Showing results by narrator "Laural Merlington" in All Categories

For years Myra Rutledge and Annie de Silva, founding members of the Sisterhood, have funded an underground network run by former Supreme Court Justice Pearl Barnes to help women escape abusive relationships. When two of Pearl's clients fail to report for their weekly check-in, the Sisterhood and their allies begin a search for French model Amalie Laurent and her one-time maid, Rosalee Muno.

This book continues Chicken Soup for the Soul's focus on inspiration and hope in these difficult times. These inspirational stories remind us that each day holds something to be thankful for - whether it is having the sun shine or having food on the table. These stories of the joy of giving, attitude, and being grateful for what you have remind us of the simple pleasures of family, home, health, and inexpensive good times.

Reba Farrall was lost - until a kindly old gentleman took her under his wing and helped heal her shattered spirit. Now her dearest friend is gone, leaving her with a doubting, broken heart...and half-interest in a California gem mine. But Chance Walker has burst into Reba's life - a daring adventurer who believes in nothing except the priceless uncut stones for which he searches the earth.

Absolute Madness tells the disturbing true story of Joseph Christopher, a white serial killer who targeted black males and struck fear into the residents of Buffalo and New York City in the 1980s. Dubbed both the .22-Caliber Killer and the Midtown Slasher, Christopher allegedly claimed eighteen victims during a savage four-month spree across the state.

Paige Winterbourne is a witch. Not that you'd notice - no warts, no green skin, no cute little wiggle of the nose whenever she casts a spell. No, most of the time she's just a normal 23-year-old girl; works too hard, worries about her weight, wonders if she'll ever find a boyfriend. Okay, so she does have an adopted teenage daughter, Savannah, who wants to raise her black witch of a mother from the dead. And who is being stalked by a telekinetic half-demon and an all-powerful cabal of sorcerers.

Every week, these words appear in the calendars of four women. Every week, they meet for breakfast - and to talk, to share the truths they’ve discovered about their lives. Clare has just been through a devastating and unexpected divorce. Elizabeth is a widow, in her late fifties, a successful professional. Karen is in her twenties, and she believes these should be the years for taking risks, reaching for your dreams. Julia is turning forty this year. Thursdays at eight, a time to think about lives lived, choices made.

Judy L. Mandel was born into a family crippled by grief. But it would be years before she would discover the shocking circumstances of their loss. In her award-winning memoir, Replacement Child - now a New York Times best seller - Mandel tells the true story of a horrifying accident: A plane crashes into a family's home, leaving one daughter severely burned and another dead. The death of the child leaves a hole in the family that threatens to tear it apart. In an attempt to fill the painful gap, the parents have a "replacement child."

Girl Archaeologist recounts Alice Kehoe's life, begun in an era very different from the twenty-first century in which she retired as an honored elder archaeologist. She persisted against patriarchy in her childhood, at Harvard University, and as she did fieldwork with her husband in the northern plains. Working in archaeology and in the histories of American First Nations, Kehoe published groundbreaking books and articles, and fostered a sisterhood of feminists—strong, bright women archaeologists, anthropologists, and ethnohistorians who have been essential to the field.

Follow a crawling baby around and you’ll see that right from the beginning, nothing excites us more than something new and different. Our unique human brains are biologically primed to engage with and even generate novelty, from our ancestors’ first bow and arrow to the latest tablet computer. This “neophilia” has enabled us to thrive in a world of cataclysmic change, but now, we confront an unprecedented deluge of new things, from products to information, which has quadrupled in the past 30 years and shows no sign of slowing.

How often have you seen a teenage girl pretend to be perturbed, but secretly smile, when she is told that she acts or looks just like her mother? Fathers, brothers, and friends sometimes shake their heads in wonder as girls "turn into their mothers". This new collection from Chicken Soup represents the best stories from Chicken Soup's library on the special bond between mothers and daughters, and the magical, mysterious similarities between them.

When Sol and Connie Blink move to Grand Creek, one of the first people to welcome them is an odd older woman, Fay Holaderry, and her friendly dog, Swift, who carries a very strange bone in his mouth. Sol knows a lot more than the average 11-year-old, so when he identifies the bone as a human femur, he and Connie begin to wonder if their new neighbor is up to no good.

A harrowing stand-alone novel from Seatbelt Suspense author Brandilyn Collins. Seven years after her the disappearance of her best friend, Linda Jackson, skip tracer Joanne Weeks must locate a witness who can put the man who Joanne knows to be Linda's killer behind bars - before he silences Joanne for good.

Maggie O'Brien, a nurse and medic on a SWAT team, has a thirst for justice, and a chip on her shoulder. She lives in the shadow of her father, a famous (or infamous) cop. Is she more like him than she wants to admit? The question hits home when Maggie feels the desire - as all police, nurses, doctors and medics sometimes do - to dispense her own brand of justice. Soon she finds evidence that someone else may be acting on the same desire.

As the newest apprentices to Petrarch's Library, Dorrie and her brother are determined to help search for the missing key that could destroy their beloved library. On a training mission to 1912 England, Dorrie sees her chance to help. All she needs to do is get close to a lord with a connection to the Lybrarians' enemy - the Stronghold.

How does a Norwegian farm girl become an infamous American serial killer, responsible for upward of 40 murders? "Belle" Storset Sorenson Gunness was constantly dealt bad hands in life - so she decided to take life into her own hands.

She is a fragile innocent haunted by memories of her past and by dreams of the man who once shared her secrets...the only man she can ever truly love. Now, in the icy chill of a desert storm, they must find the way back to love together - to rekindle the fire whose healing warmth has drawn them home.

The terrible tragedy Alana Reeves suffered on Wyoming's Broken Mountain has vanished from her memory. Now nothing remains of those six lost days that cost her everything she held dear. But a man has appeared from the shadows of Alana's past - a rugged outdoorsman who once dwelt in a wounded heart he is now sworn to heal.

Determined not to be like her irresponsible and selfish parents, Corinne Fremont has never dropped her guard in her professional or personal life. But Maverick businessman Corey Haraden conducts both his love life and business with enthusiasm. Corinne isn't like the women he usually dates, but she intrigues him.

In these absorbing and exquisitely made novellas of relationships at home and abroad, both historical and contemporary, we meet the ferocious Simone Weil during her final days as a transplant to New York City; a vulnerable American grad student who escapes to Italy after her first, compromising love affair; the charming Irish liar of the title novella, who gets more out of life than most of us; and Thomas Mann, opening the heart of a high-school kid in America.

Rachel Simon's historic home on a charming tree-lined street was hardly ideal. It was too small, too dark, and there was a gaping hole in the dining room ceiling. So when the house is burglarized, Rachel and her husband, Hal, agree it's time to sell. But in a difficult housing market, and with Hal being an architect, they soon realize: Why leave when they can renovate?