Showing results by narrator "Bernadette Dunne" in All Categories

Taking place in the quintessential Canadian town, The Night Bell moves between the past and the present as two mysteries converge. A discovery of the bones of murdered children is made on land that was once a county foster home. Now it's being developed as a brand-new subdivision whose first residents are already railing against broken promises and corruption. But when three of their number are murdered after the bones are found, their frustration turns to terror.

Elizabeth, a member of the "sandwich generation", people caught in the middle of simultaneously caring for their children and for their aging parents, is the mother of Ava and the daughter of Daddy, and responsible for both. Hers is the story of a woman's struggle to keep her family whole, to raise her child in a house of laughter and love, and to keep her father from hiding the house keys in his slippers.

Chris Dubbs tells the fascinating stories of Edith Wharton, Nellie Bly, and more than 30 other American women who worked as war reporters. As Dubbs shows, stories by these journalists brought in women from the periphery of war and made them active participants - fully engaged and equally heroic, if bearing different burdens and making different sacrifices. Women journalists traveled from belligerent capitals to the front lines to report on the conflict. But their experiences also brought them into contact with social transformations, political unrest, labor conditions, and more.

Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride is inspired by "The Robber Bridegroom", a wonderfully grisly tale from the Brothers Grimm in which an evil groom lures three maidens into his lair and devours them, one by one. But in her version, Atwood brilliantly recasts the monster as Zenia, a villainess of demonic proportions, and sets her loose in the lives of three friends.

Since her husband Eddie's death in a boating accident eight months ago, Alice Glendenning has struggled to make ends meet while waiting for the insurance company to pay up. When Alice takes a job as a real estate agent, she makes a new friend, Charlie Hobbs, from whom she is supposed to try to buy his waterfront land for a developer. Things quickly become a nightmare for Alice when her two children, Ashley and Jamie, aren't on the school bus home one day.

When an illegal Mexican immigrant is shot to death on a ranch outside Dallas, it makes the news, not because of the immigrant but because of the shooter, rising political star Senator Chase. The death appears to be a hunting accident, and the well-loved senator spins the disaster artfully with his tearful press conference. But then the wife of the victim steps forward with another tale and evidence of a cover-up of epic proportions.

Since 2000, America's most ambitious young evangelicals have been making their way to Patrick Henry College in Virginia, a small Christian school that has earned the nickname "God's Harvard". Most of these students are home-schoolers whose idealism and discipline put the average American teenager to shame. The school grooms them to become the Christian elite of tomorrow, dispatching them to the front lines of politics, entertainment, and science to wage the battle to take back a godless nation.

Still Water Saints chronicles a momentous year in the life of Agua Mansa, a largely Latino town beyond the fringes of Los Angeles. Agua Mansa is home to the Botanica Oshun, where people come seeking charms, herbs, candles, and above all, the guidance of the shop's owner, Perla Portillo. Perla has served the community for years, arming her clients with the tools to overcome all manner of crises, large and small.

The brutal murder of LaVerne Stordock, a respected family man and former police detective, shocked the residents of his rural Wisconsin community. On the surface, the case seemed closed with the confession of Stordock's second wife, Suzanne. But the trail of secrets and lies that began with his death did not end with his widow's conviction. Ever since she was a teenager, Dorothy Marcic was haunted by unresolved questions surrounding the killing of her uncle. Though she led a busy life as a playwright, theatrical producer, and university professor, she couldn't put her doubts to rest.

Felix Ketay, a 25-year-old Los Angeles dyke, has her foundations shaken when she’s ditched by her pomosexual girlfriend and then gay-bashed on the streets of West Hollywood. Felix’s old-school lesbian aunt, Anna Lisa Hill, ran away from home in 1965 at age 19 and ended up in Lilac Mines, a small town in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills with a small but tight-knit butch/femme community.

At the urgent request of Harry Madigan, Martha "Marty" Nickerson takes on the defense of Louisa Rawlins, a woman suspected of murdering her wealthy husband. Harry is Marty's law partner, her lover, and, coincidentally, Louisa Rawlins' ex-lover. Glamorous and charismatic, Louisa is the polar opposite of Marty. Though the evidence against Louisa is compelling, Marty's gut tells her that something doesn't quite fit. Yet, as the trial progresses, Marty begins to doubt her own judgment.

At age 50, Pippa Lee is the devoted wife of a brilliant and successful older publisher, the proud mother of successful twins, and an adored friend and neighbor. She and her husband have recently cast off Gramercy Park for Marigold Village in mature anticipation of oncoming old age and a serene new chapter of life. But under the surface, Pippa's past - a past of surprising grit, deceit, and betrayal - has begun to seep in and invade her present.

In the mid-1990s, residents of Anniston, Alabama, began a legal fight against the agrochemical company Monsanto over the dumping of PCBs in the city's historically African American and white working-class west side. Simultaneously, Anniston environmentalists sought to safely eliminate chemical weaponry that had been secretly stockpiled near the city during the Cold War. In this probing work, Ellen Griffith Spears offers a compelling narrative of Anniston's battles for environmental justice.

A brilliant, complex, and layered story, The Shadow Catcher takes its title from the name bestowed upon Edward Curtis by the American Indians when he showed them photographs of themselves. In this remarkable novel, Wiggins weaves parallel tales of this famous artist and an unsung soldier, husband, and father.

In 1955, grande dame authoress Edna Ferber is visiting L.A. for the filming of her epic novel, Giant. Edna is looking forward to meeting Rock Hudson, Liz Taylor, and especially the film's gifted young breakout star, James Dean. A charismatic rebel, Dean attracts attention, devotion, and trouble wherever he goes. Now he is being blackmailed by a young extra from the movie who accuses him of getting her pregnant.

Outlaw werewolves destroyed his home and killed his wife. But they made one mistake: they didn’t kill him, too. Now, after ten lonely years honing his skills with a gun, Jacob Constantine is back in New Mexico, hell-bent on justice - until he’s ambushed by bandits and saved by an angel on her own deadly crusade.

In the heart of the California gold country, three-year-old Sarah McKensie is orphaned by a stagecoach robber and then adopted and nursed by a she-wolf in this playful homage to the American tall tale. As she matures, Sarah learns to assist her pack by contributing human tools to the hunt and, eventually, interacting with humans. With her best friend and pack-sister, Beka, at her side, Sarah becomes a local legend: the Wild Angel of the Sierras, rescuer of imperiled travelers.

The Cohens are impractical intellectuals - academics, activists, and artists. The Barlows are Wall Street Journal-reading lawyers steeped in trusts and copyrights, golf and tennis. The two families are reserved with and wary of each other, but tonight, the evening before the wedding that is supposed to unite them in marriage, they will attempt to set aside their differences over dinner in the garden. Set over the course of a single day and night, Grace Dane Mazur’s brilliantly observed novel weaves an irresistible portrayal of miscommunication, secrets, and the power of love.

For years, Jessica struggled with fluctuating weight and bouts of unhappiness. Like many of us, she found comfort in food and craved cigarettes and self-confidence. Then one day Jessica took her first yoga class in Katmandu. She lost 40 pounds and changed her life forever. In enLIGHTened, Jessica shares the core principles of yoga philosophy—not the poses and postures, but the ancient system of ideas that lies behind them, drawn from a 2000-year-old text called the Yoga Sutras.

This year, a modern-day Scrooge learns the true meaning of Christmas with the help of a suddenly sexy old friend. A down-on-his-luck baseball star finds a beautiful new beginning with a hometown girl. And a prim-and-proper teacher is determined to bring out the holiday spirit in a grumpy tree farmer. Settle in for the season with this collection of very merry short fiction.