Showing results by narrator "Erin Bennett" in All Categories

Julie Halpern's Maternity Leave tells the profane, profound, and just plain funny story of a professional woman who thinks she's ready for a baby, but her maternity leave proves otherwise. Thirty-six-year-old Annie Schwartz-Jensen is a middle-school teacher on maternity leave - a time she imagined as uninterrupted, blissful bonding with her baby. Instead she is dealing with her body leaking from every possible orifice, a baby who won't sleep, a husband who still wants to have sex with her (is he nuts?), and single friends who are clueless.

Parenting is hard. So is being a peacemaker in a violent world. It Runs in the Family is a book about how parents can create lasting and meaningful bulwarks between their kids and the violence endemic in our culture. It posits discipline without spanks or slaps or threats of violence while considering how to raise thoughtful, compassionate, fearless young people committed to social and political change - without scaring, hectoring, or scarring them with all the wrongs in the world.

When Jesse Crane returned to his roots to serve on the Miccosukee police force, he'd hoped to leave behind the violence of the city and the memories of his murdered wife. But bodies start to pile up in Jesse's corner of the sultry Florida swampland. As he probes these crimes, Jesse is drawn to the beautiful Lorena Fortier, a new hire at the local gator farm and research facility. Lorena is a little too interested in Jesse's investigation, but before he can uncover her true motives, they're both pulled into a dangerous web of greed, ambition, and animal cunning.

Meghan Blaney comes from a long line of self-sufficient, gritty Maine lobstermen. She knows a thing or two about hard work, loyalty, and sacrifice. When she put off going to culinary school so she could take care of her aging father, she never expected to be schlepping pancakes at a local diner a decade later. Nor did she plan to be living in an old house that was too small for her partner, Lauren, and her cantankerous father.

Abigail loves her baby Rosie, her husband Thad, and food. She takes great joy and comfort in concocting culinary delights to show the depth of her love and commitment to her family. Imagine her surprise when Thad announces, "this whole marriage thing... just doesn't work for me." Abigail can't believe he really means what he's said, but he does. Abigail and Rosie move back in to her parents' house, where she regresses into her adolescent self.

In a seaside Jersey town, a risk-averse illustrator on the brink of leaving her husband for another man spends one “perfect night with perfect people.” Warm, witty, and bursting with life, the friends of the man for whom she may or may not be leaving her husband thrill something deep inside her – and leave her grasping for a future she will chase down for years to come

Did you know that the CIA once made use of a “spy cat”, or that, although delicious, eating the flesh of an armadillo can give you leprosy? And what about Terry, the small black Cairn Terrier from Kansas who was paid today’s equivalent of $2,000 a week for her work in The Wizard of Oz? Even if you think you have a handle on all things trivia, you're guaranteed a big surprise with Now I Know: Animals.

Peering into life's cringe-worthy moments, best-selling author Beth Lisick excavates territory that most would rather ignore. Funny, odd, deeply personal, yet somehow universal, these are the kind of memories that haunt us all, the small awful moments of shame and humiliation that we'd rather forget than relive. Beth Lisick has made a career of opening her life to her readers in all of its messy, smart hilarity, but this type of story doesn't usually find its way into a memoir.

Beth Lisick started out as a homecoming princess with a Crisco-aided tan and a bad perm. And then everything changed. Plunging headlong into America's deepest subcultures, while keeping both feet firmly planted in her parents' Leave It to Beaver values, Lisick makes her adult home on the fringe of mainstream culture and finds it rich with paradox and humor. Fans of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell will relish Lisick's scathingly funny, smart, very real take on the effluvia of daily living.

Kate Sanderson has been burned by love. From now on, she thinks, I will control my own destiny, and I will be reasoned and rational. But life has other things in store for Kate. Namely, a summer abroad studying Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in the very town where the star-crossed lovers met, Verona, Italy. Kate is thrown together with two other American teens and three Italians for a special seminar - and for volunteer duty at the Juliet Club, where they answer letters from the lovelorn around the world. Can Kate's cool logic withstand the most romantic summer ever?

