Showing results by narrator "Lauren Pedersen" in All Categories

Big-hearted Dre Rustin fled her small Nebraska hometown to distance herself from her brother’s troubled past. Texas seemed like a good place to start a new life. Now she’s looking forward to graduating from college, but first she’s got to handle Thanksgiving break. She’ll head home for the first time in years.

The Republican and Democratic Parties have collapsed. Capitol Hill is in chaos. The economy is in free fall. Someone must step up and take charge. Anna Rothwell is the brilliant young chief of staff to Willis Montgomery, a senior member of Congress. She has always dreamed of holding a position of power. When the country's future is at stake, Montgomery announces his candidacy for Speaker of the House, giving Anna her chance.

After losing her job of 23 years, Mabel decides to launch what will surely be a glamorous new career as an author. Having recently inherited her late grandmother’s house, she has the freedom to spend time volunteering and writing about her experiences.

Two girls living a continent apart become pen pals. Quiet and shy, Neyah lives in a rural African village and longs for more time in school, but spends most days fetching filthy water for her family to survive. Bold and boisterous, Abby lives comfortably in a modern city and spends much of her time planning her social calendar. Despite their differences, an unlikely friendship forms, and they discover they have one thing very much in common. T

Bailey Colburn is safe in the Land, but her father figure, Professor Tim, never made it to Good Springs. When Bailey discovers Tim is lost in the Land’s dangerous mountain terrain and out of his life-saving medication, she sets out to rescue him. Even with the help of intriguing native Revel Roberts, Bailey faces an impossible journey to save Tim. The mountains are shrouded in dark folklore and full of deadly surprises.

Life has not been easy for Marta and her daughter, Jannah. On the brink of losing her home and suffering from a broken heart, Marta has lost all hope. James has never gotten over the fact that he wasn’t able to be a father to his own daughter. When he became Marta’s next-door neighbor years later, he was overjoyed to finally be the father he always wanted to be and has worked on building a relationship with Marta and Jannah ever since. Will he ever have the heart to connect Marta with the biological mother she has never known?

Misty Dawn has inherited her grandmothers old house in Small Town USA. There she meets up with Carl, her new realtor and others who learn that childhood teachings were more than just stories! As a freak lightning storm ravages the city, Misty learns the Rapture has taken place before her very eyes and she has been left behind. The group struggle to survive the End Time as plague after plague is unleashed upon the Planet. Only faith will get them through as they endure the pain and agony of the Apocalypse. Misty mourns loss after loss until she comes to her breaking point.

No longer having carpet in your bathroom. Losing a job, finding a calling. Listening to elk bugle. Planting a garden. Discovering dyslexia in a child. Moving out of your in-laws’ house. Game nights with married children. Rest and nature walks. Unexpected time with grandmother. Teaching kids to fish and not to panic. Zoom for visiting, schooling, worshiping, celebrating, working. These are victories under any circumstances, but especially so under the murky, heavy clouds that 2020 forced on us. Here is proof that hope illuminated the darkness of even our worst days.

1943: The world is at war and the outcome is anything but sure. In the heartland, communities like Caroline, Iowa, must bind together to support the cause. As the war drags on, few families escape paying the ultimate price. But the unity of this close-knit community is threatened by a violent death: a murder committed in the basement of the town's beloved Church Street United Brethren. Everyone, including the congregation's handsome new pastor, becomes a suspect.

The last thing Mabel needed was a flying saucer, not to mention a rash of similar sightings all over town. Her life’s already been upended by getting fired and moving to Grandma’s old house in Medicine Spring. So far, the deceptively sleepy village has delivered several murders—and romance with a handsome private investigator. Are little green men next? While Mabel tries to get to the bottom of the apparent space invasion, she also gets herself caught between competing candidates for township supervisor.

Mabel plans to bring the thrills of volunteering to the masses—if she doesn’t go to the dogs first. When Mabel finds herself sharing a thicket with a dead body while volunteering with canine search-&-rescue, her life has clearly—once again—gone to the dogs!

The first date is your earliest opportunity to get to know someone intimately. It’s your chance to find out if you’re compatible, if you have the same passions, and if the same things make you tick. For this to happen though, you need a killer question to spark hours of conversation. This is your golden key to securing a second date.

When her sister, the only family she had left, is murdered by a serial killer stalking the women of Misty Hollow, Madison Everton is determined to find the killer’s identity. Women are being abducted and held for three days before their bodies are dumped, and the women all hold a strong resemblance to Madison. Will she find him before he finds her?

Are you ashamed of your body? Do you wish your body were different? Taller? Thinner? Stronger? Has your body somehow become a painful place to be when you want it to be a place of joy and pleasure? You are not alone. A vast majority of women are dissatisfied with their appearances, and would change something about their bodies if they could.

"Love is patient, love is kind, love is . . ." The words are so familiar they almost lack meaning, a Christianese version of "live, laugh, love." Even non-Christians are familiar with the Love Chapter of 1 Corinthians, read at weddings, painted on decorative signs, and preached regularly from the pulpit. But what happens when these verses are taken seriously? What would it take for someone to live out the Love Chapter as literally as possible?

During the last two decades, there has been much scholarly and popular interest in the financialization of the American economy-why the turn to finance has taken place, what constituted it, and what has come out of it. In Disembedded, Basak Kus draws from the theories of Karl Polanyi-one of the greatest and most influential political economists of the twentieth century-to answer these questions.

Lucy Lavender loves exploring. After Dad dies, Mom pieces jobs together and struggles to provide for Lucy. When Mom is offered a job in Sea Rock Cove, the coastal town where Dad grew up, Lucy hopes this is her chance to pursue her dream of becoming a marine biologist. On Lucy's first day at her new school, she is excited to go to Sea Rock and see Dad’s beloved sea stars. When Lucy learns the sea stars are dying, she becomes determined to save them. But as Lucy gets involved with the people of Sea Rock Cove, she learns there is a lot more beneath the surface of the town.

Mitch Calloway had served as a youth minister at mega-church, White Hills Bible Church for 10 years, and while he loved his job, he longed to pastor his own congregation. So when the opportunity came to interview for the position of pastor of the historic Mercy Fellowship in Shadow Glenn, Massachusetts, he knew it was God's call.

Englischer Marcy Sutton flees her home in Ohio when problems caused by her husband Scott’s gambling addiction wreak havoc. She takes her two young children to stay at a friend’s lakeside cabin in Indiana, but on the way, the car breaks down, and they are stranded in a blizzard. Marcy and her children seek shelter with Hester and Gideon’s Amish family, whose simple way of life reminds Marcy of the true meaning of the Christmas season.

Shiloh Sloan, the girl from the wrong side of the bridge. The girl shunned because of accusations she’d made against the town’s star football player. Now, she’s returned to teach the children of the people who had turned their backs on her in hopes of showing them how wrong they were.