Showing results by narrator "Maria McCann" in All Categories

College journalist Adele Plank has been granted a rare interview with one-time best-selling author, Decklan Stone. He is a man largely withdrawn from the world following the tragic death of his young wife 27 years earlier. Adele ventures to the writer's remote, private-island home in the beautiful San Juan Islands, and there begins a journey of dangerous discovery that will have her scrambling to unravel a mystery far more shocking and deadly than she could have ever imagined.

A desperate murder committed by Angela Miller’s mother tore Angela’s life apart and brought her to Martha’s Vineyard to live with her wealthy grandparents. It’s where her cousin, Kiki King, was born and raised, and Kiki now wants nothing more than to see the world beyond its sandy perimeter. Kiki’s mother escaped it. She took a late-night swim off Tashmoo Beach and was never seen again.

In Bedside Witness, Adams shares stories from her 20-year journey in hospice, geriatric mental health, palliative care, and dementia coaching. Through the intimate lens as a social worker, Kay artfully draws us into these heartfelt tales as if she were sitting with us at our kitchen table, tenderly weaving the laughter, grief, wonder, wisdom, and tragedy of our shared human experience.

If you are struggling with your teen’s or young adult’s substance use issues, The Compassion Antidote offers a proven framework for creating change. Catherine Taughinbaugh, certified parent coach, reveals evidence-based strategies for more-productive conversations with your child.

And She Was Never the Same Again is about you. It is about your family and your friends, everyone you've ever met, and all the strangers you have yet to meet. It takes you on a journey of gains and losses that stretch generations, cultures, identities, and decades of time. It awakens you to the inevitable and makes you look at things most people want to avoid seeing. It explores near-death experiences; medical, individual, and intergenerational trauma; the stigmatized death of a partner; perfectionism; athletics.

“I am opposed to heart disease and cancer the way one is opposed to sin.” With that as her battle cry, health activist and philanthropist Mary Woodard Lasker had a singular goal: saving lives by increasing medical research. Together with her husband, advertising genius Albert, they created the Lasker Foundation, bestowing the Lasker Awards. But the real increase in medical research funding occurred when Mary discovered a revolutionary source: the federal government. “I’m just a catalytic agent,” she would insist, while she tirelessly lobbied Congress and presidents alike.

We don’t typically think of experiences like illness, death, betrayal, job loss, burnout, or accidents as the doorway to a more fulfilling and beautiful life. Yet, if you know how to look at these challenges in a different light, they can be powerful opportunities to turn your life around—in small and large ways.

Brooke Weatherby is tired of being the dependable one, the boring one of everyone at Sanderling Cove. She agreed to come to the cove for the summer, unaware her two cousins, Charlotte “Charlie” Bradford and Olivia “Livy” Winters, would also be there to help manage The Sanderling Cove Inn while her grandparents take a long road trip in Europe.

Ellie Weatherby and the four other grandmothers living at Sanderling Cove decide with only two great-grandchildren, it’s time to swing into action. They invite their grandchildren to spend the summer at the cove, hoping to encourage romance between them. Ellie invites all three of her granddaughters to take over the management of the Sanderling Cove Inn so that she and her bridegroom can spend the time traveling in Europe for their honeymoon.

Missy’s life was at a crossroads. Divorced, alone, and needing a fresh start, she took a position at a small college in the California mountains as an associate theater professor. Yet, her future still felt very uncertain. The last thing on her mind was finding love again, and she never expected to find it with another woman.

The story begins in 1940s Palestine, where twins Rasheed and Rasheeda Dinar work in the family’s inn. When Rasheed falls in love with Natalia, a Jewish woman, he applies what he learned from the Jesuit priest who mentored him to his budding relationship, but by then relations between Arabs and Jews have become tense. And when those tensions come to a breaking point, Natalia mysteriously disappears, and Rasheed and Rasheeda are chased out of Palestine forced to flee to Beirut, Lebanon. As the years pass and the Dinar family expands and enters the 1970s, their convictions are tested.

Serena Stapleton’s father insists she marry in order to satisfy his debt. Upset and angry, Serena boards a train to faraway California. Halfway through the journey, the train is held up by outlaws. Serena is struck on the head and thrown from the train. Tim Dawson, the widowed doctor in Fort Riggins, Montana, rushes to where Serena is injured. He takes care of her in his clinic. His mother insists the young woman recover in their home. Serena, waking to strangers and terrified, claims no memory of what happened to her—praying this might be her way out of the marriage contract.

Regina Baldwin was once one of the most famous runners in the world. Back in her prime, she ran a marathon in under three hours. After retiring from sports, she continues to host and MC races all over America. Her podcasts and documentaries have made her a fitness guru to millions. So, it’s all the more baffling when she drops dead whilst overseeing a marathon in Wrangler’s Hill. The evidence points to murder—but who would want to kill such a beloved figure? Amateur investigator Geneva Pomolo and her partner, Iris Reeves, are determined to find out.

A shy young fairy, named Pansy, longs to have exciting adventures. One day while in the forest with her friend, Lightning the firefly, she loses track of the time and is very late for dinner. In her hurry to get home, she becomes lost in the dark and meets a strange creature. When this happens, she discovers an old secret that could threaten the safety of her town.

Olivia “Livy” Winters agrees to spend the summer at Sanderling Cove on the Gulf Coast of Florida with her two cousins, Charlotte “Charlie” Bradford and Brooke Weatherby, to help manage The Sanderling Cove Inn while their grandparents take a long road trip in Europe. Livy hopes a summer away from her past surroundings and her job as the owner of a bakery in Virginia will help her forget a traumatic incident there.

Dakota Kilroy, a twenty-eight-year-old investigative journalist, is haunted by the unsolved disappearance of her best friend, Maddy Montgomery, who went missing at the age of fifteen. When financial difficulties force her to move back home to Santa Monica, California, she cannot take the unanswered questions anymore. Determined to find out what happened to Maddy, Dakota starts ShadowCast, a true-crime podcast to publicize the case. But little does she know that the man responsible for Maddy's disappearance all those years ago is listening in and tampering with her investigation.

When a world-class casino magnate from the Cayman Islands steps into Corky's Pub, he transforms the familiar into fantastic. Threading in and out of the lives of the rich and famous, tales of rock stars and the mafia are woven within the trials, anguish, and endurance of the average.

Through inspiring stories and actionable steps, There's Got to Be Something More empowers you to discover the life you were meant to live and unlock the extraordinary possibilities that await you. Prepare to transform your life, manifest your dreams, and create a future filled with abundance, purpose, and joy.

Ellis Coldwater is a pretty easy-going bank robber. Wendy Larkin is a pretty woman—a little shy, a little nervous, and a little married. What happens when these two get together “on the job”? Whose recipe for living life will lead to the most happiness, the most laughter, and the least amount of jail time? Our tale jumps in immediately as this novel adroitly rolls up its sleeve to expose the funny bone of crime, love, right, wrong, the pursuit of money, happiness, the vagaries of humanity that gives life meaning.

Meridia is a healer, but can she heal the deep rift of time that drove Earth’s people apart? Bereft of leadership after a critical ritual goes fatally wrong, stalwart remnants of the Mundani Palinjian cult vow vengeance. They blame the Melfar and their Mundani sympathizers, attacking randomly and with escalating brutality. Melfar and their allies look to Meridia, the mixed-race healer who brought them the miraculous Song of All Songs straight from the wisdom of the Migrant.