Showing results by narrator "Jenny Hoops" in All Categories

Edna Coffman, School Board Chairperson and community icon, hires thirty-something coaches Luke Carter and Madison Danielsen with the specific directive of returning the town sports fortunes to its former championship status. The unique-to-small-town interactions are at the forefront in this tale, and clearly demonstrate the close interconnections between school, sport and community in rural small-town America.

What does a boy do when his imaginary friends never die? Oliver (Olly) Frampton fights back his parting tears. It’s all his fault they fought. He stares into the blackness, terrified his mother will careen off the mountain at any moment in the storm. Ahead, police lights streak through the sky.

Greg Hallstead lost the championship buckle to Terry McCaskill at this year's Policemen's Rodeo. Now, he's partnered with his rival, working undercover at a Florida resort while sparks fly between them at every turn. Greg and Terry are unconvincing as a brother/sister duo, but even less convincing are the cops pretending to be their "parents": a gay "dad" and sexy, flirty "mom". Still, the four cops may survive, if the resort owner's wife, Emerald, doesn't reveal she dated Greg years ago. And if a hotel hooker doesn't recognize him from past arrests.

A blind deejay (Shepard Krausse) and an invisible librarian (Miranda Ogilvy) from a tiny, rural Florida town try to solve a double disappearance connected to a recent canoe trip. It ain't exactly "deliverance", but there's a heap of trouble brewing for these folks - some of it human, some of it animal, and all of it deadly. Shep and Miranda rely on their sense of humor as they face dangerous fossil poachers - but even that is difficult when their engagement is broken amidst a river of troubles.

Swept up in a whirlwind courtship, Katja and Wasyl begin life anew in a Ukrainian settlement of Western Canada. The dusty Canadian prairies promise hope and independence, but when war breaks out between the old world and the new, their newfound stability is shattered. Rumors of the internment of Ukrainian-Canadians haunt the new settlers. Would the country they love betray them like this? An incident throws the couple and their young children into turmoil, and Katja faces the prospect of enduring a Canadian winter without Wasyl by her side.

French journalist Marc Taragon is trying. A tenacious idealist, Taragon has spent the last thirty years attempting to bring to readers the truths about the wars and political intrigues of the region. He is unsparing in his criticism of extremists and has earned many enemies. He agrees to be interviewed in Cyprus, by a young Canadian journalist, Marie Boivin, not knowing that Marie has a hidden agenda: to discover through Taragon the truth about her childhood.

Until she saw the horror on Ben’s face, it hadn’t occurred to Samantha that a menacing murder of crows had congregated in this Attic Windows quilt. It gave her pause to examine it more closely, and what she discovered gave her chills. Who was this woman, L. Bennett, so tormented by suspicion she hid clues to her own murder in a quilt for her son, Nicky? Or was it a daughter? Was she murdered, or is she alive, steeped in paranoia?

The youngest child of the local doctor and evangelical preacher, Annie Baldwin was expected to work hard and not protest. George Richardson, the underage Doctor Bernardo boy, orphaned and shipped to Canada a few years earlier, is loaned to the Baldwins to help bring in the hay. The Great War brought a lot of changes to life, even in the back woods of Ontario. In spite of the differences in their social standing, George and Annie fell in love. When George departed for France, he promised to return to her when the war was over. Like so many others, Annie waited and hoped.

Faced with financial ruin and the loss of her good name, Rose Chadwick decides to make a new start for herself and her young daughter Hannah in the rough-and-tumble gold rush town of Barkerville, British Columbia. However, making a new life is not so easy when it’s built on lies. Viscount Harrison St. John knows he’s expected to marry well to bolster his family fortunes. Instead, he leaves England to pursue riches in the gold fields of a town in the wilds of Canada. Will dark secrets from Rose’s past keep them apart? Or will they find love, happiness, and a new life together?

A hunky carpenter wants to adopt six children, but first he must convince authorities that he is not crazy. He isn't. His teapot really is talking to him. Despite his many positive attributes, Lloyd has reached the age of 32 years, seven months, four days, and six hours without finding Miss Right and converting her into Mrs. Lloyd Schifflebein. Yes, Schifflebein. A surname decidedly lacking romance in addition to being difficult to spell and way too long a signature for checks and the backs of credit cards.

