Showing results by narrator "Alyssa Bresnahan" in All Categories

Living in a quiet suburb of Washington, D.C., Marsha is nine years old in the summer of 1973. While the nation’s attention is focused on the breaking Watergate scandal, her quiet neighborhood is going through its own upheaval. Looking back as an adult, she remembers it as a time when her father’s abandonment of his family becomes entwined with the arrival of a new neighbor and the death of a boy who lives down the street. Deeply disillusioned by the changes in her life, Marsha takes it upon herself to find the boy’s murderer, which sets off a chain of tragic events.

The Fall of the Sparrow is the story of a family's struggle to heal itself after the violent death of its oldest daughter. At the heart is Alan "Woody" Woodhall, a classics professor at a small mid-western college, whose beloved oldest daughter, Cookie, is killed during a terrorist bombing. Woody finds himself standing in the cemetery where Cookie is buried, convinced that life has taught him all the lessons he has to learn.

CBA best-selling author and award-winning novelist, Tracie Peterson pens the tale of Andy Gilbert, a telegram delivery boy. During World War II, many of the young men of Haven, Pennsylvania are fighting in Europe. But still in town, Andy must find the strength to bring the news of the dead to their families. Through the compassion of an older widow and the love of God, Andy finds hope in the midst of devastation.

A century after environmental and economic collapse, the people of the Coast Road have rebuilt their own sort of civilization. Enid of Haven is an investigator who, with her new partner, Teeg, is called on to mediate a dispute between households over an old building in a far-flung settlement at the edge of Coast Road territory. The investigators' decision seems straightforward - and then the body of a young woman turns up in the nearby marshland. Enid wants to find out who killed her, even as Teeg argues the murder isn't their problem.

Your inner bitch is that integral, powerful part of you that is going unrecognized, especially when you're falling in love. It's time to let her out. Looking for romance? Let your Inner Bitch be the guide.

Beloved for the lens of the strange he places on small-town life, Steven Millhauser further reveals in Voices in the Night the darkest parts of our inner selves to brilliant and dazzling effect. Here are stories of wondrously imaginative hyperrealism, stories that pose unsettling what-ifs or that find barely perceivable evils within the safe boundaries of our towns, homes, and even our bodies.

Peyton Shields had always wanted to be a doctor. But a late-night drive home in a heavy snowstorm changes everything. A car coming straight at her drives her off the road and into a frozen pond. In an instant her wonderful life has turned dark. No one believes her claims that the "accident" was deliberate; not even her husband. Without explanation, he has become distant and bitter, calling her paranoid and accusing her of having an affair with a former lover. Yet the terror has only begun.

In Nothing Like a Dame, theater journalist Eddie Shapiro opens a jewelry box full of glittering surprises, through in-depth conversations with twenty leading women of Broadway. He carefully selected Tony Award-winning stars who have spent the majority of their careers in theater, leaving aside those who have moved on or occasionally drop back in. The women he interviewed spent endless hours with him, discussing their careers, offering insights into the iconic shows, changes on Broadway over the last century, and the art (and thrill) of taking the stage night after night.

Maggie Messina knows that knitting is not only enjoyable, it also calms both the mind and soul. She's happy to visit two sisters, Holly and Rose Piper, and teach them some simple stitches, while the rest of the Black Sheep knitters tag along. Dana Haeger has known the young women since they were children and is the closest thing to family the Pipers now have. Dana is especially concerned about Rose, who has been easily overwhelmed ever since a car accident many years ago.

In a town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, Rachel Smith has found a new life tending a lush apple orchard. She’s safe within its grove. If her dreams are haunted by memories of her violent husband, that pain is soothed by fresh mountain air and apples that taste as sweet as honey. But Rachel wasn’t meant to live in the shadows. The orchard drew her to Morgan’s Gap to fulfill a purpose and a tight-knit community of wisewomen who honor the old mountain traditions are ready to teach her. A world of magic awaits Rachel, one filled with new friendships and possibly new love

Plants are a sacred offering from Mother Earth. And witches have always known and understood their healing and magickal powers. Plants hold sustenance, medicine, and wisdom. They gift us with the essentials we need to live and thrive. In return, they ask to be used for the highest good. This is the path of the green witch. With Green Witch Magick, learn how to reconnect with this sacred knowledge. Noted green witch and herbalist Susan Ilka Tuttle, creator of @whisper_in_the_wood, shows you how to forage, grow, and work with the plants integral to your green witchcraft practice.

The cross-currents of two cultures, one male-dominated, one egalitarian, combined with the human problems of two who switched allegiances, brings into focus all the deepest questions of love and marriage, justice and injustice.

Romilly was an independent tomboy from a noble family, contrary to the social demands of Darkovan women. That was bad enough, but when Romilly’s father arranged her marriage to a nobleman she found repulsive, she rebelled. Disguising herself as a boy, she fled into the deep forests. Living off the land was not nearly as difficult for Romilly as for most people, for she possessed a rare and highly treasured gift — telepathic communication with hawk and horse.

In her fiction, Claire Messud "has specialized in creating unusual female characters with ferocious, imaginative inner lives" (Ruth Franklin, New York Times Magazine). Kant’s Little Prussian Head & Other Reasons Why I Write opens a window on Messud’s own life: a peripatetic upbringing; a warm, complicated family; and, throughout it all, her devotion to art and literature.

An apothecary clerk and her ex-mercenary allies travel across the world to discover a computing engine that leads to secrets she wasn't meant to know - secrets that could destroy humanity.

For three generations, a carriage house has stood on the Adair property. Built by William's grandfather, it was William's childhood refuge and a sign of the family's prominence. Now held captive by a neighbor due to a zoning error, the house has decayed beyond recognition and may even be condemned. Rallying to save their father, Diana, Elizabeth, and Isabelle take on the battle for the carriage house that once stood as a symbol of their place in the world.

Kellerman delights with 17 short mysteries, including three all-new pieces featuring Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus, a mystery introducing Faye's newest heroine Cindy Decker, and a story co-written by Faye and her son, budding novelist Jesse Kellerman.

Sanora Babb experienced pioneer life in a one-room dugout, eye-level with the land that supported, tormented and beguiled her; where her family fought for their lives against drought, crop-failure, starvation, and almost unfathomless loneliness. Learning to read from newspapers that lined the dugout' s dirt walls, she grew up to be a journalist, then a writer of unforgettable books about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, most notably Whose Names Are Unknown.

Rosa is an illegal immigrant from Mexico City who sells herself on the streets of Houston while dreaming of a career in modeling. Traci is a blonde beauty obsessed with becoming head cheerleader and securing her future for a good marriage. On the surface, no two 14-year-olds could appear more different. Three-time Newbery Honor-winner Gary Paulsen brings his immense talents to this rich story of a chance encounter between two young women, each seeing her life mirrored in the eyes of another.

Here's a spooky tale of mystery and witchcraft that always captures the imagination of young listeners. When Jessica finds a scrawny kitten, she brings him home and names him Worm. But then Jessica begins to change. Is Worm bewitching her?