Showing results by narrator "Diane" in All Categories

As one of the most famous women rulers in history, Russian Empress Catherine the Great has long been remembered not only as one of the most powerful women of her time, but she was also one of the most powerful and capable rulers in all of Europe. And her path to the throne was just as remarkable as her reign.

On the first day of school, 10-year-old Jeffrey and his six-year-old brother, Tyler, climbed out of the school bus at the foot of their driveway, walking into their home, excited about the first day of school. Instantly, their anticipation for the family back-to-school celebration turned to horror as they found their father murdered, stabbed and shot in a laundry room awash with blood. With a rush of adrenaline and terror, Jeffrey hid his younger brother, huddled behind the couch, and called 911 where his mother had worked for years.

It is summer in the south of France, and Pea and her little sister Margot spend their days running free, inventing games in the meadow behind their house. But Pea has worries beyond her five and a half years. Her father has died in an accident, and her mother has just lost a baby. Maman is English, already isolated in this small, foreign village, and in her compounded grief, she has retreated even further. Pea and Margot stay out of her way and try to make things better, but they can't make Maman happy again.

The legacy of Alexandra Ripley's Charleston lives on in this next installment in her Deep South saga. Let the passion, deception, secrets, and revenge creep under your skin like South Carolina heat as you plunge into this gripping novel of Southern intrigue.

Alex Cooper awakens one morning to news of her own brutal murder. Soon, Manhattan's top sex-crimes prosecutor discovers that the actual victim is film star Isabella Lascar, who had sought refuge at Alex's private retreat. Now it is up to Alex to find the killer before another victim surfaces.

One of the best mystery books of the 21st century, this volume features outstanding new stories of crime, derring-do, fast-paced adventures, and puzzles, featuring hardy amateur detectives ranging from young to old and grizzled private eyes whose patches cover the city streets, all in the hallowed tradition of Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and Philip Marlowe.

She’s given up on love. He’s marrying for money. But God has other plans...South Wales, 1905. Faith only believes in the certainty of pain and suffering. Born with a club foot and harboring a dark secret, the barmaid can’t escape her sinful past. But after the country’s religious revival puts her out of a job, hope sparks when a handsome aristocrat gallantly offers her a second chance. Can the troubled couple trust in God to light the way to true love?

Acclaimed sketch duo Two Episodes of Mash (a.k.a. Diane Morgan and Joe Wilkinson) present their surreal sketch show packed full 'low-key, mundane glamour', with support from a cast including David O'Doherty, Radio 2 presenter Ken Bruce and Jimmy Carr. Meet the human cannonball, who has been blasted to Ilford from Belgium by mistake. Discover what happens when Rapunzel gets an intercom. Learn how Joe has blown the programme budget on a life-size ice sculpture of Tim Henman. And prepare for a fly-on-the-wall documentary about working behind-the-scenes on a sketch show.

During the golden era of Hollywood, few actresses proved as versatile as Lana Turner, who got her start playing the wholesome, innocent young beauty as a teenager before shifting to femme fatale roles and starring in horror classics like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

In 1939, Olivia de Havilland had her most memorable role as Melanie Hamilton in Gone With the Wind (1939), perhaps the most famous movie in American history, but Hollywood legend has it that she only got the role because her own younger sister, Joan Fontaine, was asked to audition for the part and recommended Olivia instead so that she could audition for Scarlett O'Hara.

Can a desperate young lady return a rakish earl to respectability? When Miss Margaret Caldecourt returns to her ancestral English country manor from Vienna to care for her late brother’s six-year-old son and heir, Timothy, she learns that unscrupulous relatives threaten his birthright. Immediately she seeks help from her childhood friend and Timothy’s newly named guardian, the handsome Adam Fortescue, sixth Earl of Abberley.

Whether you're becoming a mum for the first time or you have children who are growing up faster than you could have ever imagined, motherhood can feel like the most joyful and yet the most daunting of times. But you're not alone. From the moment I knew my first baby was a girl I started to plan, hope and dream. I couldn't wait to experience that special bond, but I wondered how I'd feel about being a working mum, how I'd hold on to the person I am.

In The Fence My Father Built, when legally separated Muri Pond, a librarian, hauls her kids, teenage Nova and 11-year-old Truman, out to the tiny town of Murkee, Oregon, where her father, Joe Pond, lived and died, she’s confronted by a neighbor’s harassment over water rights and Joe’s legacy: a fence made from old oven doors.The fence and accompanying house trailer horrify rebellious Nova, who runs away to the drug-infested streets of Seattle.

Friday the 13th was the last time she felt fully in control of all her limbs. At 1 a.m. on Saturday, her world as she had known it ended... She was fully awake and trying not to freak out at the thought of something foreign travelling up into her body to roam around inside her brain? Is there really a purpose to all this pain? She asked, "Where is GOD when I'm suffering during the agonizingly long wait?"

The state-run guardianship system, called conservatorship in some states, is largely unregulated, ill-understood, and increasingly populated by financially motivated predators. Just how the secretive world of guardianship works and its real-life effects remained a mystery to most until the very public case of pop star Britney Spears. Currently, there are an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Americans under court control, but precise figures are not known as no government entity keeps track of citizens who have lost the right to determine their own fate.

"He believes she's a selkie—she has no desire to change his mind. The loch divides the feuding clans. Ealann McEwan on one side, Miles Duncan on the other. When a chance encounter causes them to meet, a friendship is borne of necessity. But as war inches closer, they will be forced to choose: love or their families.

What if you could interview top Christian women leaders and ask their advice on how to be successful (eternally significant) and glorify God with your work? Threads of Wisdom documents the journeys and best advice of 10 women that lead marketplace and non-profit organizations, in their own words.

In order to attract and keep the woman of your dreams, you must become the kind of man that she simply cannot live without. This is the only task that a man must not fail at when it comes to dating and relationships with women. This book contains proven steps and strategies on how to become truly irresistible to women.

Nineteenth century illustrator/author Edward Lear, best known for his nonsense poems and limericks, created this silly verse tale of the green headed, blue handed Jumblies who go to sea in a sieve - but voice actor/storyteller Diane Havens shares it in her own unique faux-British by way of Queens - the New York Queens, that is.

On the eve of the Cuban Revolution, headstrong 18-year-old Francesca Pacelli flees from her ruthless Mafia-boss father in Havana to the arms of her lover, a rebel fighting with Fidel Castro. Her father, desperate to send her to safety in the US, resorts to torture and blackmail as he searches the island for her. So begins the first part of a spellbinding saga that spans three generations of the same family. Decades later, the family is lured back to Cuba by the promise of untold riches.