In Beneath the Full Moon, psychiatrist Nan Nelson invites you inside the mental hospitals and psych wards where she’s practiced for over 30 years and shares her personal anecdotes and insights from working with the mentally ill. Told with humor and heart, Nan recounts stories and case studies of patients suffering from depression, PTSD, OCD, addictions, and more. Dr. Nelson ends each chapter with valuable and practical tips for how family members can support their loved ones who may be struggling with mental illnesses.

It is the dawn of the French Revolution when masses of hungry peasants burn the chateaux of aristocrats throughout France. After the death of his estranged family, an 18-year-old nobleman, the Marquis Marcel de la Croix, is forced to raise the royalist banner. The wreck of his family fortress becomes a bastion for newly disenfranchised aristocrats, and Marcel and his fiery associate, Pierre Lafont, lead a rebel group called the League of the Star. After a bitter falling out with Lafont, Marcel escapes to England incognito, hoping to put the past behind him.

Elizabeth Clarke gave her brother a silver locket to remind him of home as he left for war in June of 1917. But as the Great War ends for America, it continues on for Elizabeth. While carrying out duties for the US State Department, her father went missing in the chaos of the Russia Revolution. When word arrives that he is alive and needs assistance moving a valuable and mysterious “package” out of Russia, it is up to his children to organize the rescue.

Canadian Shorts II is a specially selected collection of short stories by established and emerging Canadian authors. Showcasing Canada's diverse writing talent, there is a story for every listener, from literary fiction to scifi fantasy to prairie gothic to romance-thriller.

Grace MacKinnon’s widowhood promises little but a life of drudgery under her father-in-law’s oppressive rule. When quiet rebellion turns to opportunity, she books passage on an Atlantic steamer only to face near disaster in Halifax harbor. Her future looks doomed from the start until, with the help of a sympathetic stranger and a chance meeting with Lucy Maud Montgomery, she changes destination and arrives on Prince Edward Island. Her newfound independence drives her to undertake a brave new adventure in a male-dominated world.

It’s a decade following WWI, in a small village of Nova Scotia. Maggie Conrad, a young war widow, lives with her father and younger brother, helping them manage a small store. After the sudden death of her father, Maggie finds their finances in shambles. Instead of moping around or choosing to "settle down", she decides to sell the store and relocate to the city in the hope of finding a job. Thus starts her adventure.

In 1784, Englishwoman Amelia Latimer sails to the new colony of New Brunswick in faraway Canada. She’s to marry a man chosen by her soldier father. Amelia is repulsed by her betrothed, refuses to marry, then meets the handsome Acadian trader, Gilbert, a man beneath her in status. Gilbert must protect his mother, who was attacked by an English soldier. He fights to hold on to their property, to keep it from the Loyalists who have flooded the colony, desperate men chased from the South after the American Revolution.

Elsie Neufeld loves to sit on her porch and watch the children grow in the Mennonite community near Landmark, Manitoba, Canada. Returning to the area after moving to Paraguay for a time, Elsie is happy to be living on the wild rose dotted prairie of south-eastern Manitoba.

French-Canadian soldier Napoleon proposes to lovely and charming Lea in Belgium during WWI, promising golden fields of wheat as far as the eye can see. After the armistice, he sends money for her passage, and she journeys far from her family and the conveniences of a modern country to join him on a homestead in Saskatchewan. There, she works hard to build their dream of a prospering farm, clearing fields alongside her husband through several pregnancies and even after suffering a terrible loss.

It is 1896, and 19-year-old Pearl Owens wants adventure. To fulfill her dream, Pearl is on her way to the Yukon with her cousin, Emma, to write articles and do illustrations about the woman and men who are looking for gold in the north. Sam Owens, Pearl’s cousin and Emma’s brother, is in the Yukon searching for gold with two friends, Gordon and Donald. After five years of barely making a living at gold panning, Gordon and Donald have decided their quest is futile, and it is time to return home. But Sam wants to stay a while longer.