Showing results by narrator "Erin Bennett" in All Categories

We humans tend to think that we are unique in our intelligence, social skill, and depth of emotion, but we think too much of ourselves. The animal kingdom teems with hidden stories of the weird and fascinating, and in Amazing Animals, we gather recent research on animal behavior, including surprising discoveries of how animals think and feel, from man’s best friend to some of the earth’s oddest creatures.

When Jesse Crane returned to his roots to serve on the Miccosukee police force, he'd hoped to leave behind the violence of the city and the memories of his murdered wife. But bodies start to pile up in Jesse's corner of the sultry Florida swampland. As he probes these crimes, Jesse is drawn to the beautiful Lorena Fortier, a new hire at the local gator farm and research facility. Lorena is a little too interested in Jesse's investigation, but before he can uncover her true motives, they're both pulled into a dangerous web of greed, ambition, and animal cunning.

The story of Amy Biehl is well known in South Africa. The 26-year-old white American Fulbright scholar was brutally murdered on August 25, 1993, during the final, fiery days of apartheid by a mob of young black men in a township outside Cape Town. Her parents' forgiveness of two of her killers became a symbol of the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa. Justine van der Leun decided to introduce the story to an American audience. But as she delved into the case, the prevailing narrative started to unravel.

Beth Lisick started out as a homecoming princess with a Crisco-aided tan and a bad perm. And then everything changed. Plunging headlong into America's deepest subcultures, while keeping both feet firmly planted in her parents' Leave It to Beaver values, Lisick makes her adult home on the fringe of mainstream culture and finds it rich with paradox and humor. Fans of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell will relish Lisick's scathingly funny, smart, very real take on the effluvia of daily living.

Preslee Owens has never worked out in a gym before. Like truly never. Until today. As she struggles to stay upright on the stair climber, she accidentally broadcasts a vlog that lets complete strangers - and even worse, people in her own small town - witness the hilarious start to her fitness journey. To her surprise and mortification, viewers love it. The positive reaction leaves Preslee with no choice but to return - and the discovery that her unrequited crush, Josh, works out in the same gym is a big bonus.

The Buchanan sisters share everything - including their inherited Juniper Inn. But when their mother won’t let go of a decades-long feud with their aunt Sassy to attend the inn’s grand reopening, the sisters decide a family reunion is long overdue.

We know that our material comforts and temporal accomplishments are not enough to fully satisfy us. Momentary pleasures, whether of pure or darker motivations, are fleeting at best. But Christians often hear the idea that following Jesus means that we should be living a life of full satisfaction. How many of us actually experience that kind of life? Amy Simpson wants to debunk this satisfaction myth in the church. After 40 years of walking with Jesus, she writes, "I am deeply unsatisfied not only with my ability to reflect Jesus, but also with the very quality of my intimacy with him."

A lush, glittering short story collection exploring female obsession and desire by an award-winning author Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller." From Kentucky to the California desert, these 42 short stories - ranging from the '80s and '90s to present day - expose the hearts of girls and women in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness, and more.

Crime reporter Britt Montero's dreams have been haunting her. She had to shoot a man to save her own life, and the memory of it is torturing her. Meanwhile, a major Hollywood actor strides into the newsroom - and Britt's life - hoping to do research for the character he portrays: a secret agent undercover as a Miami crime reporter. An obsessed madwoman stalks the star, and mysterious mishaps, accidents, and deaths push Britt and the star closer together. Both are menaced by the stalker. Or is it someone else who is determined to sabotage the film and kill the star?

When she finds out her husband cheated, Hannah Bent thinks her marriage is over. Isn’t that what happens after an affair? But she’s seen friends divorce, and it’s not pretty. Plus, she and Joel have kids and an otherwise-happy life, and she still loves him, although begrudgingly. Furious and feeling stuck, she suggests having her own affair to even the score. Joel, desperate for forgiveness, agrees. But does she really want to go through with it? And how exactly does a married mother of two get back in the dating pool?

