Showing results by narrator "Caroline Shaffer" in All Categories

Windy Corner is being remodeled into a writers' retreat. Two of the young workers, Jake and Roman, are showing too much of the wrong kind of interest in Katie, Emily's young single-mother housekeeper. It's a stormy autumn and Emily is reading Wuthering Heights. Roman, a dark and brooding type, reminds her of Heathcliff. At a Halloween murder mystery fundraiser at Windy Corner, someone is found stabbed to death. Windy Corner's very own detective, Luke, is reluctantly forced to investigate Katie.

Dr. Siri Bergman runs a private psychotherapy practice in central Stockholm with her best friend Aina. Since her husband's death in a diving accident, Siri has lived alone in an isolated cottage outside the city. Terrified of the dark, she drinks wine to steady her nerves and leaves the lights on when she goes to bed, unable to shake the feeling that someone is watching through her windows. When the lifeless body of a young patient is found floating in the water near Siri's cottage, she knows that someone has been watching her.

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 a Russia where the Decembrists’ rebellion was successful and the Trans-Siberian railroad was completed before 1854, Sasha Trubetskaya wants nothing more than to have a decent debut ball in St. Petersburg. But her aunt’s feud with the emperor lands Sasha at university, where she becomes one of its first female students - an experiment, she suspects, designed more to prove female unsuitability for such pursuits than offer them education.

On the windswept plains of northwestern China, Mongol bandits swoop down upon an American missionary couple and steal their small child. The Reverend sets out in search of the boy and becomes lost in the rugged, corrupt countryside populated by opium dens, sly nomadic warlords and traveling circuses. This upright Midwestern minister develops a following among the Chinese peasants and is christened Ghost Man for what they perceive are his otherworldly powers.

Meeting handsome actor Byron Slater after winning a contest, Miranda Peterson enjoys the attention of the media and the glamour of Byron's world, until she stumbles on the private actor's deadly secrets.

Ballerina Lucia del Mar has two great passions: dance, which consumes most of her waking hours, and the Internet, which brings the outside world into her tightly regimented life. These two passions collide when a White House performance and reception leads to an encounter with handsome Moroccan businessman Rashid al-Jazari, creator of a brilliant technology that has set the Internet rumor mill ablaze.

Joshua Bowman is ready to go home. After spending time in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, he’s putting everything behind him and reconciling with his fractured family. When a devastating tornado throws him unexpectedly into the path of Mary Kaufman and her daughter, Hannah, he feels the first spark of life after months. But Mary’s adoptive dad is the Englisch sheriff—and he’d never trust her care to a man with Joshua’s past. Plus the lovely single mom has a secret of her own, one that she’s spent years running from.

When best-selling author Glory Mathers married handsome Wade Wilson, an out-of-work actor, all the gossips shook their heads. In those early days in New York City, she was the breadwinner and mother to three children, while Wade struggled with his uncertain career. Now, 10 years later, Wade has his turn to shine - as one of Hollywood’s brightest film stars. But Glory feels eclipsed amidst the California glitter. Her agent, friends, and inspiration are on the East Coast - the man she adores is on the West Coast.

Tess Dyer’s husband, Jason, promised to love her forever. That was eleven years ago, before the fights, before the pain, before the bitter divorce. Now he is just another in a long line of people who rejected Tess, from her coldly distant mother to the seemingly endless string of one-night stands from her youth whose names she can’t remember. Desperate to escape the pain of the past, Tess flees her small Maine hometown of Brookfield for the even smaller New Mills. There, she hopes to start over and forget what she left behind…with the help, perhaps, of her handsome new neighbor, Brian.

When she was a young girl, Jadie (and her missionary family) experienced a brutal attack while on the island of Palau in the South Pacific. That one hellish night left her physically, emotionally, and spiritually damaged. Jadie had the choice to live the life of a victim or to walk the hard road of healing that leads to wholeness in Christ. Though she faced physical injury, emotional scarring (including avoidance, memory loss, and regression), and spiritual attacks, Echoes of Darkness is a story of hope.

At first, Manhattan financial planner Melanie Banks adores Dan Swain, her pro-football player husband who has a sexy Oklahoma drawl to go with his athletic good looks. But then his career comes to a screeching halt, and he spends the next few years out of a job, seemingly unconcerned about it. Suddenly, she's the one bringing home the bacon and falling out of love with the paycheck-devouring, couch-sitting mooch. Divorce is the answer, she decides - only to learn she has to fork over alimony while he lives like a prince on her income, and she has to share custody of their precious dog.

Plus-sized Rachel Simon has settled into her life. But in a lifetime of not-quite fitting in and battling demon food issues, she has given up on finding love, despite the nagging of her close circle of friends. Now, Rachel has received some big news: a fashion blog, which she secretly wrote on the side, has caught the eye of a major fashion magazine, who not only want her to write a column, but are giving her an award at an upcoming banquet. The problem? She used Lisa’s picture on her bio and believes they expect a tall beautiful blonde to walk through the doors of the magazine.

In this powerful, wide-ranging, and emotional story about the limits of medical knowledge, Abel discovers why she wasn't diagnosed with celiac as a child. She considers how environmental fears and Internet anecdotes lead people to avoid gluten. And she grapples with the question that confronts us all: how to live calmly, even joyfully, in the face of uncertainty.

Bernard Bellamy has done a deal. He has sold out to the devil, in all of its forms. In return, he is promised that all his wishes will be granted, all his desires fulfilled. One of them, young Carmen Wedmore, is proving to be quite a challenge.

Within the course of a week, Natalie is dumped by her husband, receives an urgent call home from her father, and discovers her estranged sister is pregnant. A road trip on Route 66 may not help, but it sure couldn't hurt. Or so Natalie thinks until Lindsay's boyfriend starts stalking them. Will their trip down the Mother Road bring the two sisters closer together or turn out to be the biggest wrong turn yet?

We've all heard the saying "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Luckily, for Jack, this collection offers more than 20 stories filled with the art of sexual play at work to make even Jack more lively. Here the most mundane 9-to-5 job can lead to a rowdy romp that's sure to leave people talking by the water coolers.

Rinda Sue McCarthy, born at the precise moment the atomic bomb burst over Hiroshima, sits in a Mexican jail awaiting execution by firing squad. As the Mexican soldiers practice their marksmanship outside her cell, she writes her confession: a tale of the crimes committed against her by the leaders of a Conspiracy She Is Not At Liberty To Name, and her murderous, but utterly apt revenge. Who are They? Old boyfriends, professors, doctors, her former husband.

By beginning a conversation that encourages self-examination and compassion, Combined Destinies invites listeners to look at how white Americans have been hurt by the very ideology that their ancestors created. Editors Ann Todd Jealous and Caroline T. Haskell, both experienced psychotherapists skilled at facilitating dialogue about racial issues, are cognizant of the challenges that even the thought of such conversations often presents. Their book is based on the premise that for positive and lasting change to occur, hearts as well as minds must be opened.

Gwendolyn Golden and Armand Leopold have been America's go-to couple for home decorating tips, letting the cameras into their So Perfect house, their So Perfect life, their So Perfect marriage. One problem: It's all an act. Actually, two problems: America just found out it's all an act. When a picture of Armand kissing another man hits the newsstands, everyone knows the jig is up. Both are evicted from their home and eviscerated by the press.