Showing results by narrator "Carmen Jewel Jones" in All Categories

It was supposed to be the happiest day of Jaslene Simmons’ life, the day she’d say “I do” to Marcus Clark. But when her sister dies in a tragic accident everything changes—including her once rosy future with Marcus. Jaslene instead pours all of her energy into caring for her now-motherless niece and running the wedding planning company she and her sister had built, wanting to honor her sister’s dream even if she has to sacrifice her own.

Birdie Boucher is a woman who lives her life in the shadows of her infamous mother. A powerful voodoo priestess of the south who uses magic to wreak havoc on the lives of anyone who gets in her way. And any woman she believes is the lover of her philandering husband.

From the moment Africans were first brought to the shores of the United States, they had a hand in shaping the country. Their labor created a strong economy, built our halls of government, and defined American society in profound ways. And though the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't signed until 300 years after the first Africans arrived, the fight for freedom started the moment they set foot on American soil.

When a young woman, Sarah Connelly, is found murdered in her home in New York’s elite Sleepy Point suburb, it triggers questions about the neighbor who discovered the body, Audrey Hughes. This kind of attention is the last thing Audrey wants. Moving to Sleepy Point was supposed to provide her with a new quiet start after a trauma left her with incurable blindness. But the other reason she settled next door to Sarah was to spy on her.

When Tessa Noble takes the stage at a charity auction after a sexy makeover, her best friend Ryan Bateman must place the winning bid. It's definitely not because he's jealous. Their weekend getaway is a ploy for positive press… or so the rancher tells himself. But soon things take an unexpected turn from platonic to passionate, catapulting the couple from friends to lovers….

In Upper Hand, celebrated founder and CEO of The Plug, Sherrell Dorsey, delivers a personal and eye-opening exploration of how to ensure that marginalized communities aren't left behind as technology continues its inexorable march forward. In the book, listeners will learn to think about how we can strategically shape the coming decade to include Black and Brown communities. Upper Hand offers guidelines, insights, and frameworks for navigating the new world of work that is dominated by Silicon Valley-rooted technologies, inaccessible networks, and constant automation.

At thirty-six, undefeated rodeo champion AJ Garza is supposed to be retiring, not chasing after an all-new closed-circuit rodeo tour with a million-dollar prize. But with the Houston rodeo program that saved him as a wayward teen on the brink of bankruptcy, he'll enter. And he'll win. Enter Lilian Sorrow Island. Raised by her grandparents on the family ranch in Muskogee, OK, Lil is more a cowboy than city boy AJ will ever be. It shows. She's not about to let him steal the prize that'll save her ranch, even if he is breathtakingly magnificent, in pretty much every way going.

When Renee McClendon was a teenager, she made a list of all the qualities her perfect man would have, but no matter how many handsome guys have ticked the boxes, she has yet to find the man for her. She wants a regular guy who's not afraid to get his hands dirty, and she's given herself a deadline. If she doesn't find Mr. Right by New Year's, she's done searching.

The Huntresses of Artemis must obey two rules: never disobey the goddess, and never fall in love. After being rescued from a harrowing life as an Oracle of Delphi, Kahina is glad to be a part of the Hunt; living among a group of female warriors gives her a chance to reclaim her strength. But when a routine mission goes awry, Kahina breaks the first rule in order to save the legendary huntress Atalanta.

This is the story of Dr. Geneva Smitherman, aka "Dr. G," the pioneering linguist often referred to as the "Queen of Black Language." In a series of narrative essays, Dr. G writes eloquently and powerfully about the role of language in social transformation and the academic, intellectual, linguistic, and societal debates that shaped her groundbreaking work as a Black Studies O.G. and a Womanist scholar-activist of African American Language.

Avila Rogers’ mother kicked her out of the house as a teenager when a one night stand left her pregnant. So when her mother passes away and Avila must return to Myrtle Beach to get her mother’s house ready to put on the market, her feelings are complicated, to say the least. Things get even more complicated when she runs into her childhood friend, Trevor, who is now a professor at the nearby HBCU.

Langston Keith has been my brother's best friend for years, and he's always seen me as the competition. We're both race horse owners, and there's no way I'm letting Langston get that trophy. When my parents threaten to set me up in an arranged marriage with a guy in India, I beg Langston to fake date me to get them off my back. He agrees, and all goes well until the romance starts to feel real.

The Second Half explores how the second half of life is experienced by women from many different cultures. From a French actress to a British novelist, from an Algerian nomad to a Saudi Arabian doctor, and an American politician, Ellen Warner traveled all over the world to interview women about their lives. She asked them what they learned in the first half that was helpful in the second, and what advice they would give to younger women. Their revealing and inspiring stories are enlightening for all listeners.

When weapons-grade nuclear materials left over from the Cold War surface in a North African city, Dalton Drake, former CSIS agent, lethal field operator, and confirmed ladies’ man, is hired to track down those responsible. Working with a coalition of intelligence agencies, military branches, and the scientific community, he is tasked with locating and intercepting the terrorists, who are on the move in a stolen cargo ship in the North Atlantic.

Patrice McClendon wants to create a signature scent for her family's aromatherapy and day spa this Valentine's Day. The holiday is crucial for the family business, even if Patrice has never been a hearts and flowers kind of girl. But creating the fragrance isn't easy, and Patrice needs help. She gets that and more when she meets successful perfumer Jacques Germain.

The linked stories in Mama Said are set in Louisville, Kentucky, a city with a rich history steeped in tobacco, bourbon, and gambling, indulgences that can quickly become gripping and destructive vices. Set amid the tail end of the crack epidemic and the rise of the opioid crisis, Mama Said evokes Black family life in all its complexity, following JayLynn, along with her cousins Zaria and Angel, as they come of age struggling against their mothers' drug addictions.

Serafina has a secret dream. She wants to go to school and become a doctor with her best friend, Julie Marie. But in their rural village outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti, many obstacles stand in Serafina's way - little money, never-ending chores, and Manman's worries. More powerful even than all of these are the heavy rains and the shaking earth that test Serafina's resolve in ways she never dreamed. At once heartbreaking and hopeful, this exquisitely crafted story will leave a lasting impression on your heart.

Coming from a troubled youth, Morgan Faraday grabs every opportunity to up-level her life. So she definitely plans to keep oil-company heir Sebastian Reid interested...all the way to the altar. He’s brilliant and supportive and is turning his billion-dollar company green to make up for his ancestors’ exploitation. With him, Morgan can have love, money, and the power to make the world better. And securing her future is far more important than the attractive environmental activist she suddenly has unexpected feelings for...

After suffering a mental breakdown that nearly destroyed her marriage, Nina Taylor works hard to maintain her tenuous hold on sanity and be a good mother to her two young daughters. Despite her best efforts, she questions the possibility of a full recovery.

“As far as I know, you can only die once…” But when Aetna Simmons disappears from her lonely Bermuda cottage, she leaves behind not one but ten suicide notes. Ten different suicide notes. And no other trace to speak of, not even a corpse, as if she’d never existed. Drafts of a Suicide Note is the darkly enigmatic love letter of Kenji Okada-Caines, a petty criminal who once exposited on English literary classics and now, marooned on his native isle, nurtures an obsession with Aetna’s writing.