Showing results by narrator "Laural Merlington" in All Categories

Robbie is just weeks away from giving birth. While her husband Abe scrambles to get the house ready for their baby's arrival, Robbie makes last minute arrangements to keep her shop and restaurant, Pans 'N Pancakes, up and running when she's on maternity leave. And it seems Robbie and Abe aren't the only ones grappling with anxiety—a stranger is causing a stir in town and Robbie's Aunt Adele appears unusually preoccupied at the baby shower . . .

The Frosts are a typical American family. Barb and John, married almost 50 years, are testy and bored with each other...who could blame them after all this time? At least they have their daughters - Barb's favorite, the perfect, brilliant Juliet; and John's darling, the free-spirited Sadie. The girls themselves couldn't be more different, but at least they got along, more or less. It was fine. It was enough. Until the day John had a stroke, and their house of cards came tumbling down. Now Sadie has to put her career as a teacher and struggling artist in New York on hold....

A kid walks into your bookstore and says to you, Guess what? I'm your son. The one you put up for adoption seventeen years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise! His name is Matthew Walker, and he's come to spend the summer on the Cape with his parents. Why? Well, he wants to meet you before he heads off to college in the fall. Tiny detail—he didn't tell his adoptive parents about his plan. And while you hoped this day would come someday, you're so stunned, you actually faint.

Meghann Dontess is a woman haunted by heartbreak. Twenty-five years ago she was forced to make a terrible choice, one that cost her everything, including the love of her sister, Claire. Now, Meghann is a hotshot divorce attorney who doesn’t believe in intimacy - until she meets the one man who can change her mind.

As a young man, Randall Woodfield had it all; he was a star athlete with good looks and an award-winning student. Working in the swinging West Coast bar scene, he had more than his share of women. But he wanted more than just sex. An appetite for unspeakable violent acts led him to cruise the I-5 highway through California to Washington, leaving a trail of victims along the way. As the list of the dead grew, the police mobilized to stop a twisted killer who had 44 known deaths to his name.

In The Highly Sensitive Person's Guide to Dealing with Toxic People, you'll learn evidence-based skills grounded in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to help you recognize and shut down the common manipulation tactics used by toxic people, such as gaslighting, stonewalling, projection, covert put-downs, and love bombing.

Sophia Giambelli has never worried about competition. As a savvy businesswoman, she knows she must be prepared for anything...but she isn't prepared for Tyler MacMillan.

Because science has long taught us to rely on what we can see and touch, we often don't notice that our spirit, thoughts, emotions, and body are all made of energy - that everything is vibrating. As we move out of the age of technology and into the age of intuition, we need the tools to understand what it means to be a vibrational being and how our natural frequency affects us. In Frequency, Penney Peirce shows you how to feel your personal vibration and work intentionally with energy to transform your life.

Caught behind the lines of Hitler's Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazis themselves. Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events.

Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military.

Paige Winterbourne was always either too young or too rebellious to succeed her mother as leader of one of the world's most powerful elite organizations - the American Coven of Witches. Now that she is 23 and her mother is dead, the Elders can no longer deny her. But even Paige's wildest antics can't hold a candle to those of her new charge - an orphan who is all too willing to use her budding powers for evil.

In Cult Insanity, Spencer reveals the outrageous behavior of her brother-in-law Ervil---a self-proclaimed prophet who determined he was called to set the house of God in order---and how he terrorized their colony. Claiming to be God's avenger and to have a license to kill in the name of God, Ervil ordered the murders of friends and family members, eliminating all those who challenged his authority. Cult Insanity is a riveting, terrifying memoir of polygamist life under the tyranny of a madman.

Nursing a broken heart, Robbie Jordan is trading in her life on the West Coast for the rolling hills of Southern Indiana. After paying a visit to her Aunt Adele, she fell in love with the tiny town of South Lick. And when she spots a "for sale" sign on a rundown country store, she decides to snap it up and put her skills as a cook and a carpenter to use. Everyone in town shows up for the grand reopening of Pans 'n Pancakes, but when the mayor's disagreeable assistant is found dead, Robbie realizes that not all press is good press.

True crime podcaster Trinity Scott is chasing breakout success, and her brand-new serial may get her there. Her subject is Clayton Jay Pelley. More than two decades ago, the respected family man and guidance counselor confessed to the brutal murder of teenage student Leena Rai. But why he killed her has always been a mystery. In a series of exclusive interviews from prison, Clayton discloses to Trinity the truth about what happened that night beneath Devil’s Bridge. It’s not what anyone in the Pacific Northwest town of Twin Falls expects.

Irene Spencer did as she felt God commanded in marrying her brother-in-law, Verlan LeBaron, becoming his second wife. When the government raided the fundamentalist, polygamous Mormon village of Short Creek, Arizona, Irene and her family fled to Verlan's brothers' Mexican ranch. They lived in squalor and desolate conditions in the Mexican desert with Verlan's six brothers, one sister, and numerous wives and children.

Considered by many to be Hannah Arendt's greatest work, published as she neared the end of her life, The Life of the Mind investigates thought itself, as it exists in contemplative life. In a shift from her previous writings, most of which focus on the world outside the mind, this work was planned as three volumes that would explore the activities of the mind considered by Arendt to be fundamental. What emerged is a rich, challenging analysis of human mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging.

In the snow country of Japan during World War II, we meet Morie Sawataishi, a fierce individualist who has chosen to break the law by keeping an Akita dog hidden in a shed on his property. By the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945, there are only sixteen Akitas left in the country. The survival of the breed becomes Morie's passion and life. Devoted to the dogs, Morie is forever changed.

In beautiful prose that is a joy to read, Sherrill opens up the world of the Dog Man and his wife, providing a profound look at what it is to be an individualist in a culture that reveres conformity, and what it means to live.

Police psychologist Dot Meyerhoff's caseload is usually filled with cops—which is why she's hesitant to help an adopted teenager locate her birth parents. But the teen's godmother is Dot's friend Fran and a police widow to boot. How could Dot possibly say no? Once Dot starts digging into the case, though, she's drawn into a murky world of illegal adoptions and the choices a young pregnant woman might make as a last resort. Soon there's only one thing Dot knows for sure: the painful truth of what happened all those years ago might heal one family—but it's certain to destroy another.

Ever since she discovered that she's pregnant, Elena Michaels has been on edge. After all, she's never heard of another living female werewolf, let alone one who's given birth. But thankfully, her expertise is needed to retrieve a stolen letter allegedly written by Jack the Ripper. As a distraction, the job seems simple enough---only the letter contains a portal to Victorian London's underworld, which Elena inadvertently triggers, unleashing a vicious killer and a pair of zombie thugs.

Invincible seeks to change this lack of awareness and understanding with a compelling look at this important issue, informing and inspiring anyone who grew up living with domestic violence - and those who love them, work with them, teach them, and mentor them.