Showing results by narrator "Carrington MacDuffie" in All Categories

Dara Willcox, in New York for a weekend, meets Austin Clarke at an art gallery. The two are on different courses-Austin is British, temporarily in New York. Dara's from North Carolina, set on law school. They fall in love at first sight, and are determined to make their lives together. Days after their engagement dinner, Austin hears unsettling news from London that wrecks their plans. Dara abruptly cancels the wedding. She refuses to reveal why, not even to her best friends or her parents or grandmother, disrupting their family tradition of openness.

For Lucy Jane Bledsoe, wilderness had always been a source of peace. But during one disastrous solo trip in the wintry High Sierra she came face to face with a crisis: the wilderness no longer felt like home. The Ice Cave recounts Bledsoe's wilderness journeys as she recovers her connection with the wild and discovers the meanings of fear and grace.

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.

Enidina Current and Mary Morrow live on neighboring farms in the flat, hard country of the upper Midwest during the early 1900s. This hardscrabble life comes easily to some, like Eddie, but for the deeply religious Mary, farming is at odds with her more cosmopolitan inclinations. Still, Mary creates a clean and orderly home life for her stormy husband, Jack, and her sons, while she adapts to the isolation of a rural town through the inspiration of a local preacher.

One Fifth Avenue is THE building - the chicest, the hottest, with all the best people. Within its luxuriously thick walls the lives of New York City's elite play out. There is Schiffer Diamond, an over-40 actress who had given up making movies and moved to Europe, until the call to come home gave her the chance to prove that women of style are truly ageless. And there is spoiled, self-assured Lola, whose mother is determined to launch her darling daughter into society and the arms of the right man by clawing her way into the building.

Ollie doesn't see things the same way everybody else does (and he certainly doesn't see things the same way his older sister does). Instead of cars in traffic, Ollie sees a circus parade. Instead of cows grazing in a field, Ollie sees deadly bison with sharp horns and hooves. And at school, instead of letters on the board, Ollie sees birds with pointy beaks and fish with flapping tails in the big blue sea. Ollie knows he doesn't need glasses because he likes the world better the way he sees it. But will his parents and bossy sister see things his way?

Ida grew up with Jackson and James - where there was “I” there was a “J.” She can’t recall a time when she didn’t have them around, whether in their early days camping out in the boys’ room decorated with circus scenes, or later as teenagers when they were drinking on rooftops. While the world outside saw them as neighbors and friends, to each other the three formed a family unit - two brothers and a sister - not drawn from blood but from a deep need to fill a void in their single-parent households.

Everyone around Prudence Whistler, 36, seems to be settling down. Her once single girlfriends have lately married and had babies. Her gay best friend is discussing marriage with his partner. Even her irresponsible sister is the single mother of a two-year-old. Setting about redesigning her life, Pru finds herself accumulating an unusal ad hoc family around her, both within her crowded apartment and in the broader community of Adams-Morgan of Washington, D.C.

Meet Alexandra, a small-town Texas girl turned fashion correspondent for the respected British Weekly. She wears all the right designers and knows all the right people, but can her reputation survive a collision with a six-foot-plus model at the Chanel Show? The fall has been splashed across every newspaper and television set in the world, it seems, and Alex has sworn to adopt status incognito. But there's one small problem.

In the idyllic small town of Tucker, Vermont, life flows at a rhythmic pace for pediatrician Paige Pfeiffer. But when Mara O'Neill, her best friend and medical partner, inexplicably kills herself, Paige's comfortable world is suddenly shattered. Temporarily caring for Mara's newly adopted baby daughter while she comes to grips with her grief, Paige clings to the hope that, in time, her orderly life will return.

A posh New York apartment building on Park Avenue is home to the rich and famous: Sidney Sapphire, the blond anchorwoman of ABC News; Angela Somoza, the gorgeous Nicaraguan jet-setter; Bob Horowitz, the former chairman of the United Jewish Appeals; and the usual collection of banking and industrial CEOs, Wall Street magnates, and white-haired philanthropists. Vinnie Ferretti, the Brooklyn-born doorman, joins the ranks when he becomes a major fashion designer.

Summer Lightning by Roberta Silman is a dazzling new historical novel that tells the story of an immigrant Jewish family from the challenging prewar years all the way through to the Kennedy assassination. Silman’s captivating characters take risks as they strengthen their ties to those they left behind in Europe, and to the dazzling Manhattan art scene of the '50s and '60s, and the Black community.

Lillian Curtis, a 30-something high-powered New York City television producer, finds her past and present colliding when she moves back in with her parents after a devastating divorce. There, in her old room, time seems frozen in 1988, with a Rick Springfield tape still on her dresser and Duran Duran posters hanging on the wall.

In the summer of 1959, as Castro clamps down on Cuba and its first wave of exiles flees to the States to wait out what they hope to be his short-lived reign, Emma Gant, fresh out of college, begins her career as a reporter. Her fierce ambition and belief in herself are set against the stories swirling around her, both at the newspaper office and in her downtown Miami hotel, which is filling up with refugees.

Four years ago, Emily Locke's life was shattered when her infant daughter and husband were lost in an inexplicable accident. She has nearly rebuilt her fragile mental health when a disgraced former police detective, now working as a private investigator, resurfaces to ask for help in reconnaissance at a Texas skydiving establishment. Emily hesitates to work with Richard Cole again, but she finds she can't refuse when she learns that the case involves a missing boy.

Multi award-winning narrator Carrington MacDuffie brings her signature depth and wit to this delightful collection of Edith Wharton’s New York Stories: Volume II.

With her chance at the U.S. equestrian team shattered by an injury, Sydney Wellesley arrives at the Lazy Windmill ranch angry and heartbroken. But the rugged red bluffs and wild high plains of the Black Hills inspire her to purchase land where she can train her own Olympic hopefuls. Everything's going according to Sydney's new life plan - until her funding suddenly dries up.

Julia Longley is determined not to repeat her mother's mistake and marry the wrong guy. She thinks she has found the perfect one in Nick - a handsome, charming, and successful star reporter for the newspaper where Julia is a photojournalist. But when her coverage of a tragic and bloody accident leaves her in a temporary state of blindness, Nick is anything but loving and supportive, and Julia must search alone for a career more suited to her. Her choice: go back to school and get a degree in counseling.

Panache, an exuberant road gypsy, is on her way to the mountains. Benjamin Pencil, the man with the glass heart, has no use for mountains. But their paths cross, their lives intertwine, and Benjamin follows her up, up, up to where hills are smothered in poppies and a man can reach out and write his name in the sky. As they travel, they first encounter the beautiful but predatory Woman with the Breeding, a collector of hearts who tries to add Benjamin’s exquisite heart to her pitiable hoard. Next they meet the malicious Laughing Man, who lives only to create fear and kill dreams.

A widow in her mid-thirties, Alison has been in mourning for two years. She lives in West Virginia with her sister and brother-in-law, and they are urging her to get on with her life and move back home. Alison promises to leave, just as soon as she renovates a nearly ruined 1976 Corvette rusting in their garage. Problem is, she doesn't know the first thing about cars.