Showing results by narrator "Mary Sarah" in All Categories

Discipline is an essential part of raising happy and successful kids, but as more and more parents are discovering, conventional approaches often don't work and can even lead to more frustration, resentment, power struggles, and shame. Citing the latest research in child development, psychology, and neuroscience, Gentle Discipline debunks common myths about punishments, rewards, the "naughty chair", and more and presents practical, connection-based techniques that really work.

It's the early 1700s and sixteen-year-old Julia Farrow, spirited daughter of a shipping company owner, lives and loves on her own terms. With a sharp mind and sharper tongue, she constantly defies family and society expectations with no regard for the consequences.

Miss Katherine Danvers has always been a wallflower. But now with her family on the brink of financial ruin, she finds herself a desperate wallflower. To save her family, she'll do anything. Luckily, she has the perfect plan.... She'll impress the ton by simply announcing she is engaged to the reclusive and mysterious Duke of Thornton, Alexander Masters, and secure strong matches for her sisters. No one has heard from the duke in years. Surely he'll never find out before her sisters' weddings and she can go back to her own quiet life.  

When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables, Prince Edward Island, send for a boy orphan to help them out at the farm, they are in no way prepared for the error that will change their lives. The mistake takes the shape of Anne Shirley, a redheaded 11-year-old girl who can talk anyone under the table. Fortunately, her sunny nature and quirky imagination quickly win over her reluctant foster parents. Anne's feisty spirit soon draws many friends - and much trouble - her way.

Imagine a London where magic is real...real, but feared. This is Eliza Braxton's London, and she has always accepted her place in it gladly. As one of the Riftborn, her magic has relegated her to the servant class, where she dutifully serves as the lady's maid in one of the most powerful households in the country. There, she uses her remarkable powers of persuasion to keep Elder Hallewell's rebellious daughter in the path to an arranged match of power and prosperity. Eliza has never questioned her loyalty...until now.

Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in upper class New York City. Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's best families, is happily anticipating a highly desirable marriage to the sheltered and beautiful May Welland. Yet he finds reason to doubt his choice of bride after the appearance of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's exotic, beautiful 30-year-old cousin, who has been living in Europe. This novel won the first ever Pulitzer awarded to a woman.

Lady Ophelia Darby exists in two worlds. In one, she is the impudent, willful daughter of a powerful marquess and darling of the ton. In the other, she moves through the underworld's shadows as songstress Lady Starlight, protected only by the notoriously wealthy scoundrel Devlin Byrne. But when she stumbles upon her beloved father's darkest secrets, the line between her two worlds quickly blurs. Now she needs the help of the one man a lady should never trust.

It is a good thing that mothers understand what no one else seems to when you are the youngest child in the family, and are finally four years old. Bonnie is more than ready to join her older sisters and brother in the many adventures she sees come their way, whether it be sliding along the ice, searching for arrowheads, or going on that journey of all journeys-across the swinging bridge to school.

Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, this novel had an instant and phenomenal success and is widely considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels. A mysterious widow, Mrs. Helen Graham, arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby old mansion. A source of curiosity for the small community, the reticent Helen and her young son Arthur are slowly drawn into the social circles of the village.

Abigail was born free, but when her parents die, she's sold into slavery to the family of a Roman soldier in Jerusalem. Fortunately, the Visibullis family is kind, and as years pass, she's proud to serve them. But Abigail's beauty attracts unwanted attention when their son, Jason, returns from Rome. She doesn't dare to defy him...but how can she ever love him as he demands? As Jerusalem boils with political unrest and the stories of a rabbi named Jesus who snags Jason's attention, Abigail struggles to find her new place in the family. 

Lizanne Balmaine has spent years honing her skills at arms, determined she will never again be at the mercy of any man. When she comes face to face with the one who stole her future, she seizes the opportunity to exact revenge. Soon he is her prisoner, at her mercy. But something is different about him, something that makes her question her purpose. Is it possible a man can be so changed? More, can she right the wrong that could lay ruin to her family?

In Northanger Abbey, a young woman's penchant for sensational Gothic novels leads to misunderstandings in the matters of the heart. Austen's first, this is considered by many to be among her most charming novels.

Zipporah is thirteen when the Spirit descends upon her, opening her eyes to a world beyond the physical goings-on of the villa outside Rome she has always called home. Within hours, she learns what serving the Lord can cost. Forever scarred after a vicious attack, she knows her call is to use this discernment to protect the Way. She knows she must serve the rest of her life at Tutelos, where the growing Roman church has congregated. She knows her lot is set.

Longbourn estate in Hertfordshire, home of the Bennet family, is entailed. Armed with this unfortunate knowledge, the females of the family have long lived with the threat of eviction from their beloved home should Mr. Bennet pass away before his time. When the unthinkable happens, the Bennet ladies prepare to leave their home as the heir arrives to take control of his inheritance. Salvation comes, however, by the most surprising of news: Mrs. Bennet is with child.

The death of a Resistance leader has thrown Post-Rift London into upheaval, and Eliza Braxton, a Riftborn lady's maid with exceptional magic, has promised her help to the rebel cause. But she quickly realizes that her role as a spy in the powerful Hallewell household will place her - and perhaps even those she loves - in near-constant peril.

Life with Picasso, written with Carlton Lake, is about Picasso the artist and Picasso the man. We hear him talking about painting and sculpture, his life, his career, as well as other artists, both contemporaries and old masters. We glimpse Picasso in his many and volatile moods, dismissing his work, exultant over his work, entertaining his various superstitions, being an anxious father. But Life with Picasso is not only a portrait of a great artist; it is also a picture of a talented young woman of exacting intelligence at the outset of her own notable career.

With a family legacy tainted by murder and madness, Phineas Brand, the Earl of Holstoke, is having a devil of a time securing a proper wife - or even an improper one. Society misses faint at the sight of him. Matchmaking mamas scurry to avoid him. Only one woman is bold enough to keep drawing near, and she's more scandalous than he is.

Miss Maryann FitzWilliam is too witty and bookish for her own good. No gentleman of the ton will marry her, so her parents arrange for her to wed a man old enough to be her father. But Maryann is ready to use those wits to turn herself into a sinful wallflower. When the scandal sheet reports a sighting of Nicolas Ives climbing out the chamber windows of a house party, Maryann does the unthinkable. She anonymously claims that the bedchamber belonged to none other than Miss FitzWilliam, tarnishing her own reputation - and chances of the dastardly union her family secured for her. 

The second chapter in the life of Anne Shirley. This book follows Anne from the age of 16 to 18, during the two years that she teaches at Avonlea school. It includes many of the characters from Anne of Green Gables, as well as new ones like Mr. Harrison, Miss Lavendar Lewis, Paul Irving, and the twins Dora and Davy.

Belinda and Harriet Bede live together in a small English village. Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with Henry Hoccleve - the poetry-spouting, married archdeacon of their church - for 30 years. Belinda's much more confident, forthright younger sister Harriet, meanwhile, is ardently pursued by Count Ricardo Bianco. Although she has turned down every marriageable man who proposes, Harriet still welcomes any new curate with dinner parties and flirtatious conversation. And one of the newest arrivals, the reverend Edgar Donne, has everyone talking.