Showing results by narrator "Carrington MacDuffie" in All Categories

Enter the city of Hart's Hope, ruled by gods both powerful and indifferent, riddled with sorcery and revenge. The city was captured by a rebellious lord, Palicrovol, who overthrew the cruel king, Nasilee, hated by his people. Palicrovol, too, was cruel, as befitted a king. He took the true mantle of kinghood by forcing Asineth, now Queen by her father's death, to marry him, raping her to consummate the marriage.

Whether it is sex, drugs, or infatuation with the occult, Mrs. Manford and her extended family of socialites are determined to escape the pain, boredom, and emptiness of life through whatever form of “twilight sleep” they can devise or procure. Far ahead of its time, this Wharton classic employed modernist techniques such as an ever changing narration among the novel’s characters and a close examination of the characters’ self-identities and relationships with one another to tell a tale rich with irony and wit about the upper crust’s own undoing.

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.

Lamour Harrington, a recent widow, has immersed herself in landscape architecture, but even creating beautiful outdoor rooms can't bring back her happiness. When she's faced with a devastating truth about the husband she adored, Lamour returns to the house on the Amalfi coast where she'd lived with her father during the happiest years of her childhood. There, she finds dangerous secrets, breathtaking beauty, two mysterious and compelling men, and the courage to live life to the fullest.

Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life.

Travis Morgan’s case seems open and shut: A plot to kill his estranged father, fundamentalist preacher Arlie Morgan, goes awry and his bullet slays an innocent bookkeeper. Two eyewitnesses seal Travis’ fate. But despite damning evidence and an admitted hatred of his father, Travis staunchly maintains his innocence. Beseeched by his anguished mother, veteran defense attorney Barbara Holloway agrees to represent Travis. With the support of her father, attorney Frank Holloway, and crack private investigator Bailey, Barbara reveals a zealot, his ultrarich backers, and unimaginable atrocities.

When singer, musician, and broadcast journalist Malka Marom had the opportunity to interview Joni Mitchell in 1973, she was eager to reconnect with the performer that she'd first met late one night in 1966 at a Yorkville coffeehouse. More conversations followed over the next four decades of friendship, and it was only after Joni and Malka completed their last recorded interview, in 2012, that Malka discovered the heart of their discussions: the creative process.

Blending her own experiences with an intimate grasp of spirituality, Sue Monk Kidd relates the passionate and moving tale of her spiritual crisis, when life seemed to have lost meaning and her longing for a hasty escape from the pain yielded to a discipline of "active waiting." Full of wisdom, poise, and grace, Kidd’s words will encourage us along our spiritual journey, toward becoming who we truly are.

Being trapped in a bedroom with a woman is a grand thing. Being trapped in hundreds of bedrooms over two thousand years isn't. And being cursed into a book as a love-slave for eternity can ruin even a Spartan warrior's day. As a love-slave, I know everything about women. How to touch them, how to savor them, and most of all, how to pleasure them. But when I was summoned to fulfill Grace Alexander's sexual fantasies, I found the first woman in history who saw me as a man with a tormented past. She alone bothered to take me out of the bedroom and onto the world. She taught me to love again.

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.

Delaney Nichols has settled so comfortably into her new life in Edinburgh that she truly feels it's become more home than her once beloved Kansas. Her job at the Cracked Spine, a bookshop that specializes in rare manuscripts as well as other sundry valuable historical objects, is everything she had dreamed. Her latest task includes a trip to Castle Doune to retrieve a hard-to-find edition of an old Scottish comic, an "Oor Wullie", in a cloak-and-dagger transaction that Edwin has orchestrated.

Detective Sarah Cuddahy lost her daughter five years ago. Work is all she has left and right now, she has six missing children on her case board. She's hoping for a miracle. She desperately needs a break in this case. Having her estranged husband, FBI Agent Tom Cuddahy, show up and take the case in a whole new direction isn't the miracle she'd expected. Each time she looks into his eyes, all she can see is the truth - they lost their little girl because Sarah made a mistake.

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.

Elizabeth Kurtz has taken her small son and fled her ex-husband and his mother after finding a file of explosive material incriminating the family. Although the wealthy family employs a detective agency to find her, she manages to elude them. When Elizabeth finally contacts Barbara Holloway for help, the defense attorney finds the woman dead.

Since opening up their day spa, The Haven, the wonderful women of the Hot Flash Club have been busy indulging the beleaguered, nerve-frazzled throngs. Now, in Nancy Thayer's hilarious new Hot Flash novel, it's the friends' turn to grab some soothing, and much-deserved R&R.

Enter the world of the rich charismatic Lytton family and their powerful publishing empire in this passionate family saga, spanning the Edwardian era to World War I and the excesses of the glamorous 20s. Enter the world of Celia Lytton, a woman who is used to getting her way. She moves through life making difficult and often dangerous decisions that affect herself and others.

Happily-ever-after turned upside down, inside out, and completely over the top! Christian is gaga for Princess Marigold. He's just a commoner, though, and no match for royalty. Heck, he lives in a cave with a troll! And now he's discovered another reason to put his love-soggy heart on ice: Queen Olympia is scheming to take over the kingdom, and she'll bump off Marigold to do it! Can Chris foil her diabolical plans?

Amy Alkon presents Unf*ckology, a "science-help" book that knocks the self-help genre on its unscientific ass. You can finally stop fear from being your boss and put an end to your lifelong social suckage. Have you spent your life shrinking from opportunities you were dying to seize but feel "that's just who I am"? Well, screw that! You actually can change, and it doesn't take exceptional intelligence or a therapist who's looking forward to finally buying Aruba after decades of listening to you yammer on.

In 1971, Hillary Rodham is a young woman full of promise: Life magazine has covered her Wellesley commencement speech, she’s attending Yale Law School, and she’s on the forefront of student activism and the women’s rights movement. And then she meets Bill Clinton. A handsome, charismatic southerner and fellow law student, Bill is already planning his political career. In each other, the two find a profound intellectual, emotional, and physical connection that neither has previously experienced.

Gail Sheehy’s classic bestseller, Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life, is available with a new introduction. For decades, Passages has been inspiring audiences to see the predictable crises of adult life as opportunities for growth. She charts the stages between 18 and 50 as unfolding in a pattern of adult development: once recognized, more easily managed.