Suburban soccer mom Amy has always wanted to stand out from the crowd. Former child prodigy Linnie just wants to fit in. The two sisters have been estranged for years, but thanks to a series of personal crises and their wily grandmother, they've teamed up to enter a national bake-off in the hopes of winning some serious cash. Armed with the top-secret recipe for Grammy's apple pie, they should be unstoppable. Sure, neither one of them has ever baked anything more complicated than brownie mix, but it's just pie - how hard could it be?

Isabelle and Jean-Claude undertake an airship expedition to recover a fabled treasure and claim a hitherto undiscovered craton for l'Empire Celeste. But Isabelle, as a result from a previous attack that tried to subsume her body and soul, suffers from increasingly disturbing and disruptive hallucinations. Disasters are compounded when the ship is sabotaged by an enemy agent, and Jean-Claude is separated from the expedition.

He thinks he's finally found the one. Mitch Mathews never believed in love - at least not the happily-ever-after kind. Then he met Simone Conners. One night with the sexy lawyer made him reevaluate his priorities and look toward a future he never planned. The only hang-up is making her see it too. She's almost ready for a second chance. What started out as a casual hook-up with a rugged geologist has turned into something a whole lot more.

Twenty-eight-year-old struggling San Francisco artist Anne McFarland is determined to get a one-woman show, even though no one, including herself, believes she can do it. But when she buys a coat at a thrift shop with a key in its pocket, strange, even magical, occurrences begin to unfold, and she is inspired to create her best work ever.

Julie Halpern's Maternity Leave tells the profane, profound, and just plain funny story of a professional woman who thinks she's ready for a baby, but her maternity leave proves otherwise. Thirty-six-year-old Annie Schwartz-Jensen is a middle-school teacher on maternity leave - a time she imagined as uninterrupted, blissful bonding with her baby. Instead she is dealing with her body leaking from every possible orifice, a baby who won't sleep, a husband who still wants to have sex with her (is he nuts?), and single friends who are clueless.

For four years, play-by-the-rules bank teller Turner Hastings has brooded over her uncle's wrongful imprisonment. But when two bumbling crooks stumble into her branch (barely disguised in Yoda and Sponge Bob masks) and hold up the place, she sees a chance to do something she's never thought possible: Get revenge. She takes advantage of the melee to pull a heist of her own, seizing info from a security box that will exonerate her uncle.

"Do I have enough friends?" "Why did my friendship end?" and "What makes a good friendship work?" These are questions that F. Diane Barth, a psychotherapist widely recognized for her expertise in women's relationships, fields all the time. In I Know How You Feel, she draws out engaging stories from a lively and diverse cast of women, many of whom speak about feelings they haven't shared before.

In the wake of a tragedy that tore her life down to its foundations, Dr. Alison McAdams has lost her way. So when she's summoned to Napa to care for her ailing father, she's not sure she has anything to offer him - or anyone else. What Ali finds in Northern California wine country is a gift, an opportunity to rest, and distance from her painful memories. In a quest to discover the truth about another woman's lost love, she sets off on a journey across oceans and deep into history. And in making sense of that long-ago tragedy, Ali is able to put together the broken pieces of her heart.

Having abandoned her childhood dream years ago, Johanna Thatcher knows what she wants from life. Discovering that her fiancé was cheating on her only convinces Johanna it's best to maintain control and protect her heart. Despite years of distance and friction, Johanna and her sisters, Jillian and Payton, have moved from a truce toward a fragile friendship. But then Johanna reveals she has the one thing Jillian wants most and may never have - and Johanna doesn't want it.

Sarah Beauhall is a blacksmith, has a night job as a props manager for a low-budget movie, and spends her free time fighting in a medieval re-enactment group. Her world falls apart when she discovers that dragons are real and live among us as shapeshifters; in fact, it is they who have been the secret masters of our world from time immemorial. On top of all this, it appears that Sarah has managed to reforge an ancient sword that everyone suddenly wants...