Showing results by narrator "Tara Ward" in All Categories

America, one century on: a warmer climate is causing vast movements of people. Droughts, floods and hurricanes force entire populations to simply abandon their homes. Tensions are mounting between North and South, and some Northern states are threatening to close their borders against homeless fellow Americans from the South.

When young Janie Pike dies in a tragic accident, she leaves behind a family numbed with grief and torn with guilt and recrimination. In this compassionate and haunting novel Anne Tyler explores how each member of the family learns to face the future in their own way.

One tropical island. Four couples. They believe they’re on a TV show to save their marriages. But the people behind the cameras know all their secrets. They’re going to be revealed, one by one. Because everyone has something to hide…

Shocked by his unexpected death, Kate becomes drawn into an investigation uncovering secrets about the grandmother she thought she knew and the man she never did. And she soon realises her questions are putting lives in danger.

Summer 1940. For Stevie Steiber, a young American journalist in Hong Kong, the war in Europe is a world away. Major Harry Field is investigating suspicious activity inside the colony, focusing Jishang a sophisticated Chinese publisher. But it is Stevie, Jishang's outspoken, beautiful correspondent who really fascinates him. When the Japanese army seizes the island, Stevie and Harry are faced with terrifying challenges. What will they sacrifice to stay alive, and how far will they go to protect each other?

Old secrets emerge, tempers flare. And so we parents decide to leave the beach, telling the teenagers to enjoy themselves, reassuring them someone will be back to collect them in an hour or two. But when I return later, I know something is really wrong. Our teens are slurring their words, stumbling to the car. It’s clear they have been drinking, and I’m shocked. I never expected our kids to behave this way. I’m bracing myself to have firm words with them in the morning, but the next day my concerns fade to nothing when 17-year-old Bella claims my son Finn assaulted her.

Forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett is called to the scene of an aircraft to help deal with an erratic passenger. She figures out that he’s got anterograde amnesia, and can’t form new memories. For every cryptic clue he is able to drag up from his memory, Jo has to sift through a dozen nonsensical statements. Suddenly a string of clues arises, something to do with a deadly biological agent, a missing wife and son, and a secret partnership gone horribly wrong.

Many regard alchemy as a metaphor for inner transformation. But this is only half the story. According to Catherine MacCoun, alchemy is no mere metaphor. It’s real magic. Transforming the inner world is, for the alchemist, a way to transform the outer world. Through studying the principles of alchemy, we can achieve extraordinary effects from ordinary actions by understanding how the world really works.

Autumn Reiniger wants something special for her 21st birthday. Daddy’s bought her the car and the apartment, but now she wants excitement. And what Autumn desires, she gets. Her father signs up Autumn and five friends for an ultimate urban reality game. Edge Adventures alert the SF police that a “crime situation” is underway, so the authorities will ignore any squealing tyres or desperate cries for help. Then - when working on a case nearby - Jo Beckett encounters a group of men carting six sullen college kids to the woods....

When Kaz Elmore is told her five-year-old daughter, Jamie, has died in a car crash; she struggles to accept that she'll never see her little girl again. Devlin, a security consultant and witness to the terrible accident scene, inadvertently reveals that Kaz's daughter might not have been the girl in the car. What if Jamie is still alive? With no evidence, the police aren't interested, so Devlin and Kaz have little choice but to investigate themselves. Devlin never gets involved with a client, but the more time he spends with Kaz, the more he desires her....

Tasia McFarland is a washed-up singer desperate to get back to the top of the charts. As her star begins to rise again, the tabloids uncover the fact that Tasia is the ex-wife of the US president - which is one reason the world takes notice when she is killed by a bullet to the neck in front of a crowd of fans. Suicide is suspected, but when the ballistics report comes up empty, the authorities call on Jo Beckett to do a psychological autopsy. As Jo sifts through the facts, she only finds more questions....

After a family tragedy, the old Alaskan homestead lay abandoned for two decades, until the one person who need it most came looking. What Kache found was more than a house full of old memories and buried secrets: he found Nadia, who had been hiding from the world, unseen, for ten years.

Ten years have passed since David Mortimer last saw Anna Russell. Their love affair abruptly ended when Anna disappeared. Drifting through life ever since, David has never married, and is devoted only to his scientific work and to the book he has always meant to write, the story of the extraordinary plant explorer in China, Ernest Wilson. But David's isolation is about to change. He receives news that Anna has been seriously injured in an accident.

Keiko Kitigawa disembarks from a plane on a New York airstrip in June 1952, turning one scarred cheek away from the pop and flare of news photographers’ cameras. On the surface, she is impeccably composed, an eighteen-year-old survivor of the atomic blast that destroyed Hiroshima and vaporized the people she loved best. But the committee who is sponsoring her visit to America for charitable reconstructive surgery want to crack that surface.

When Dawn Stephens’ parents are killed in an accident, she is transplanted from her home in Canada to the small seaside town of Sturvendor in Somerset, to live with her uncle and aunt. She makes friends with her cousin Serena, and soon settles in well at the local school, but Dawn still feels very alone in this strange new world.

Sophie and Andrew are looking for relief from the daily grind—so when a friend puts them in touch with newlyweds looking to swap houses for the summer, they have their solution. The swap works an unexpected magic for Sophie, who begins to find a sense of happiness. But soon the intertwining of these lives and hearts begins to have dramatic consequences none of them could have foreseen.

Is there someone in your life who always seems to know the right thing to say, do and feel? Do you wish you could be more like that too? The truth is that you can, and this motivating and inspiring guide will show you how. Courage, compassion and wisdom are three companions that accompany us through our entire lives. Learning to unlock and harness their power, uniting them to act together in synergy, is the key to a happier life – not just for you, but for those around you too.