Showing results by narrator "Laural Merlington" in All Categories

Daisy had gone to the Wyoming wilderness in search of inspiration for her art. She found rancher James Tucker, a man with the wilderness inside him. Their life together was close to paradise - until their three-year-old son Jake disappeared and was never found. Her marriage in tatters, Daisy returned home to Connecticut, taking with her from Wyoming two things: her daughter, Jake's twin, and her livelihood, the jewelry she etches with symbols of Indian legend.

After enduring a childhood of horrific abuse and crushing poverty, Tucker seeks refuge in her rural Tennessee home. The three grandchildren she is raising are her only connection to the outside, and her demeanor is purposefully rough. But her world is turned upside down when a new neighbor, Ella, moves into the old McDaniel place next door.

In The Assassin’s Accomplice, historian Kate Clifford Larson tells the gripping story of Mary Surratt, a little-known conspirator in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, and the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government. A Confederate sympathizer, Surratt ran the boarding house where the conspirators met to plan Lincoln’s assassination. Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Assassin’s Accomplice tells the intricate story of the Lincoln conspiracy through the eyes of its only female participant, offering a fresh perspective on America’s most famous murder.

The seven women of the Sisterhood have risked everything in the name of justice, including their own freedom. Their most recent mission promised to reward them with a presidential pardon and a chance to leave their enforced exile. But before they can enjoy their prize, they'll have to tackle a risky new mission in the heart of Sin City.

CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson was the only mainstream journalist willing to dig deep into Obama Administration scandals like Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS. Her liberal colleagues increasingly shunned her. Then she discovered that someone was using...

With spring’s arrival in Goosebush, Lilly and the Beautification Committee turn their eyes to new projects. A cleanup of the historic Goosebush Cemetery may be in order after Lilly and Delia find the plots there sorely neglected and inexplicably rearranged. Lilly soon discovers that Whitney Dunne-Bradford snapped up custodianship of the graveyard once she inherited Bradford Funeral Homes. But before Lilly can get to the bottom of the tombstone tampering, she stumbles upon Whitney’s body at the Jayne family mausoleum. 

Shortly after arriving on Cape Cod to spend a year by herself, Joan Anderson’s chance encounter with a wise, playful, and astonishing woman helped her usher in the transformations and self-discoveries that led to her ongoing renewal. First glimpsed as a slender figure on a fogged-in beach, Joan Erikson was not only a friend and confidante when one was most needed, but also a guide as Anderson stretched and grew into her unfinished self.

For more than a century, the small town of Haddan, Massachusetts, has been divided, as if by a line drawn down the center of Main Street, separating those born and bred in the village from those who attend the prestigious Haddan School. But one October night, an inexplicable death thrusts the two worlds together, and the town's divided history is revealed in all its complexity.

Artist Lexie McCain spends her days literally weaving the story of her life into a gorgeous tapestry. But on Monday nights, she walks to the Corner Bar, drinks a Killian’s, and answers the same question every week from Sam the bartender: “One thing?” She starts with her name, then her cottage, slowly moving on to the devastating tragedies that tore her life apart.

Loyalty is a way of life for the Sisterhood and their significant others. When lawyer Lizzie Fox's husband, Cosmo Cricket, is left critically injured after being shot by an unknown assailant, the men of BOLO Consultants head straight for Las Vegas to comfort Lizzie - and to uncover a dangerous enemy in the City of Sin. 

Attracting tens of thousands of men and women hoping to strike it rich, the Klondike gold rush brought with it a frenzy of activity unlike anything the world had ever seen. The few children who lived in Dawson City and its surrounding mining camps had front-row seats to this treasure hunt of the century - and to all the antics that a lust for gold brought with it. In this, her companion book to the best-selling Women of the Klondike, Frances Backhouse explores the experiences of the children who followed their parents north in search of fortune or were born in the goldfields.

Drs. Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski's popular Online course Learning How to Learn, has enrolled more than 1.8 million students. In this much needed follow-up to A Mind for Numbers, the authors teach kids and teens how to learn effectively at a time when they most need these skills. Learning How to Learn teaches them about the importance of both focused concentration and letting their minds wander, how the brain makes connections between different pieces of information, why procrastination is the enemy of problem solving, and much more.

Robbie Jordan may have had reservations about the murder victim, but she still needs to turn up the heat on a killer if she wants to keep her new restaurant open for business.... In the charming small town of South Lick, Indiana, Robbie has transformed a rundown country store into the runaway hit Pans 'N Pancakes. But the most popular destination for miles around can also invite trouble.

While Robbie scrambles through breakfast orders for her expanding clientele at Pans 'N Pancakes, tempers run as high as the sticky August heat in South Lick, Indiana. Real estate developer Fiona Closs plans to build a towering luxury resort at one of the most scenic hilltops in Brown County, and not everyone can see the sunny side of the imposing proposition - including Robbie's furious Aunt Adele, who doesn't waste a minute concocting protests and road blockades. When a vocal protester is silenced forever at the resort site, Robbie ditches the griddle to catch the killer.

Through all their missions and adventures, the tightknit group of friends who make up the Sisterhood have learned one vital lesson: everybody has a weak spot. In the case of Yoko Wong's dear friend Garland Lee, the multimillion-selling performer known as America's beloved songbird, that weak spot was trusting her lawyer, Arthur Forrester. For years, he's taken advantage of her faith in him to amass a secret fortune. And now, in the deepest betrayal yet, he's dragged her into a lawsuit that could cost her home and everything she has left.

The urgent truth about the privatization of America’s national security that exposes where this industry came from, how it operates, where it's heading—and why we should be concerned. Thirty years ago there were no private military and security companies (PMSCs); there were only mercenaries. Now the PMSCs are a bona-fide industry, an indispensable part of American foreign and military policy.

Ellie Dwyer, 61, is convinced bad luck comes in threes, and not just garden-variety, oh-well bad luck. How many people have to flee not one, but two natural disasters? And in between the wildfire and the hurricane, her husband of nearly 40 years suddenly up and left her for no reason she could fathom, disappearing from her life without a clue to his whereabouts. Determined to reinvent her life, Ellie sets out on a journey across the country. Along the way to nowhere in particular, she buys a camper, becomes friends with a remarkable octogenarian, and starts to believe that good luck might also come in threes. Or does it?

Veteran homicide detective Franza Oberwieser prefers her job in the winter. Summer is for growing, not for dying. So when the body of a beautiful young woman is found on the autobahn, dressed in a glittering party dress and bathed in June rain, Franza is determined to give her justice. Revealing victims’ hidden lives is part of the job, but as Franza and her partner, Felix, peel back the layers shrouding the girl’s disturbing past, darker mysteries emerge. Everyone has something to hide - even Franza, who must face her own secrets to reveal the truth.

Sometimes, justice is a long time coming. That’s the case with Julie Wyatt, whose story strikes close to home for the original founder of the Sisterhood, Myra Rutledge, and her best friend - and fellow Sister - Annie. Julie is convinced her greedy daughter-in-law Darlene had something to do with the mysterious circumstances surrounding her son Larry’s death. She desperately wants to get a confession out of Darlene - and to ensure the safety of Larry’s daughter, Olivia. As Myra, Annie, and their cohorts dig deeper into Darlene’s shady dealings, events unfurl in a way that no one could have predicted.

No one who roamed the steep green mountains and red-rock canyons of Utah Territory was safe from El Cascabel and his renegade warriors - not Janna Wayland, not the wild stallion Lucifer - not even Ty MacKenzie, the stranger who had come for the stallion, and stayed to capture Janna's heart. Now all three must join forces and make their escape, or die trying.