Gorgeous playboy Dominick Chickalini can charm his way out of - or into-any and every situation. But on the plane on his way to Las Vegas for a weekend of drinking, flirting, and gambling, he suddenly feels like everyone is coupled up-except himself. He tries to push it out of his mind, but then he notices the passenger next to him. She's the most stunningly beautiful woman he's ever seen...and she's wearing a wedding dress. Mia Calogera has to get married or her strong-willed, and incredibly wealthy grandfather will cut her off.

"Break all rules, including these." So advises one of the stories in this audiobook collection. These stories jump - conscientiously - from a homage to Alexandre Dumas to an action-packed adventure set in the near future. There’s also an epic fantasy or space opera - take your pick - told in aphorisms, a contemplation on death, and a tale of what happens when walls begin to divide a place.

As she prepares dinner for her husband andtheir extended family, Suzanne hears on the radio that a jetliner has crashed and her lover is dead. Alex Elling was a renowned orchestra conductor. Suzanne is a concert violist, long unsatisfied withher marriage to a composer whose music turns emotion into thought. Now, more alone thanshe’s ever been, she must grieve secretly.

Leigh Fielding wants a life. Seriously. Having spent the past five years on dialysis, she has one simple wish: to make it to her thirtieth birthday. Now, thanks to the generosity of the late Larry Resnick and his transplanted kidney, it looks like her wish may come true. With her newfound vitality (and Larry's kidney) in tow, Leigh hits the road for an excursion that will carry her from Wisconsin to California, with a few stops in between: Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the Rockies, Las Vegas - and a memorable visit to thank Larry's family for the second chance.

All small towns have secrets - and plenty of them - as every small-town waitress knows. Daisy is no different. A young, recently separated waitress at H & P's Diner in sleepy southwestern Virginia, she hears more than her fair share of neighborhood gossip while serving plates of hash and peach cobbler. But when a reclusive old man shows up at the diner one day, only to drop dead a few minutes later, Daisy quickly learns that some secrets are more dangerous to keep than others - especially when there are money and moonshine involved.

Book View Cafe's members include international best-selling authors and winners of the National Book Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and many others. Most have sold multiple novels to major publishers. Many have taught writing at workshops around the world. The knowledge of these professional authors is gathered into a volume that will help both new and experienced writers cope with the creative challenges and the nuts-and-bolts business issues of a career in writing fiction.

Imagine a sophisticated thirty-two-year old Nancy Drew who has a career as a wine magazine writer, is not interested in monogamy, and has the kind of sex appeal only an independent woman can possess. Meet Jean Applequist. Though she despises the groom, Jean boards an elegant yacht in San Francisco Bay for the wedding of her good friend Diane and wealthy real estate developer Martin Wingo. But things go terribly wrong, the evening ending in tragedy rather than celebration when, after exchanging vows, Wingo disappears into the bay.

The untold story of five women who fought to compete against men in the high-stakes national air races of the 1920s and 1930s - and won.

The end of the world begins as literal fire rains down from the heavens. Ancient gods are released from their prison, eager to reestablish their long-lost power. But Rachel Deneuve has bigger, more contemporary concerns than a divine war. Her son Adam is in the middle of a fight against leukemia, and Rachel would much rather battle cancer than gods. But when humans begin picking sides and fighting escalates, their home in Baltimore becomes a war zone.

Splendiferous Speech explores the main sources of the American vernacular - the expanding western frontier, the bumptious world of politics, and the sensation-filled pages of popular 19th-century newspapers. It's a process that started with the earliest English colonists (first word adoption - the Algonquian raccoon) and is still going strong today. Author Rosemarie Ostler takes listeners along on the journey as Americans learn to declare linguistic independence and embrace their own brand of speech.