Showing results by narrator "Kate Rudd" in All Categories

What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill...or else everyone dies.

Shame is one of the most destructive of human emotions. If you suffered childhood physical or sexual abuse, you may experience such intense feelings of shame that it almost seems to define you as a person. In order to begin healing, it's important for you to know that it wasn't your fault. In this gentle guide, therapist and childhood abuse expert Beverly Engel presents a mindfulness and compassion-based therapeutic approach to help you overcome the debilitating shame that keeps you tied to the past.

A hungry, stray dog is the last thing Cara Butter needs. Stranded in Georgia with only her backpack and a few dwindling dollars, she already has too much baggage. Like her twin sister, Hana, who has broken Cara's heart one too many times. After a lifetime of family troubles, and bouncing from one foster home to another, Cara decides to leave it all behind and strike out alone - on foot.

Her voice was like whiskey, smooth and potent, but it was her contradictions that fascinated Detective Boyd Fletcher - the vulnerability beneath her tough-as-nails facade.

Playing Booth DeWitt's cruel ex-wife in his semiautobiographical film is the chance of a lifetime for actress Ariel Kirkwood. As she gets to know the sexy screenwriter, she finds herself wishing she was his real leading lady, but her accurate portrayal has left Booth conflicted over his failed marriage and new desires. Now Ariel must convince Booth to see her for the woman she is - and not the one she was hired to play....

What humankind feared the most has come to pass: the Awakening of the Aesir, an ancient race who rose with an implacable vengeance to wage war on mortals through bombardments and plague. Two people gifted with magic and ingenuity strive to stop them. Professor Robinson Hawksley, an elocutionist in the Invisible College, prepares to exhibit his invention to the world. Using sound to defeat the enemy could change the course of the war. It’s invaluable to the military. Even more so to a conniving rival who’ll do anything to prove its patent as her own.

Skills include wielding dual magics, stabbing bad guys with the pointy end, and protecting the good people of Seattle from dark wizards. Also wraps a mean sashimi roll. The name Brownstone evokes a certain reaction no matter who hears it. And for Alison Brownstone that’s both a blessing and a curse. But it’s time for her to step out of her dad’s shadow and make a new name for herself. She just has to decide what she wants that name to mean.

When banished Princess Maia is captured by her father and threatened with execution, it appears that all is lost...until the people rise in rebellion against their king. Suddenly, the cast-aside royal finds herself crowned the first Queen of Comoros. But enemies appear on all sides as her father's conniving supporters assemble a new army against the fledgling ruler.

When Jonathon Roth and his family are invited by their neighbors, the Beasleys, to join them at a luxury retreat in Cozumel, who can refuse? It’s the perfect winter getaway. Relaxing on the beach, gourmet food, sightseeing, and free accommodations. But if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Villa Sara de Calakmul, owned by mysterious tycoon Jacob Calakmul, is more isolated compound than private resort. Armed guards patrol the jungle perimeters. Pictures of previous guests—long disappeared—adorn the walls.

A slow, sexy drawl was all Amanda Calhoun heard when she walked into the wall of denim and muscle that was Sloan O'Riley, the architect hired to renovate her family's magnificent ancestral estate, the Towers. No-nonsense Amanda found Sloan's easygoing manner infuriating. But his irresistible smile was growing harder and harder to resist.

Eleven years ago, the Co-ed Slayer murdered nine female students on the Oregon State University campus. Lacey Campbell barely escaped his attack, but lost her best friend whose remains were never found. As the sole surviving victim, Lacey helped send the sadistic serial killer to prison for life. Now a forensic odontologist examining teeth and bones for the state Medical Examiner, Lacey is devastated when she arrives at a crime scene and identifies the skeletal remains as her college friend’s.

Jane easily falls in love with Duncan: he's charming, good-natured and handsome. He has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan's old girlfriends everywhere - at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away. While she may be able to come to terms with dating the world's most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she didn't have to share him quite so widely.

Trust can be rebuilt in your marriage! With patient, loving, self-sacrificing effort, it's possible that one day your wife will risk her heart with you again. And she may even have more respect and love for you than before. In Worthy of Her Trust, Jason Martinkus relates how he repaired his own marriage after revelations of sexual addiction. Along with Stephen Arterburn, Jason offers exercises and tools to help your marriage begin again.

Dylan O’Connor is a gifted young artist just trying to do the right thing in life. He’s on his way to an arts festival in Santa Fe when he stops to get a room for himself and his twenty-year-old autistic brother, Shep. But in a nightmarish instant, Dylan is attacked by a mysterious “doctor,” injected with a strange substance, and told that he is now a carrier of something that will either kill him...or transform his life in the most remarkable way.

Courtly intrigue and rumors of invasion plunge Kingfountain into turmoil as the search for Trynne’s father begins in earnest. But Trynne’s quest to learn the truth of Owen’s sinister disappearance is sidetracked when tragedy strikes her family once again. Suddenly, the future of the kingdom rests in her hands as she struggles to learn - and control - the power that can keep the threatening Deep Fathoms at bay.

Though relations between Princess Seraphin Fitzempress and her father have been strained, Sera’s royal position has remained unchallenged. Filled with self-doubt, she struggles to grasp the Mysteries - her greatest trial yet. An education in the enigmatic magic is a necessary one, should Sera plan to rise in her station and invoke her powers during war. But the emperor’s death now leaves both Sera and her ambitious father eligible for the throne - a contest the prince regent intends to win. Even if it means an alliance with a rival empire.

Arson investigator Ryan Piasecki was a man who got the job done no matter what the obstacle...or how beautiful she was. Ambitious executive Natalie Fletcher's new business was going up in smoke, literally, and she needed Ryan's help to catch the arsonist. But if he wasn't careful, the sparks flying between him and this hothouse rose would erupt into a five-alarm blaze - and they'd both be engulfed by the Night Smoke.

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early 20th century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. "A place," he said, "where learning is a game." Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym "Truly, Devious".