Showing results by narrator "Carrington Macduffie" in All Categories

Perle Mesta was a force to be reckoned with. In her heyday, this wealthy globe-trotting Washington widow was one of the most famous women in America, garnering as much media attention as Eleanor Roosevelt. Renowned for her world-class parties featuring politicians and celebrities, she was very close to three presidents–Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson. Truman named her as the first female envoy to Luxembourg, which inspired the hit musical based on Perle’s life – “Call Me Madam” – which starred Ethel Merman, ran on Broadway for two years and later became a movie.

Meet Noah - an A-honor-roll student, award-winning swimmer, and small-town star destined for greatness. There weren't any signs that something was wrong until the day he confesses to molesting little girls during swim-team practice. He's sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile sexual-rehabilitation center. His mother, Adrianne, refuses to turn her back on him despite his horrific crimes, but her husband won't allow Noah back into their home.

On March 14, 1889, Susan La Flesche received her medical degree - becoming the first Native American doctor in US history. She earned her degree 31 years before women could vote and 35 years before Indians could become citizens in their own country. This is the story of an Indian woman who effectively became the chief of an entrenched patriarchal tribe, the story of a woman who crashed through thick walls of ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice and then spent the rest of her life using a unique bicultural identity to improve the lot of her people.

A woman ahead of her time, Mary Breydon knew how to get things done. Raised on a Virginia plantation, she learned how to care for livestock, respect her workers, and keep good books. But after her husband is killed, Mary must provide for her young daughter by running a stage coach station on the Cherokee Trail. With the help of an Irish maid and a mysterious stranger, Mary faces challenges that even the men eagerly anticipating her failure would have a difficult time overcoming.

Why do the Yankees always seem to win and the Red Sox fade? Why do companies such as Dell and Gillette never seem to lose their halo? What lessons does Nelson Mandela offer leaders in trouble spots like the Middle East. From sports to business and the most complicated political situations, a common element, a truth, persists: people succeed when leaders give them the confidence to do so.

In the bucolic mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, a young woman is found dead of a heroin overdose, her baby lying at her side. While this should be an open-and-shut drug case, restraint marks on the victim suggest that the death might not have been completely accidental.

The life of Yann Margoza, a striking and mysterious Gypsy boy, will begin the night he meets Sido, the shy heiress who possesses a cold-hearted father. While Revolution is afoot in France, Sido will be used as the pawn of a villain who goes by the name Count Kalliovski. Some have called him the devil, and only Yann will dare to oppose him.

Barbara Holloway is a low-key attorney in Eugene, Oregon, who left her father’s high-powered firm to handle small legal problems for local residents and ponder her next move. But while trying to sort out her own future, two people, desperate for help, show up on her doorstep: former pro football player Martin Owens and his wife, Binnie. Binnie, who is mute, met her husband when she sneaked aboard his boat while it was docked in Haiti and smuggled herself into the US.

Seventeen-year-old Haley McWaid is a good girl, the pride of her suburban New Jersey family, captain of the lacrosse team, headed off to college next year with all the hopes and dreams her doting parents can pin on her. Which is why, when her mother wakes one morning to find that Haley never came home the night before, and three months quickly pass without word from the girl, the community assumes the worst.

It’s the end of March, and Trafalgar, British Columbia, is preparing for the last influx of skiers for the season. Schools are closed for a week, with teachers, parents, and students preparing to relax at home or head out on vacation. But for Cathy Lindsay, the week of relaxation doesn’t work out as planned when she is gunned down by a sniper on the hiking trail high above town, her small dog the only witness. Cathy - a middle-aged, middle-class, small-town resident, high school English teacher, and married mother of two - is an unlikely candidate for a murderous ambush. As Sergeant John Winters begins his investigation, he finds himself frustrated at every turn.

Knit the Season is a loving, moving, laugh-out-loud celebration of special times with friends and family. The story begins a year after the end of Knit Two, with Dakota Walker's trip to spend the Christmas holidays with her Gran in Scotland, accompanied by her father, her grandparents, and her mother's best friend, Catherine. Together, they share a trove of happy memories about past Christmases.

Tamson House, in modern urban Ottawa, is a rambling, eccentric curiosity of a house - and a place of hidden power. Built at a point where the leylines meet, upon land that was once a sacred site, it is the gateway to a spirit world where Celtic and Native American magic mingle and leak into our own. In the overgrown garden of Tamson House, a Coyote Man waits, green children walk, and music rises to greet the moon. From the garden, a vast and primal wood is just one spirit-step away, and in that wood is something that threatens the very existence of Tamson House.

He is solitude. He is darkness. He is the ruler of the night. Yet Kyrian of Thrace has just woken up handcuffed to his worst nightmare: An accountant. Worse, she's being hunted by one of the most lethal vampires out there. And if Amanda Devereaux goes down, then he does too. But it's not just their lives that are hanging in the balance. Kyrian and Amanda are all that stands between humanity and oblivion. Let's hope they win.

In need of a good adventure, Delaney Nichols takes the leap and moves to Edinburgh, Scotland, to start a job at The Cracked Spine. She doesn't know much about what she's gotten herself into other than that the work sounds exciting and that her new boss, Edwin MacAlister, has given her the opportunity of a lifetime.

It started with a promise, a pact. It became a secret that no one must tell - that their parents were dead and gone, including the one they'd buried in the backyard.

Now the McNair children are growing older, discovering love, college, and careers. But their lie haunts them. Their home holds them captive. Only the horrifying truth of their mother's death can set the children free. And only the truth can destroy them all.

When his plane exploded off the coast of Maine, authorities thought they had seen the last of Teddy Fay - the ex-CIA tech wizard who kills his political targets for sport. But now they’ve found irrefutable evidence that he is alive and up to his old tricks. Now working for the CIA, ex-chief-of-police Holly Barker joins the elite task force tracking Fay in New York City. As he begins to pick off America’s enemies one by one, Holly unexpectedly finds herself face-to-face with the killer.

Emily Craig has been a witness to history, helping to seek justice for thousands of murder victims, both famous and unknown. It’s a personal story that you won’t soon forget. Emily first became intrigued by forensics work when, as a respected medical illustrator, she was called in by the local police to create a model of a murder victim’s face. Her fascination with that case led to a dramatic midlife career change: She would go back to school to become a forensic anthropologist - and one of the most respected and best-known “bone hunters” in the nation.

The intrepid women of The Hot Flash Club are back for the holidays, soothing jingled nerves and stressed shoppers in their exclusive spa and celebrating the joys of the season. In her witty and delightfully wisecracking prose, Nancy Thayer tells a heartwarming tale packed with fun, secrets, romance, and an ample dose of good cheer.

When her husband, Alan, is injured in a speedboat accident, Cathy Crimmins reluctantly assumes the role of caregiver and learns to cope with the person he has become. No longer the man who loved obscure Japanese cinema and wry humor, Crimmins’ husband has emerged from the accident a childlike and unpredictable replica of his former self with a short attention span and a penchant for inane cartoons. Where Is the Mango Princess? is a breathtaking account that explores the very nature of personality - and the complexities of the heart.

The heroic story of Pussy Riot, who resurrected the power of truth in a society built on lies. On February 21, 2012, five young women entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. In neon-colored dresses, tights, and balaclavas, they performed a “punk prayer” beseeching the “Mother of God” to “get rid of Putin.” They were quickly shut down by security, and in the weeks and months that followed, three of the women were arrested and tried, and two were sentenced to a remote prison colony. But the incident captured international headlines, and footage of it went viral.