Showing results by narrator "Susie Berneis" in All Categories

Six-million acres of Adirondack forest separate Natalie and Doug Larson from civilization. For the newlyweds, the isolated backcountry honeymoon seemed ideal for starting their lives together, but as they begin to explore the dark interiors of their own hearts, it soon becomes clear that they are not alone in the woods. A man watches them, wielding the forest like a weapon. He wants something from them that's more terrifying than death. And once they are near him, he will do everything in his power to make sure they never walk out again.

Mary, a lonely orphaned girl sent to a Yorkshire mansion at the edge of a vast, lonely moor. At first she is frightened by this gloomy place until she meets a local boy, Dickon, who's earned the trust of the moor's wild animals; the invalid Colin, an unhappy boy terrified of life; and a mysterious, abandoned garden....

Brooklyn has always been a little obsessed with food, but it was her sister, Savannah, who became a chef, graduating from the prestigious Cordon Bleu school in Paris. She and her classmates all went on to successful careers, but none of them achieved culinary superstardom like Savannah's ex-boyfriend Baxter Cromwell. When Baxter invites the old gang to participate in his new restaurant's gala opening, in San Francisco, Savannah asks Brooklyn to restore a tattered cookbook as a present for him. Shortly after receiving the gift, Baxter is found dead, with Savannah kneeling over him, bloody knife in hand, and the rare cookbook has disappeared....

In the mid 1800s, Pyncheon is still a revered namesake in Salem, with the gloomy Pyncheon mansion serving as a stark reminder of the family's upper class history. However, the house - unique for its seven gables - has a dark and deadly past. Its current occupant, the older and unmarried Hepzibah Pyncheon, is all but destitute and unwilling to accept any assistance from her wealthy but unrelenting cousin, Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon.

In this Christmas story, a poor girl named Tilly finds an injured bird in the snow and takes it home to care for it, believing in the lessons her mother has taught her concerning the golden rule and Christ's commandment to love our neighbors. Although her friends think she shouldn't take care of the bird, her kindness is rewarded unexpectedly on Christmas Eve. This version of "Tilly's Christmas" was recorded as part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Louisa May Alcott.

When she receives an exquisite copy of the Kama Sutra from her best friend, Robin, to appraise and restore, Brooklyn Wainwright anticipates both recreating a beautiful book and spicing up her love life. But then Robin's apartment is ransacked, and the great guy she recently met is murdered in her bed. Now Robin is the number one suspect. Obviously, exploring the Kama Sutra's bliss will have to wait until after Brooklyn finds the killer...

Rare-books expert Brooklyn Wainwright is invited to the 50th birthday party of her neighbor Suzie's aunt Grace. A retired founder of a major video game corporation, Grace is a larger-than-life character who's turned her Lake Tahoe mansion into a fun house. Part of the fun involves a seance, but after the lights flicker, one guest is dead, poisoned by a cocktail intended for Grace. It seems someone is determined to turn Grace's playful palatial estate into a house of horrors.

“Doomed from birth” was how psychologist Harold Skeels described two girls at the Orphans’ Home in Davenport, Iowa, in 1934. Following prevailing eugenic beliefs, Skeels and his colleague Marie Skodak assumed that the girls had inherited their parents’ low intelligence and sent them to an institution. To their astonishment, under the women’s care, the children’s IQ scores became normal. Recasting Skeels and his team as intrepid heroes, Marilyn Brookwood weaves years of prodigious archival research to show how after decades of backlash, the Iowans finally prevailed.

Siblings Alexina and Stephen are down on their luck this year and resign themselves to not having a Christmas dinner. But when their wealthy, gourmand uncle James invites himself to their house for Christmas, the pair scramble to lay out a sumptuous feast, including his favorite, Mince pie. But 10 minutes before the turkey is done, an unforeseeable disaster occurs that threatens to ruin everything.

Based loosely on Louisa May Alcott's own upbringing, Little Women follows the lives of four sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March. Each girl has a vision of what their ideal future will bring, though ultimately experiencing, as most young do, something completely different. Little Women, originally written as two volumes, was a great commercial success and is considered one of the most widely read American novels.

In Désirée’s Baby, the adopted daughter of a wealthy prewar French Creole couple is courted by the son of another wealthy, respected French Creole family. After they marry, their child is born with dark skin and believed to have African ancestry, a problem for a prewar white family. Accused of dishonesty by her husband, the mother, Désirée, and her child walk off into the bayou, never to be seen again. But when the father finds a letter from his mother to his father which reveals an explosive fact about his own ancestry, he learns a sobering truth.

A short poem that evokes the ambience and spiritual joy of the season, "A Song for a Christmas Tree" is an ode to the wonders of the Christmas season.

Charles Minor Blackford, an aristocrat from Virginia, enlisted in the Second Virginia Cavalry at the start of the American Civil War. During his tour of duty, Captain Blackford kept constant correspondence with his wife, Susan Leigh Blackford. Captain Blackford wrote frequently about the horrible conditions in his camp, while Susan detailed her own struggles, including the loss of her home and the death of three children. This collection of letters highlights the misery of war, and offers a first-hand account of how the Civil War affected families.

In "A Hospital Christmas" a Civil War-era hospital is the setting for a Christmas story about caring for others, thinking positively, and how sharing can make Christmas meaningful for those who have little.

The English settlement at Plymouth has usually been seen in isolation. Indeed, the colonists gain our admiration in part because we envision them arriving on a desolate, frozen shore, far from assistance and forced to endure a deadly first winter alone. Yet Plymouth was, from its first year, a place connected to other places. Going beyond the tales we learned from schoolbooks, Carla Gardina Pestana offers an illuminating account of life in Plymouth Plantation.

With Nealy, horses come first. So when her two grown children's irresponsible acts nearly cost her Shufly, she throws them both off Blue Diamond Farm, choosing to work alone rather than give them another chance to risk her dream of training the promising foal into a Triple Crown winner. But while the estrangement from her children doesn't seem to affect her work, inside she's shattered.

Interior decorator Madison Night might look like a throwback to the 60s, but as business owner and landlord, she proves that independent women can have it all. When a killer targets women dressed in her signature style - estate sale vintage to play up her resemblance to fave actress Doris Day - what makes her unique might make her dead. The local detective connects the new crime to a 20-year-old cold case, and Madison's long-trusted contractor emerges as the leading suspect.

In "A Country Christmas", Louisa May Alcott tells the story of Sophie, a debutante from the city who travels to rural Vermont to spend Christmas with her cousins Saul and Ruth. Though apprehensive at first, Sophie learns that the charms of celebrating Christmas in the country are many.

Both Thomas Edison and Henry Ford started off as insatiably curious tinkerers. That curiosity led them to become inventors - with very different results. As Edison invented hit after commercial hit, gaining fame and fortune, Henry struggled to make a single invention (an affordable car) work. Witnessing Thomas' glorious career from afar, a frustrated Henry wondered about the secret to his success.

In "Kate's Choice", a young English girl inherits a financial windfall when she is suddenly orphaned. Per her father's wish, she is sent to America to live with the families of each of her four uncles in order to choose where she will live. Each family is full of wonderful, prosperous, interesting people, all of them anxious that Kate should choose their family to stay with. But at Christmastime, Kate surprises them all by announcing whom she shall stay with.