Showing results by narrator "Jenny Hoops" in All Categories

In a world expected to reach a staggering population of 10 billion by 2050, and with global temperatures rising fast, humanity must fundamentally change the way it grows and consumes food. Uncertain Harvest brings together scientists, chefs, activists, entrepreneurs, farmers, philosophers, and engineers working on the global future of food to answer questions on how to make a more equitable, safe, sustainable, and plentiful food future.

John Doe remembers nothing of his life before waking up in the hospital. He doesn't know he was a dangerous man, and he somehow has survived assassination by even more dangerous men. John needs long-term supervision and care to relearn how to live. Dr. Mitchell Oberon has been married to her surgical work for too long. She is comfortable in her spinsterish life. She resists being attracted to this brain-damaged patient with the body of Adonis and the mind of a child, but Agent Frank Stone, of Homeland Security, forces the doctor to take John Doe into her own home to recover.

Edna Coffman, School Board Chairperson and community icon, hires thirty-something coaches Luke Carter and Madison Danielsen with the specific directive of returning the town sports fortunes to its former championship status. The unique-to-small-town interactions are at the forefront in this tale, and clearly demonstrate the close interconnections between school, sport and community in rural small-town America.

Haunted by her student's disappearance for more than a decade, Elaine finally stumbles onto a vital clue, only to discover someone will do anything to keep the truth buried. When her life is threatened, she allows the one person she trusts to whisk her away to Texas for safety. But assuming a false identity and hiding among the quirky residents of a nursing home is not what she had in mind.

Elizabeth Clarke gave her brother a silver locket to remind him of home as he left for war in June of 1917. But as the Great War ends for America, it continues on for Elizabeth. While carrying out duties for the US State Department, her father went missing in the chaos of the Russia Revolution. When word arrives that he is alive and needs assistance moving a valuable and mysterious “package” out of Russia, it is up to his children to organize the rescue.

Until she saw the horror on Ben’s face, it hadn’t occurred to Samantha that a menacing murder of crows had congregated in this Attic Windows quilt. It gave her pause to examine it more closely, and what she discovered gave her chills. Who was this woman, L. Bennett, so tormented by suspicion she hid clues to her own murder in a quilt for her son, Nicky? Or was it a daughter? Was she murdered, or is she alive, steeped in paranoia?

Tal Neilson is slowly losing his mind. He’s convinced his dead father Geri has been murdered, but no one believes him. Geri’s voice in his head is screaming for revenge. Is the voice real or a product of Tal’s addiction? Can Tal ignore his widowed mother’s attraction to Geri’s business partner?

The Call of the Wild is Jack London's most popular and enduring work. Set in the frozen wilderness of the Yukon, it tells the story of the magnificent dog Buck, who is a loyal family pet until cruel men steal him and make him a pawn in their feverish search for the gold of the Klondike. Brutally beaten into serving as a sled dog, Buck finds the blood of his wolf ancestors rising within him.

French-Canadian soldier Napoleon proposes to lovely and charming Lea in Belgium during WWI, promising golden fields of wheat as far as the eye can see. After the armistice, he sends money for her passage, and she journeys far from her family and the conveniences of a modern country to join him on a homestead in Saskatchewan. There, she works hard to build their dream of a prospering farm, clearing fields alongside her husband through several pregnancies and even after suffering a terrible loss.

For many Loyalists during the American War for Independence, the perilous journey to Canada is just the beginning of a long and arduous struggle to find a new home and a new life amid the upheavals of war and separation, death and privation. For Elisabeth Van Alen, it also means finding new strength and the will to survive in a new country. Married to Gerrit, an educated Mohawk warrior, she is filled with fears when he must go away shortly before the American rebels force her and her family out of their ancestral home.

Swept up in a whirlwind courtship, Katja and Wasyl begin life anew in a Ukrainian settlement of Western Canada. The dusty Canadian prairies promise hope and independence, but when war breaks out between the old world and the new, their newfound stability is shattered. Rumors of the internment of Ukrainian-Canadians haunt the new settlers. Would the country they love betray them like this? An incident throws the couple and their young children into turmoil, and Katja faces the prospect of enduring a Canadian winter without Wasyl by her side.

