Showing results by narrator "Xe Sands" in All Categories

It's the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is about to take a walk. As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents to be in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest paid advertising woman in America - a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.

As witch and vintage store owner Lily Ivory steps into her new role as leader of the Bay Area's magical community, she's faced with a mysterious death of magical proportions....

Jamie Valentine is the wildly successful author of self-help books advocating transparency in every relationship. But when her widowed mother passes away unexpectedly, Jamie discovers that her own life has been based on a lie. Angry and deeply betrayed, she sets out to find the truth - which may be in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay.

Up-and-coming artist Lisbeth Parker finally has a chance to show the folks back home what it means to leave Cannonball Island and make something of yourself. As a native whose stubborn father forbade her from befriending townies, Lis always felt like an outsider in St. Dennis. So while her work is on display in the local art gallery, she records her ailing centenarian great-grandmother's stories of the island's rich history and spearheads a fight for its survival.

In the glittering city state of Volun, Lorelei Steddart never thought she'd be anything but an office drone—until her family all die under mysterious and likely magical circumstances, leaving her to inherit everything. To figure out what's happened, her uncle marries her off to the city state's top War Alchemist, Nephele Corisande, an intimidating older woman who might just be able to save her.

When Lynn and her husband set out for a weekend retreat to repair their rocky marriage, icy roads lead to a fatal collision that ends Lynn's life. Stranded between the physical world and the afterlife, Lynn experiences the grief of her loved ones as they process her death. Lynn's lifelong friends are tortured by not only loss but also unspoken wounds in their friendship. With clever influences from above, Lynn coaxes them to reunite at a beachside cottage on the one-year anniversary of her death.

Dr. Renee Caisson never expected that her scientific expertise would lead to a role playing interpreter between humans and the demonic-looking Neighbors. When the door between their worlds opened, she was drafted by the government to study the otherworldly beings and was able to prove her theory: the Neighbors had been to Earth before—and now they simply wanted to save their dying planet.

Raffi works in an observational cosmology lab, searching for dark matter and trying to hide how little they understand their own research. Every chance they get, they escape to see Britt, a queer sculptor who fascinates them for reasons they also don’t—or won’t—understand. As Raffi’s carefully constructed life begins to collapse, they become increasingly fixated on the multiverse and the idea that somewhere, there might be a universe where they mean as much to Britt as she does to them…and just like that, Raffi and Britt are thirteen years old, best friends and maybe something more.

Word has spread that contractor Mel Turner can communicate with the spirits of the dead, and she's having a hard time maintaining a low profile. She decides to embrace her reputation for the chance to restore a historic house that calls to her. The new owners, who hope to run a haunted bed-and-breakfast, want Mel to encourage the ghosts that supposedly roam the halls to enhance the house's paranormal charm. The catch: Mel has to spend one night in the house to win the project.

The unexpected happens in an instant. On her way to work, secretary Docia Waverley hurtles into a crashing crossroads, and she quickly begins to suspect that things will never be the same. Then, when a tall, blond, muscular stranger intervenes on her behalf, telling her it is his duty to protect her at all cost, what is just a feeling turns to proof positive. That is, as long as Docia's savior doesn't turn out to be a crazed kidnapper.... When Ram finds Docia, he has no doubt that she is his queen.

Class does make a difference in the lives and futures of American children. Drawing on in-depth observations of black and white middle-class, working-class, and poor families, Unequal Childhoods explores this fact, offering a picture of childhood today. Here are the frenetic families managing their children's hectic schedules of "leisure" activities; and here are families with plenty of time but little economic security.

Pen Yas ben Min’s cousin was one of the legendary heroes of the wars against the giants until her untimely death. Pen has grown up in her famous cousin’s shadow, but when she’s given a quest to plant the seed of the magical Fourth Tree, she has a chance to step into the light—and usher in a new age for her country.

Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group's ringleaders - including Eve, who narrates the story - decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.

Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a seventeen-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses.

Because Plath drew so heavily on her own life in both her poetry and her fiction, the outlines of her life are familiar to listeners. Like most writers, Plath changed the facts of her life in her writing. In her determination to be both wife and mother, on the one hand, and teacher and writer on the other, Plath tried simultaneously to fulfill and to fight the conventions that bound women in the 1950s. In this biography, the first to draw on unpublished journals and letters recently made available, Wagner-Martin examines the ironies, contradictions, and achievements of Plath's life.

The global fiction sensation - published in 32 countries around the world: Meet Doris, a 96-year-old woman living alone in her Stockholm apartment. She has few visitors, but her weekly Skype calls with Jenny - her American grandniece, and her only relative - give her great joy and remind her of her own youth. In writing down the stories of her colorful past - working as a maid in Sweden, modelling in Paris during the '30s, fleeing to Manhattan at the dawn of the Second World War - she may help Jenny, haunted by a difficult childhood, unlock the secrets of their family....

The Voucher Promise examines the Housing Choice Voucher Program, colloquially known as "Section 8", and how it shapes the lives of families living in a Baltimore neighborhood called Park Heights. Eva Rosen tells stories about the daily lives of homeowners, voucher holders, renters who receive no housing assistance, and the landlords who provide housing.

Anxiety is the number one mental health problem facing young people today. Childhood should be a happy and carefree time, yet more and more children today are exhibiting symptoms of anxiety, from bedwetting and clinginess to frequent stomach aches, nightmares, and even refusing to go to school. Parents everywhere want to know: All children have fears, but how much is normal?

Jules Monroe is a woman whose hard work and dedication has built a rewarding life for herself and her family. Now in her late 50s, she gives selflessly to her husband, kids, community, and their charter business. But everything comes to an abrupt halt when her body says enough, and her mind yearns for respite and a place to hide from past hurts. Oldest son, Jonah Monroe, is a veteran haunted by a childhood tragedy. His past includes things he isn't proud of and can't quite shake. When his chance to be a hero finally arrives, it comes with strings attached.

Three women, from coast to coast and in between, open their mailboxes to the same intriguing invitation. Although leading entirely different lives, each has found herself at a similar, jarring crossroads. Right when these women thought they’d be comfortably settling into middle age, their carefully curated futures have turned out to be dead ends.