Showing results by narrator "Rick Barr" in All Categories

A classic of its kind, The Long Gray Line is the 25-year saga of the West Point class of 1966. With a novelist's eye for detail, Rick Atkinson illuminates this powerful story through the lives of three classmates and the women they loved - from the boisterous cadet years, to the fires of Vietnam, to the hard peace and internal struggles that followed the war.  

Grace Sinclair is in trouble. When her adopted sister, Faith, is forced to defend her honor against an over-ardent saloon patron, she shoots him in self-defense. But who is going to believe four orphaned females living and working in a saloon are innocent of anything? Grace is convinced that the only chance of saving them all is to leave town in hopes the law will think her guilty and hold the other three girls harmless. A friend suggests a ruse of leaving town as a mail-order bride and that plan worked like a charm. Unfortunately for everyone, the plan worked a little too well.

When his girlfriend disappears, Jack Mathews' only option is to drive if he ever wants to see her again. He's got nothing but time, which is quickly running out. Five Hours is a nonstop thrill ride that never slows down. This short story is an adrenaline rush where nothing is what it seems.

Rosella Tihold and her family spent years as travelling musicians with Hammerman’s Cultural Musicale. But when her brother is injured at Gettysburg, the young singer’s priorities shift, and the lure of a place to call home settles in Rosella’s heart. Longing for stability, Gier Knudsen risks everything when he sends for a mail-order bride. But the secret he is hiding will certainly be a detriment to his well-laid plans. So he requests that the marriage be performed by proxy, in hopes that by the time the truth is known, the new Mrs. Knudsen will give him a chance.

Roxane Quinn has worked for years toward becoming the event coordinator for the hotel her father runs in Quinn Valley. As soon as she starts the new position, she hears that the only man she has ever loved has moved back to town and is now running a business out of a taco truck. She’s worried she won’t be able to keep her heart intact with her high school sweetheart so close.

Regina Beckett is no damsel in distress, and she certainly isn’t looking for a husband. For the last few years, she’s stayed just ahead of her parent’s matrimonial expectations. But now, an unwanted proposal threatens her freedom, so she decides to make a marriage proposal of her own. John Kingston has always been a ladies' man. He has no plans to shackle himself to a wife—not if he can’t have the one woman he’s always wanted. But, when that very woman makes an unexpected proposition, can he convince his heart not to get involved? 

When detectives respond to a crime scene in Orlando, Florida, during the "summer of hurricanes" in 2004, they find Charlie Brandt hanging from the rafters in the garage of his niece Michelle Jones' home. Inside the house, they find a scene of horror that reminds them of other murders.

When she offers to help plan her older sister’s wedding, Dinky Redfern knows that she’ll have to pack up everything and move to Idaho temporarily. Luckily, this isn’t a big deal, because a) Dinky is able to fit her entire life - including her pet hedgehog - into her beat-up sedan, and b) her sister lives at a beautiful tourist-destination ranch. No hardship at all...until Dinky meets her handsome co-planner, the groom’s best man. 

Fighting to keep the remnant of her family alive, Mara Peterson eschews the company of most of her neighbors in the small logging town of Widow’s Ridge. Instead, she prefers the safety and security of the trading post her grandfather established long before the big woods of Wisconsin were felled. But when she is pressed to marry for the sake of the Whistler family legacy, Mara accepts an unconventional solution to the problem—and finds herself knee-deep in enemy territory trying to avoid bounty hunters and government agents.

At each turn, Maggie Thompson has made the wrong decisions, and now her life will never be the same. With everything at stake, Maggie is out of options, and her family’s precarious future hangs in the balance. For the Brandts, a whirlwind of conflict sends the tattered family flying to the four winds. Combined with the chaos that their elderly ward thrusts into their lives, John and Catherine find themselves ensnared in a life-altering battle that hinges on the past and threatens everything they hold dear.

Roxanne Sheffield has always been the dutiful daughter, but when her father surprises her with the news he’s planning to wed her to the son of his business partner, she decides it’s time to take matters into her own hands. Can her plan work without giving away her secret? Alexander Harp is about to have everything he’s ever wanted until the train arrives in town. His money is missing, his wife is nowhere to be found, and his little girl is on the arm of a stranger. What’s a man to do?

A female rookie cop in Mobile, Alabama, finds an African-American teenager’s bones and a ring in the bottom of an abandoned well. Her training officer confiscates the ring and blames the rookie. Recruit Carly Redmund is in big trouble: She could lose her job if Field Training Officer Grey doesn't turn in the ring, or worse, be charged with withholding evidence. What she doesn't know is a white supremacist group is conspiring with Officer Grey's brother and mayoral candidate to manipulate the facts for political reasons. 

A bitter shell encases Winona Brandt’s heart - keeping everything in and everyone out. But, when she meets a silver-haired legal eagle, Noni discovers something poignant and promising. A second chance at love offers hope and healing; but, haunting echoes of past regrets plague Winona’s ability to commit to a new relationship.

Abigail Livingston is tired of the uncertainty—are her suitors really interested in her or her father’s fortune? The only way to know for sure is to pretend to be someone else. But her plan derails the moment she boards the train to Durango, Colorado. Matthew Bellamy is on a mission. His business and financial future depends upon his ability to keep a certain wealthy debutante out of trouble. But when he loses track of her on the way to her holiday in Colorado, he realizes he’s the one in trouble. Now, they may be falling for each other, but who exactly are they falling for?

Lucas Barnes is looking for a new start, but the promised "opportunity of a lifetime" comes with a few horrifying surprises. Rundown buildings, late model cars, and haunting memories collide at "The Belmont". 

Johann Brandtstadter returns home a weary man, tired of the bloodshed and horror that war brings. When he finds a dear childhood friend grown into young womanhood, he cannot help but claim her for his own. At the turn of the 20th century, life is changing and not necessarily for the better. Can Johann and his young bride find a safe place to call home despite the tension and mayhem of a world on the brink of war?

A look back at a trio of teenage girls who belied their innocent looks to become serial killers. Sisters Regina and Margaret DeFrancisco were two teenage girls who made national headlines for murdering Oscar Velazquez, a suitor of Regina. Marlene Olive was the teenage girl who became notorious for the "BBQ murders" in which she murdered her adopted parents and tried to dispose of their bodies in a barbecue pit. Marlene was 16 at the time, and would go on to serve only four years for the crime.

Arthur C. Benson tackles many aspects of fear head-on and provides fascinating insight into the root causes of fear and how we can overcome them. 

A fascist administration rounds up undesirables. Terrorist groups strike governmental and religious targets. The constitution is under assault. Erec Stebbins’s China Girl is a controversial look at an America that is all too close to reality, radioactive in its timely examination of extremism in the nation.

Across continents and into and out of the hands of royalty, revolutionaries, smugglers, thieves, and the world's greatest tech engineers, was Marie Antoinette's watch, the "160" worth an estimated $40 million in today's dollars. Perhaps the most sought after personal technology device of the last 200 years, the timepiece, designed by the legendary Abraham-Louis Breguet, is the launching point for a thrilling and fluidly woven set of narratives that are, in part, forbidden love story, historical document, and police procedural.