Showing results by narrator "Samantha Desz" in All Categories

Soon, Rebecca Gray won't be able to see. Diagnosed in her 20s with a degenerative eye disease, each day her world grows a little darker. She's moved to the suburbs to raise her son, Jackson. In the wake of her husband's death, it should be a quieter, easier way of life.

Eva Luna is a young woman whose powers as a storyteller bring her friendship and love. Lying in bed with her European lover, refugee and journalist Rolf Carlé, Eva answers his request for a story "you have never told anyone before" with these 23 samples of her vibrant artistry. Interweaving the real and the magical, she explores love, vengeance, compassion, and the strengths of women, creating a world that is at once poignantly familiar and intriguingly new.

Red’s inexplicable power over the wind comes from her mother. Whenever Ruby "Red" Byrd is scared or angry, the wind picks up. And being placed in foster care, moving from family to family, tends to keep her skies stormy. Red knows she has to learn to control it, but can’t figure out how. This time, the wind blows Red into the home of the Grooves, a quirky couple who run a petting zoo, complete with a dancing donkey and a giant tortoise. But just when Red starts to settle into her new life, a fresh storm rolls in, one she knows all too well: her mother.

For 50 years, writers at every stage of their careers have turned to the literary nonprofit organization Poets & Writers and its award-winning magazine for resources to foster their professional development, from writing prompts and tips on technique to informative interviews with published authors, literary agents, and editors. But never before has Poets & Writers marshalled its 50 years’ worth of knowledge to create an authoritative guide for writers that answers every imaginable question about craft and career - until now.

The first novel in nearly a decade from Myla Goldberg, the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of Bee Season - a compelling and wholly original story about a female photographer grappling with ambition and motherhood, a balancing act familiar to women of every generation. 

Teenagers are tired, strapped for time, and often asked to wake up far earlier than they should due to school start times. In The Sleep-Deprived Teen, Lisa L. Lewis, who helped spark the first law in the nation requiring healthy school start times for adolescents, has written a book for parents who want to help their fatigued teens sleep well. Poor sleep affects mental health, athletic performance, and academic success. It contributes to adolescent depression, anxiety, and even drowsy driving. When teens are well-rested, they're happier, healthier, and more resilient.

We think of Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but that’s not how he saw his own career. As the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach deaf students to speak. Even his tinkering sprang from his teaching work; the telephone had its origins as a speech reading machine. The Invention of Miracles takes a new look at an American icon, revealing the astonishing true genesis of the telephone and its connection to another, far more disturbing legacy of Bell’s.

It’s a time for celebration in Bad Axe County as the town gathers for the annual Syttende Mai - Norwegian Independence Day - festival. During this rollicking family-oriented event filled with dancing and food, Sheriff Heidi Kick discovers a dark and shocking event - a migrant worker has been savagely beaten but refuses to explain what happened. Then, a sudden murder of a band member shatters the festival. Something is deeply wrong in Bad Axe County.

In 2010, a brave whistleblower alerted the police to Dr. Stan Li's corrupt pain management clinic in Queens, New York. Li spent years supplying more than 70 patients a day with oxycodone and Xanax, trading prescriptions for cash. Emergency room doctors, psychiatrists, and desperate family members warned him that his patients were at risk of death, but he would not stop.

A captivating blend of personal history detailing Eleanor’s struggle with issues of marriage, motherhood, financial independence, and femininity, and a vibrant portrait of one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world, this unique work examines the ways that the sensibility, mood, and various inhabitants of the neighborhood influenced the First Lady’s perception of herself and shaped her political views over four decades, up to her death in 1962.

The gift of the Toltec is the ability to transcend ordinary human awareness and achieve personal freedom - the ability to choose how to act rather than react to the events in your life. The three Toltec Masteries of Awareness, Transformation, and Intent are the key to transcending your limitations and experiencing yourself as the creator of your life.

Sheriff Heidi Kick has a dead body on her hands, a homeless young man last seen alive miles from the Bad Axe. Chillingly, the medical examiner confirms what Sheriff Kick has been experiencing in her own reoccurring nightmares of late: The victim was buried alive. As the relentless summer heat bears down and more bodies are discovered, Sheriff Kick also finds herself embroiled in a nasty reelection campaign.  

When an ultra-rich space tourist visits the orbiting International Space Station, NASA expects a $100 million win-win: His visit will bring in much needed funding and publicity. But the tourist venture turns into a scheme of terror. Together with an extremist cosmonaut, the tourist slaughters all the astronauts on board the million-pound ISS - and prepares to crash it into New York City at 17,500 miles an hour, causing more devastation than a hundred atomic bombs. All that stands between them and their deadly goal is the lone survivor aboard the ISS, Kimberly Hasid-Robinson.

Becca Trevor never intended to come back to pretty little St. Caroline, Maryland, and her family's quilt shop. Growing up, she was the wild child...and the black sheep of the family...and the girl who couldn't get anything right. And she definitely never intended to see Jack Wolfe again. Those 15 minutes she'd spent with him at a graduation party seven years ago? Unforgettable - for a whole lot of reasons.  

Demography, literally the study of people, addresses the size, distribution, composition, and density of populations, and considers the impact the drivers which mediate these will have on both individual lives and the changing structure of human populations. This Very Short Introduction considers the way in which the global population has evolved over time and space. Sarah Harper discusses the theorists, theories, and methods involved in studying population trends and movements. 

The Atkins 100 Eating Solution’s fan-favorite program provides a clear-cut way to control your carb intake and achieve weight wellness for life. This personalized approach is a way of eating you can follow every day, using delicious and satisfying food choices that help you manage your weight and blood sugar. Simply reducing your carb and sugar helps avoid the development of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes.

Winter is descending on Bad Axe County, and this year it is bringing something darker with it. On an abandoned lot, a strange new religious sect has built a compound, armed with guns and stoking fears in town. Rumors of sadistic rituals and a planned takeover abound, and when one of the sect’s members is murdered, panic sets in. Sheriff Heidi Kick may not be a fan of the group, but she is also dismayed when the locals form a posse to get rid of them.  

A young woman is swept into a life of intrigue, revenge, passion, and betrayal when she falls for the world's most notorious prince, Vlad Dracula. The year is 1464. King Matthias controls Hungary, his family, and the fate of the world's most notorious political prisoner, Prince Vlad Dracula. Ilona Szilágy, the king's cousin, is young and ambitious. Dracula is determined to marry into the family. It is love at first sight, but the king has other plans. The Impaler Prince, however, never takes no for an answer.

Cassidy Trevor is the backbone of her family's quilt shop, the one everyone relies on, the person who makes the trains run on time. She has a good life with loving parents and sisters, a job for life that she enjoys, and respect as a capable businesswoman within the community. Still, she can't help wondering...is there something more out there?   

The Mississippi. The Missouri. The Ohio. America’s rivers are the very lifeblood of our country. We need them for nourishing crops, for cheap bulk transportation, for hydroelectric power, for fresh drinking water. Rivers are also part of our mythology, our collective soul; they are Mark Twain, Led Zeppelin, and the Delta Blues. But as infrastructure across the nation fails and climate change pushes rivers and seas to new heights, we’ve arrived at a critical moment in our battle to tame these often-destructive forces of nature.