Showing results by narrator "Alex Picard" in All Categories

Retirement in the Cotswolds has given Leta Parker a new lease on life. Growing close to her small-town pals, the former corporate trainer is thrilled to help them put on the village's annual autumn celebration. But the punch goes sour when a friend's estranged magician husband is found murdered. With the newly widowed woman the prime suspect, Leta leaps into action with spunky friends and her talking dog and cat to clear her name. But when they trace the lecherous victim to England's picturesque southern coast, they discover a long list of past lovers.

I Never Said I Love You is the story of an unlikely love affair between two young people, spanning two decades. Listeners will take a journey across the globe as the couple, years later, unexpectedly reconnect, revisit the past, and ultimately find their own way forward.

Peer through the windows of Raven Day McShane’s life as she leaves her army life for the civilian world—not an easy task for any military veteran. With undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, Raven and her son, Aaron, encounter tremendous hardships as they journey through life, not always together, ultimately to learn that life is not how we plan. But together or apart, they realize that they can put life back together with faith in each other and with love.

Meet Andi. Devoted wife. Adoring mom. Killer? My daughter's missing. And the police think I killed her. Monday, 8 a.m. I go to wake up eight-year-old Bella to get her ready for school. She's not there. My husband Charlie and I put her to bed as usual the night before. We kissed her goodnight. Just like we always do. Things like this don't happen to people like us. Not in a quiet little town like Spencer, Michigan. Detective Anne Briar is leading the case. I know she suspects I'm not telling her everything. I see it in the way her eyes narrow ever so slightly. And she's right.

Leta Parker needs a distraction. With her boyfriend temporarily staying in Connecticut, the confident retiree is ready to dive into the design and team-building conference being hosted by her adopted Cotswolds village. But when one of the lead consultants is late to a meeting and she goes next door to wake him up, she’s shocked to stumble across his strangled corpse. Shut out of the case by the stuffy detective inspector, Leta agrees to lend her well-honed mind to keep the teamwork sessions on track.

Sevastopol contains three distinct narratives, each burrowing into a crucial turning point in a person’s life: A young woman gives a melancholy account of her obsession with climbing Mount Everest; a Peruvian-Brazilian vanishes into the forest after staying in a musty, semiabandoned inn in the haunted depths of the Brazilian countryside; a young playwright embarks on the production of a play about the city of Sevastopol and a Russian painter portraying Crimean War soldiers.

BEFORE THE KILLING: After 19-year-old Cassie returns home from her first year away at college, her boyfriend, Julian, is implicated in a brutal killing. Seven years later, a freak occurrence gives Cassie a unique time-traveling ability, allowing her to re-live that earlier time with the benefit of foreknowledge. But in witnessing the truth, she inadvertently reveals herself to the killer, who begins to pursue her in past and present both. “Once I started I couldn’t put it down!” -Bookshelf Adventures

Suspicion. Lies. Murder. Barbara Hollis didn't expect to encounter any of these in small town life. With a murky past to hide from, moving to quiet little Cobbsville was supposed to be a perfect escape. But a neighbor who has her own dangerous secret to conceal soon becomes as big a threat as the crazed lunatic who is setting fire to houses around town . . . Even as a terrible new doubt surfaces against her brother, Barbara is intrigued by an attractive new acquaintance who happens to be the local mayor. But will one more distraction prove welcome . . . or deadly?

Solana Sina is a scarab, salvaging wrecked and abandoned space habitats among the Billion Worlds of the Tenth Millennium. She and an oddball crew—a raven, a cyborg, and a dinosaur—board the derelict colony Safdaghar hoping to score some loot before the colony gets catapulted into the outer reaches of the Solar System. But Solana and the scarabs come face-to-face with a gang of vicious pirates looking for slaves and treasure, and a mysterious stranger intent on preserving an explosive secret. Solana must overcome her own horrifying past to survive and escape before it's too late.

A renowned business innovation leader teams up with a social-personality psychologist to offer that something else—a collection of ten visionary principles to obliterate barriers to change and ignite a whole new level of creative problem-solving. Drawing upon decades of experience working with the world's best-known organizations and their teams, the authors provide practical advice that goes beyond "business as usual" for successfully tackling intractable challenges. The Breakthrough Manifesto explores why these principles are critical for the current times.

Mike Albo delivers a thrilling transdimensional love story in what can best be described as The Breakfast Club meets Brit Marling's The OA, as five teens travel across the astral plane at different points in the past, present, and future of the rapidly changing Virginia suburbs of Washington, D...

Her mother's rules were simple, but Annie Meadows rarely followed them. The rules were required, though, if they didn't want to get caught. Sometimes Annie believed what she and her mother did was wrong, but she was told they were helping the children in the basement. When Annie heard them cry in their locked rooms, it didn't feel that way. As she got older, Annie reflected on what she had done and vowed never to be like her mother. Then she met little Gracie Bradshaw, a child in her daycare classroom. Gracie is special, just like Annie was.

Josephine teaches in a high school in a suburb of Paris. Her life is a balancing act between Xanax and Tupperware lunches in the staff room until she walks into a Champs-Élysées strip club. There she learns a secret nocturnal code of conduct; she discovers camaraderie and the joys of female company, and she thrills at the sensation of men's desire directed toward her. Josephine, a teacher by day, begins to lead a secret existence by night that ultimately allows her to regain control of her life.

In book #4, a new owl named Hailey starts in Eva's class at school. Eva is always happy to meet new people, and she's excited to make a new friend! But the new owl befriends Lucy instead of her. So Eva gets jealous. Lucy is Eva's best friend! Will Eva lose her best friend? Or can Eva and Lucy BOTH make a new friend?

Torquay, Southwest England. Leta Parker can't wait to reconnect with her boyfriend. After a year of long-distance, she couldn't be happier to join him at a literary crime festival. But on the event's second night, she gets embroiled in a real-life murder mystery when a dead body is found . . .

Leta Parker's fit-and-fifty reinvention in the Cotswolds continues rolling along fabulously. Happy among her new friends and talking dog and cat, the sharp-minded expat is delighted to learn the prestigious Tour of Britain will pedal through the quaint village next year. But everyone's excitement quickly crashes when the news is accompanied by a dead body.

Leta Parker is starting to feel comfortably at home. With life in the charming Cotswolds hills settling down and her boyfriend’s book about to launch, the fifty-something American ex-pat loves seeing everything come together. But her man’s publicity event ends disastrously when one of the guests is discovered dead. With a trail of clues that don’t line up and bitter rivalries causing tension, Leta and the Little Old Ladies Detective Agency struggle to find a clear path to the truth.

The daughter of an Auschwitz survivor, author Bracha Horovitz spent her childhood surrounded by people who worked fervently to establish the fledgling nation of Israel after its 1948 independence. Inspired by their resilience and fortitude, Bracha set her heart on living a life that would honor her family, her community, and her heritage. At eighteen, Bracha joined the Israel Defense Forces. Alongside other female soldiers, she parachuted from planes, marched through hot deserts, and learned to shoot machine guns. Intense military training taught her that women, too, can be fierce fighters.

In this intimate story of relationship resilience, marine biologist Beth Mathews’s adventurous life as a professor and mother in Alaska is upended when her healthy husband is slammed by a rare type of stroke. Jim’s radical approach to recovery clashes with Beth’s instinct to keep him safe at home and sets them on a collision course as he insists on ambitious sailing expeditions with Beth and their young son in Alaska’s magnificent yet unforgiving waters.

Staff Sergeant Grace Woods has had enough of pain. Her assignment as a cryptographer at an underground black site lets her focus on her precision work. She’s in control, shielded from past loss of everyone she loved.