Showing results by narrator "Ann Richardson" in All Categories

As a police team is called in to investigate a woman's suicide at the Holmsheiði prison outside Reykjavik, to detective Guðgeir Fransson it looks like a tragic but straightforward case. It's only afterwards that the pieces begin to fall into place and he takes a deeper interest in Kristin Kjarr's troubled background, and why she had found herself in prison.

Olivia may have entered London society three years ago, but all she has to show for it is extensive notes. The pages of her diary are filled with details on every bachelor who has ever clamored for a spot on her dance card. Although her book has afforded her a new hobby in matchmaking, it has yet to provide her with a suitable man. And she is not about to settle for just anyone....

Wendy Moore hides her collection of pilfered bric-a-brac from everyone, including her husband. He thinks she licked her kleptomania in therapy more than a decade ago. Therapy did help, as did focusing her attention on motherhood. But now Wendy’s gardening and furniture-refinishing hobbies fill up only so much of the day, leaving the recent empty nester lonely and anxious—a combination likely to trigger her little problem. She needs a project, fast. Luckily, Harper Ross—a single, childless younger woman in desperate need of highlights—just moved in next door.

Katherine Yoder has loved Johnny Mullet since the two were children, but he’s never returned her affections. Now Johnny is trying to forge a new life for himself by purchasing a farm and building a business of his own. But times are tough, and he soon learns that he can’t take anything for granted - especially Katherine. Before Johnny has the opportunity to tell Katherine his true feelings, she’s struck by a serious illness. While Katherine struggles to recall recent memories of Johnny, a surprise visitor comes back into her life.

Is it possible for a lesbian to fall passionately in love at age 65? Ruthie Stein is about to find out.

Some folks are born with a silver spoon jutting right out of their mouths. Others are a bit more like Miss Harmony King. That poor thing bounced in and out of so many foster homes growing up, that even my head spun circles trying to keep track of them all. Once Harmony hit 18, though, she disappeared from Charleston altogether. Fast forward nearly a decade, and now she’s back, bent over a pew, and praying like her life depends on it. I’d reckon that just maybe it does.

Carolina Brown couldn’t be more different than her mama if she tried - and truthfully most of us believe she worked hard at precisely that. She worked hard at everything else, too, and set off to college to accomplish big things in the wide world. Unfortunately, God called her right back to Charleston when her mama suffered a near fatal accident that left her requiring round the clock care.

Some say that whenever it snows in Charleston, God is giving a miracle to his most favorite of places. So, I reckon, the blizzard that bleached the entire sky that December must have been a blessing of epic proportions. It was certainly a miracle that I’d forgotten my cell phone after giving my Christmas Eve sermon, and had to race back to the sanctuary in order to retrieve it.

In Captives: How Stolen People Changed the World archaeologist Catherine M. Cameron provides an eye-opening comparative study of the profound impact captives of warfare and raiding have had on small-scale societies through time. Cameron provides a new point of orientation for archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and other scholars by illuminating the impact that captive-taking and enslavement have had on cultural change, with important implications for understanding the past.

Mixing personal history, interviewee voices, and academic theory from the fields of care work, the sociology of work, medical sociology, and nursing, Taking Care of Our Own introduces us to the hidden world of family caregivers. By taking a multidimensional approach, Sherry N. Mong seeks to understand and analyze the types of skilled work that family caregivers do, the processes through which they learn and negotiate these new skills, and the meanings that both caregivers and nurses attach to their care work.

Life is unpredictable. One day your journey is calm and effortless. Next day it's full of potholes. Why not take God's hand and walk this road together as fresh answers to your challenges are revealed? Lisa Are Wulf, an award-winning author, has walked this path too. She offers encouragement and a clear way forward, strengthening your special bond with Jesus. Reaching for God's Hand features 40 short reflections, soothing bible verses and prayers, plus a quiet time with God.

The non-judgmental acceptance of the feelings that emerge in our thoughts and emotions, in the present, manifests into a lifelong mindful practice. The similarities of the various modalities found around the world to practice mindfulness are more numerous than the differences and, in some cases, than the activities of a culture. They are passed down from generation to generation with the name of the activity rather than the more trending term of mindfulness. 

In The Gospel of Kindness, Janet M. Davis explores the broad cultural and social influence of the American animal welfare movement at home and overseas from the Second Great Awakening to the Second World War. Dedicated primarily to laboring animals at its inception in an animal-powered world, the movement eventually included virtually all areas of human and animal interaction.

In Good Blood, best-selling writer Julian Guthrie tells the gripping tale of the race to cure a horrible affliction known as Rh disease that stalked families and caused a mother’s immune system to attack her own unborn child. The story is anchored by two very different men on two continents: Dr. John Gorman in New York, who would land on a brilliant yet contrarian idea, and the unassuming Australian whose almost magical blood - and his unyielding devotion to donating it - would save millions of lives.

Bárbara Palacios - Miss Universe 1986, Miss Venezuela, one of People en Español’s 25 most powerful and influential women of 2014, author and international lecturer - opens her heart by sharing memories and personal testimonies from her international career as a public figure. According to Palacios, women all around the world want to know how they can be good mothers, good friends, good wives, excellent professionals, and women of faith.

This groundbreaking anthology presents 40 narratives, both nonfiction and fiction, that together capture the impact and complexity of Alzheimer’s and other dementias on patients, as well as their caregivers and family. Deeply personal, recounting the wrenching course of a disease that kills a loved one twice - first they forget who they are, and then the body succumbs - these stories also show how witnessing the disease and caring for someone with it can be powerfully transformative, calling forth amazing strength and grace.

In too many organizations, great ideas and unusual solutions can be suppressed, ignored, or attacked. Departments defend their turf, and people choose what is safe over what is better. Bad ideas move forward and good ideas die, which can lead to disastrous results - financial or otherwise. Luckily, there is a workable path out of this dysfunction. Kim Barnes’ process of constructive debate shows how to establish conditions that encourage the free exchange, discussion, and development of ideas and eliminate conditions that prevent potentially useful ideas from getting heard.

Join beloved Bible teacher and best-selling author Dee Brestin in discovering the surprising places Jesus shows up in the Old Testament and the unexpected ways He speaks into our lives today. Offering a fascinating perspective on the historic, poetic, and prophetic books of the Old Testament, Brestin draws on her deep understanding of the full scope of the Bible to explore the timeless story of God's quest to rescue each of us.

At some point in our lives, most of us will become caregivers...For us, too, it is a preparation for a letting go that draws upon our deepest spiritual resources in ways possible to fully anticipate. This gathering of reflections for caregivers focuses on the season of death and the strenuous, challenging, life-changing work of accompanying a beloved friend or family member on the final stretch of his or her journey and of mourning the losses that come at every stage.

It’s 1927, and the National Park Service is in its youth when Margie, an avid naturalist, lands a coveted position alongside the park rangers living and working in the unrivaled splendor of Mount Rainier’s long shadow. But Chief Ranger Ford Brayden is still haunted by his father’s death on the mountain, and the ranger takes his work managing the park and its crowd of visitors seriously. The job of watching over an idealistic senator’s daughter with few practical survival skills seems a waste of resources.