegant Baldwin Theater into a museum of magic. All he has to do is convince wealthy widow Claudette Goodwin to donate the Baldwin to his beloved town. But the theater is located on Sabbath Street, where that first disastrous fire occurred....

TWO SISTERS: Kate is bound for Stanford and an M.D. - if her family will let her go. Mary wants only to stay home and paint. When their loving but repressive father dies, they must figure out how to support themselves and their mother, who is in a permanent vegetative state, and how to get along in all their uneasy sisterhood. THREE YOUNG MEN: Then three men sway their lives: Kate's boyfriend Simon offers to marry her, providing much-needed stability. Mary is drawn to Marcos, though she fears his violent past. And Andy tempts Kate with more than romance....

Four years ago, Emily Locke's life was shattered when her infant daughter and husband were lost in an inexplicable accident. She has nearly rebuilt her fragile mental health when a disgraced former police detective, now working as a private investigator, resurfaces to ask for help in reconnaissance at a Texas skydiving establishment. Emily hesitates to work with Richard Cole again, but she finds she can't refuse when she learns that the case involves a missing boy.

In 2031 mankind's survival instinct is put to the test when a civil war in China spirals into a global conflict. Nations are torn apart. Millions are killed. And for many, like Air Force pilot Alec Killian, survival will mean shedding some of their flesh in exchange for biotech and machine.

Unable to approach her own long-buried history of loss and displacement, Historian Joan Severance takes refuge in the cool library rooms and the crumbling probate lists from Renaissance times. As Joan's disturbed, hyperintuitive mind falls increasingly under the spell of Valparuta and the charismatic resident archivist, Chiesa, a beautifully dressed heroin addict, she is forced to confront her long-submerged past.

Sam and Lori had only just met and now they are dead, the result of a car accident. Accident? No. Dead? Not exactly. In life, Sam was a successful playwright, Lori a secretary for Ben Carnahan, a scheming movie producer who wants Sam's new script and whose negligence on a movie set twenty years earlier killed Lori's father. Now Sam and Lori are ghosts out of sequence with the real world yet fully aware of their existence. As they work together to find out what happened to them, a plot to murder Ben is revealed.

This haunting first novel follows the relationship between a hospital patient known as "the tall man" and a nurse. The victim of a gunshot wound who was discovered on a remote beach northwest of Seattle, the tall man lies motionless and nearly mute as Sara Black vigilantly tends his health. As Sara struggles to recover from a loss of her own, the death of her four-year-old son in a car accident, she finds herself spending more and more time with her patient.

In the wake of San Francisco Noir, Los Angeles Noir, and Orange County Noir - all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series - comes the latest California installment, Oakland Noir. Masterfully curated by Jerry Thompson and Eddie Muller, the "Czar of Noir", this volume will shock, titillate, provoke, and entertain. The diverse cast of talented contributors will not disappoint.

Panache, an exuberant road gypsy, is on her way to the mountains. Benjamin Pencil, the man with the glass heart, has no use for mountains. But their paths cross, their lives intertwine, and Benjamin follows her up, up, up to where hills are smothered in poppies and a man can reach out and write his name in the sky. As they travel, they first encounter the beautiful but predatory Woman with the Breeding, a collector of hearts who tries to add Benjamin’s exquisite heart to her pitiable hoard. Next they meet the malicious Laughing Man, who lives only to create fear and kill dreams.

Darren Fletcher, once the rising star of Detroit's criminal justice system, has fallen far. All the way to an office in a smoky dive bar on the wrong side of the city. But a single phone call could be the key to climbing out of his downward spiral: A police brutality victim needs his help, and the family's willing to pay.

This luminous love story centers on Milo, a severely wounded veteran of the Iraq war confined to a rehabilitation hospital, and Honor, his physical therapist. When Honor touches Milo’s destroyed back, mysterious images from the past appear to each of them, puzzling her and shaking him to the core.

Diana stands before the mirror, preening with her best friend, Maureen. Suddenly, a classmate enters holding a gun, and 17-year-old Diana sees her life dance before her eyes. In a moment, the future she was just imagining is sealed by a horrific decision she is forced to make.

"For someone who could not talk or see or walk, he made a big splash." As gifted as he was challenged, this moving, inspiring audiobook tells the story of Ezra and the family that loved him. Born two months premature, Ezra suffered permanent brain damage. His parents ignored the forewarnings of doctors and welcomed their son openheartedly into their lives for the seventeen years they had together. Penned by his courageous mother, Ezra is as much about its narrator as it is about its subject.

When a dead man is discovered behind Theresa Winkle's bar, she's charged with his murder. Darren Fletcher and Issabella Bright immediately set out to discover the identity of the real killer. But doing so quickly uncovers dark secrets from Darren's past - secrets that have been hidden from him by those he most trusts.

Issabella Bright has had it with bailing her handsome but unpredictable boyfriend-slash-partner out of the drunk tank, with him messing up their court schedule, and with his buttinski female best friend. But Darren's latest story is no flustered excuse - the glad-handing stranger who blew into his office is none other than Mr. Unreliable himself: Issabella's long-absent father. And the only thing he's brought with him is trouble.