Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Pickens" in All Categories

Marcie, Maggie, and Diane all have one thing in common: Dan McKenzie, an unscrupulous man who uses women. His motto in life is "Lie, cheat, and steal". He faked his death and tried to frame Maggie's husband with his murder. He blackmailed Marcie to run drugs for him. And Diane, a cop, had to stand by, knowing he was responsible for planting drugs in her partner's locker. He's always walked away scot free. Until now.

In this chilling novella from Tyler Jones, author of Midas, Heavy Oceans, Criterium, and Burn the Plans (one of Esquire Magazine's Best Horror Books of 2022), a pediatrician finds herself not only haunted, but stalked by her mistakes. A dark and terrifying exploration of guilt, and the ways in which regrets and secrets can define our lives in unexpected and horrifying ways.

Most cops have a past. A past they can speak of. A past they can share. But not Diane.... That is until one night a body is discovered on the highway close to her home. But Diane Larsen, a tough cop chick who has had to prove herself over and over to the cops she works with, is ordered by her new boss to investigate the one case that could be her undoing.

In We Got This, 75 solo mom writers tell the truth about their lives—their hopes and fears, their resilience and setbacks, their embarrassments and triumphs. Some of these writers’ names will sound familiar, like Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Alexander, while others are about to become unforgettable. Bound together by their strength, pride, and—most of all— dedication to their children, they broadcast a universal and empowering message: "You are not alone, solo moms—and your tenacity, courage, and fierce love are worthy of celebration."

Her assignments were always to kill someone. That's what a hitman—or hitwoman—is paid to do—and that is what she does. Then comes a surprise assignment—keep someone alive! She is hired to protect Virginia Martin, the stunning and brilliant chief technology officer of a hot startup with an innovation that will change the world. This new job catches her at a time in her life when she's disillusioned, even depressed. She's confused about the “why”, but she addresses her charge as she always does, with skill and stealth, determined to keep this young CTO alive.

Described by Jeffrey Masson as "the single best introduction to animal rights ever written, Tom Regan's Empty Cages stands as an essential guide to the ongoing animal rights debate. In a style at once simple and elegant, Regan dispels the negative image of animal rights advocates as portrayed by the mass media, unmasks the fraudulent rhetoric of "humane treatment" favored by animal exploiters in both familiar and less well-documented contexts, and explains why existing laws function to legitimize institutional cruelty.

Diana Bellatrix has discovered the truth. She is the last surviving heir of the Athens throne, and the reason the Netherportal remains open. In her guilt, she leaves Afterlife Academy with the conviction of eradicating the curse on her bloodline and restoring the Overworld. In need of an army, she returns to her homeland to prove she is a worthy successor. And while queen Minerva accepts, it is with contempt and suspicion, for she has not forgotten the treachery of her son.

Emily Scott is a stand-up comedian and one-time bank robber who came into possession of knowledge that could get her killed. She knows the identity of Big Wheel. When presented with a chance to run away with a bag full of cash, she didn’t hesitate. But now pout on the road she’s stuck between two worlds. After spending 20 years getting good at one thing, and building her identity around it, can she abandon all that work and become someone new? And what happens when she finds out Chloe Medina is on her tail, the hot girl who broke her nose at high school after one kiss?

Theatrical gender-bending, also called drag, is a popular form of entertainment and a subject of scholarly study. However, most drag studies do not question the standard words and ideas used to convey this performance genre. Drawing on a rich body of archival and ethnographic research, Meredith Heller illuminates diverse examples of theatrical gender-bending.

Diane Williams, "godmother of flash fiction" (The Paris Review), returns with thirty-three brilliant short stories. In Williams's stories, life is newly alive and dangerous; whether she is writing about an affair, a request for money, an afternoon in a garden, or the simple act of carrying a cake from one room to the next, she offers us beautiful and unsettling new ways of seeing everyday life.

In her work as a 'death doula', Clover Brooks ushers people peacefully through their last days, collecting their final words into three notebooks: ADVICE, CONFESSIONS and REGRETS. But Clover spends so much time with the dying that she's forgotten how to live . . . Can her clients' hard-won wisdom - and the inspiring love story of a spirited old woman named Claudia - show Clover the way to a happy ending After all, what's the point of giving someone a beautiful death if you can't give yourself a beautiful life?

To be a bookseller or librarian...you have to play detective. Be a treasure hunter. A matchmaker. A brilliant listener. A person who creates a kind of magic by pulling a book from a shelf, handing it to someone and saying, 'You've got to read this. You're going to love it'. In this love letter to the heroes of literacy, James Patterson uncovers true stories from booksellers and librarians.

Longtime bachelor Ron Burley has a rule against messing around with married women in his rural upstate New York town, but sassy, lovely Lavender has convinced him to break it. Their steamy affair sets someone off, but it isn't Lavender's clueless husband—it's Marta, Burley's clingy childhood friend and ex-lover.

Ex-military operative Lottie Nightshade is enjoying civilian life helping her widowed sister raise three teenagers. When a last-minute job interview turns out to be blackmail, her peaceful days are over. Lottie is given two choices, and the least deplorable of them is doing wetwork for an eccentric millionaire.

In December 1935, Zdenek Koubek, one of the most famous sprinters in European women’s sports, declared he was now living as a man. Around the same time, the celebrated British field athlete Mark Weston, also assigned female at birth, announced that he, too, was a man. Periodicals and radio programs across the world carried the news; both became global celebrities. A few decades later, they were all but forgotten. In The Other Olympians, Michael Waters uncovers, for the first time, the gripping true stories of Koubek, Weston, and other pioneering trans and intersex athletes from their era.

Inspired by his journals and writing, this moving novel inhabits the life and mind of renowned nineteenth-century naturalist, poet and abolitionist Henry David Thoreau, revealing the deep connections between his time and our own. Composed in short, compelling scenes, Followed by the Lark is a novel of significant moments in a life, capturing loss, change and the danger and healing that come from communion with the natural world, set against a backdrop of great change and tumult in America.

Building on years of deep reporting, Pulitzer Prize-winner Eliza Griswold paints an intimate portrait of pastors and church members' desperate wrestling to find a way to remain together despite their dividing truths. Through generational rifts, an increasingly politicised religious landscape, a pandemic and a rise in foundation-shaking activism, Circle of Hope tells a propulsive, layered story of what we do to stay true to our beliefs. It is a soaring, searing examination of what it means for a community to love, to grow, and crucially to disagree.

When true crime podcaster Harley Granger drifts into The Next Chapter Bookshop days before Christmas, he seems intent on digging up events that store owner Madeline Martin would much rather forget. Granger has a gift for seeing things that others miss, and his work on true crime has earned him fame and wealth — and some serious criticism for his various unethical practices. Looking into Madeline’s case, a case that many people think is closed but some want reopened, he has a lot of questions about the night Madeline was left for dead on the riverbank, nearly a decade ago.

It’s been fourteen years since Greer’s older sister Eliza was murdered. Her family has never been the same. Nor has the small town of Ludlow. The killer was convicted and executed but another body has been found. A copycat, according to the authorities, but Greer is convinced there is more to the story. And she is returning to Ludlow in search of the truth.

A young woman returns home to the small claustrophobic town of Knife River. When Jess was thirteen, her mother went for a walk and did not return - now, fifteen years later, bones have been discovered in the woods nearby. Jess's sister has remained in their childhood home - her life, their home and the town itself seemingly frozen in time. As days turn into weeks, Jess's understanding of the past, her sister, and herself become more and more complicated - and the list of suspects responsible for her mother's terrible fate more and more ominous.