The youngest child of the local doctor and evangelical preacher, Annie Baldwin was expected to work hard and not protest. George Richardson, the underage Doctor Bernardo boy, orphaned and shipped to Canada a few years earlier, is loaned to the Baldwins to help bring in the hay. The Great War brought a lot of changes to life, even in the back woods of Ontario. In spite of the differences in their social standing, George and Annie fell in love. When George departed for France, he promised to return to her when the war was over. Like so many others, Annie waited and hoped.

Faced with financial ruin and the loss of her good name, Rose Chadwick decides to make a new start for herself and her young daughter Hannah in the rough-and-tumble gold rush town of Barkerville, British Columbia. However, making a new life is not so easy when it’s built on lies. Viscount Harrison St. John knows he’s expected to marry well to bolster his family fortunes. Instead, he leaves England to pursue riches in the gold fields of a town in the wilds of Canada. Will dark secrets from Rose’s past keep them apart? Or will they find love, happiness, and a new life together?

A blind deejay (Shepard Krausse) and an invisible librarian (Miranda Ogilvy) from a tiny, rural Florida town try to solve a double disappearance connected to a recent canoe trip. It ain't exactly "deliverance", but there's a heap of trouble brewing for these folks - some of it human, some of it animal, and all of it deadly. Shep and Miranda rely on their sense of humor as they face dangerous fossil poachers - but even that is difficult when their engagement is broken amidst a river of troubles.

A hunky carpenter wants to adopt six children, but first he must convince authorities that he is not crazy. He isn't. His teapot really is talking to him. Despite his many positive attributes, Lloyd has reached the age of 32 years, seven months, four days, and six hours without finding Miss Right and converting her into Mrs. Lloyd Schifflebein. Yes, Schifflebein. A surname decidedly lacking romance in addition to being difficult to spell and way too long a signature for checks and the backs of credit cards.

Canadian Shorts II is a specially selected collection of short stories by established and emerging Canadian authors. Showcasing Canada's diverse writing talent, there is a story for every listener, from literary fiction to scifi fantasy to prairie gothic to romance-thriller.

It is the dawn of the French Revolution when masses of hungry peasants burn the chateaux of aristocrats throughout France. After the death of his estranged family, an 18-year-old nobleman, the Marquis Marcel de la Croix, is forced to raise the royalist banner. The wreck of his family fortress becomes a bastion for newly disenfranchised aristocrats, and Marcel and his fiery associate, Pierre Lafont, lead a rebel group called the League of the Star. After a bitter falling out with Lafont, Marcel escapes to England incognito, hoping to put the past behind him.

In 1784, Englishwoman Amelia Latimer sails to the new colony of New Brunswick in faraway Canada. She’s to marry a man chosen by her soldier father. Amelia is repulsed by her betrothed, refuses to marry, then meets the handsome Acadian trader, Gilbert, a man beneath her in status. Gilbert must protect his mother, who was attacked by an English soldier. He fights to hold on to their property, to keep it from the Loyalists who have flooded the colony, desperate men chased from the South after the American Revolution.

Grace MacKinnon’s widowhood promises little but a life of drudgery under her father-in-law’s oppressive rule. When quiet rebellion turns to opportunity, she books passage on an Atlantic steamer only to face near disaster in Halifax harbor. Her future looks doomed from the start until, with the help of a sympathetic stranger and a chance meeting with Lucy Maud Montgomery, she changes destination and arrives on Prince Edward Island. Her newfound independence drives her to undertake a brave new adventure in a male-dominated world.

It’s a decade following WWI, in a small village of Nova Scotia. Maggie Conrad, a young war widow, lives with her father and younger brother, helping them manage a small store. After the sudden death of her father, Maggie finds their finances in shambles. Instead of moping around or choosing to "settle down", she decides to sell the store and relocate to the city in the hope of finding a job. Thus starts her adventure.