Showing results by narrator "Joyce Bean" in All Categories

Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.

Jasmine and Camelia Rasheed grow to womanhood under the watchful eye of their grandmother inside the walls surrounding a beautiful house on Virgins of Paradise Street in exotic Cairo. They come of age in society in which the subjugation of women is assumed - they must wear veils, are forbidden to leave the house, have no independent rights, and are circumcised to ensure purity and obedience.

From the moment Martha and her husband, John, conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. But the dream had begun to disintegrate. Then, when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them not to keep the baby.

Growing up on Rainshadow, Charlotte Enright knew better than to ever go into the Preserve, until that one fateful night with Slade Attridge - a night neither of them would forget. Attridge - a night neither of them would forget. Now, 15 years later, both have returned to the island: Charlotte to take over her late aunt’s antiques shop and Slade to fill the police chief’s position. Able to read auras, Charlotte senses something amiss in Slade, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting him - again.

Searching for the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict, historians for years focused on the British Mandate period (1920-1948). Amy Dockser Marcus, however, demonstrates that the bloody struggle for power actually started much earlier, when Jerusalem was still part of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism laid the groundwork for the battles that would continue to rage nearly a century later.

“I want to talk to Smoky Barrett or I’ll kill myself.” The girl is sixteen, at the scene of a grisly triple homicide, and has a gun to her head. She claims “The Stranger” killed her adoptive family, that he’s been following her all her life, killing everyone she ever loved, and that no one believes her. No one has.

On a quest to find her sister's killer, Mac is a major player in a deadly game, but with one great advantage: she knows how to find the Sinsar Dubh, an ancient book of magic so dark it corrupts anyone who touches it. What Mac soon discovers is worse than she had imagined. Surrounded by treachery, her enemies indistinguishable from her allies, she can be certain of only one thing: as All Hallows' Eve approaches, her time is running out.

With the ability to detect the auras of dangerous psychic criminals, Rachel Bonner has found peace and quiet on Rainshadow Island with her dust bunny companion. Then Harry Sebastian, the descendant of a notorious pirate, arrives to investigate strange developments in the privately owned woods known as the Preserve. Rachel can sense the heart of darkness within him - and the stirrings of desire within her own soul….

The crime scene at St. Marguerite’s cathedral in New Orleans is shocking, even to seasoned detectives like Rick Bentz and Reuben Montoya. A novice nun named Sister Camille has been found dressed in a yellowed bridal gown and viciously garroted, her body covered with an altar cloth.Valerie Houston is devastated by her sister’s death. For weeks, she’d begged Camille to leave St. Marguerite’s, where she seemed determined to live as some kind of martyr. But Camille had a knack for making bad choices - she joined the convent in part because she’d fallen for Val’s soon-to-be ex-husband, Slade.

In the rural parishes of Louisiana's French Triangle, young women are disappearing one by one, only to turn up on the banks of the bayou, strangled and cast aside where they are sure to be found. But there is one trophy the killer prizes above all others, one woman who must be silenced forever.... Attorney Laurel Chandler did not come back to Bayou Breaux to seek justice. That once-burning obsession had destroyed her credibility, her career, her marriage - and nearly her sanity. But when a ruthless predator strikes too close to home, she's lured into a perverse game from which there may be no escape.

Avery Delaney's aunt Carolyn is certain her estranged husband sent her the reservation to the posh Utopia Spa in the mountains of Colorado. She figures it will be a welcome respite from the cutthroat advertising business, but Carolyn never makes it to Utopia. She's taken to an isolated retreat by a handsome stranger with a dazzling smile and the darkest of motives. His name is Monk, a hired assassin. Now, with scant clues and fewer resources, Avery must track down and save Carolyn.

With the ability to detect the auras of dangerous psychic criminals, Rachel Bonner has found peace and quiet on Rainshadow Island with her dust bunny companion. Then Harry Sebastian, the descendant of a notorious pirate, arrives to investigate strange developments in the privately owned woods known as the Preserve. Rachel can sense the heart of darkness within him – and the stirrings of desire within her own soul....

Practical, timely, relevant, and inspiring, 10 Mindful Minutes is Goldie Hawn's gift to parents who want to help their children learn better and live happier lives.

Dorina Basarab is a dhampir - the feared and hated cross between a vampire and a human - or so she has always believed. She spent most of her life on the fringes of her two worlds, yearning to belong to one or the other, but despised and distrusted by both. Recently, a war in the supernatural community allowed her to get a foothold into her vampire father's world, one of danger, intrigue, glitz, and glamour, where she found not only a home, but a lover, too. For the first time in centuries, life seemed to be going her way.

New Eden, Montana, is a piece of heaven on earth where one woman died in her own private hell. Now it’s up to ex-court reporter Marilee Jennings to decipher the puzzle of her best friend’s death. But someone has a stake in silencing her suspicion. Someone with secrets worth killing for - and the power to turn this beautiful haven into a...dark paradise.

In April 2004, soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division were on a routine patrol in Sadr City, Iraq, when they came under surprise attack. Eight Americans would be killed and more than 70 wounded. Back home, as news of the attack began filtering in, the families of these same men feared the worst. This intimate portrait of the close-knit community of families Stateside, the unsung heroes of the military, distinguishes The Long Road Home from other stories of modern warfare.

Dorina Basarab is a dhampir - half-human, half-vampire. As one of the Vampire Senate's newest members, Dory already has a lot on her plate. But then a relative of one of Dory's fey friends goes missing. They fear he's been sold to a slaver who arranges fights - sometimes to the death - between different types of fey. As Dory investigates, she and her friends learn the slavers are into something much bigger than a fight club.

This CliffsNotes study guide on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged supplements the original literary work, giving you background information about the author, an introduction to the work, and critical commentaries, all for you to use as an educational tool that will allow you to better understand the work.

Sonnet Romano’s life is almost perfect. She has the ideal career, the ideal boyfriend, and has just been offered a prestigious fellowship. There’s nothing more a woman wants - except maybe a baby...brother?When Sonnet finds out her mother is unexpectedly expecting, and that the pregnancy is high risk, she puts everything on hold - the job, the fellowship, the boyfriend - and heads home to Avalon. Once her mom is out of danger, Sonnet intends to pick up her life where she left off.

After three marriages and a lot of living, resilient Billie Slate knows exactly what trouble love can bring. Now she’s reinvented herself as the Heartbreak Bunny, an on-call performance artist who can heal anyone who’s been burned by that four-letter word, LOVE, by hopping about and whisking away sad mementos from their past relationships. Call it magic. Call it peculiar. But her bunny costume is as perfect as her breakup mantra: SNAP OUT OF IT.