Showing results by narrator "Des Linden" in All Categories

The stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul will encourage listeners to stay upbeat, because there's always a brighter way to look at life. This collection includes 30 Stories about play, what's important, and belief.

When ex-downhill skier Jade Hart's two sisters give her a Kidnap Fantasies questionnaire, Jade is aroused at the prospect of having no-strings fun in the sun with a stranger whose only job would be to fulfill her every intimate fantasy. Although she knows she's too shy to send it in, she secretly pours her deepest wishes into the questionnaire. Soon the Kidnap Fantasies questionnaire mysteriously vanishes and then Jade's fantasy man appears on her luxury yacht.

Patti M. Hall’s life is pitched into an abyss of uncertainty when a golf ball-sized tumour is discovered in her teenage son’s head and he is diagnosed with gigantism, a disease of both legend and stigma. After scrambling to access a handful of medical experts in the field, Patti learns that her son could grow uncontrollably, his mobility could be permanently limited, and his life could be cut short without timely and aggressive treatment. Patti’s attention shifts fully to her son, away from her relationships as well as her own career and health.

Aikido Sensei Parker, a sometimes private investigator, finds himself in Maine on a bird hunting vacation with an old friend. Only, it turns out the invitation holds ulterior motives: Harry Andersen has a friend who is missing. Parker is asked to look into it, and the chase is on. Missing redheads driving hot cars, mountains of dope stacked in bales, and the most intriguing, expensive mushroom, chaga, push every mushroom pirate in New England on a desperate search to find a mother lode.

The stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul will encourage listeners to stay upbeat, because there's always a brighter way to look at life. This collection includes 20 Stories about love and letting go.

After a childhood as unpredictable as the flip of a coin, Faith Sterling has finally found her comfort zone in the kitchen of an upscale Manhattan restaurant. A workaholic chef, at least there she's in control. So when her free-spirited and often-gullible mother, Connie, calls to announce that she's won a bed-and-breakfast on the Jersey Shore, Faith's patience boils over. Convinced the contest is a scam, she rushes to Wave's End to stop Connie from trading her steady job for an uncertain future.

Werebear Stefan Vane has a job to do--protect his witness. He devises a plan to keep the stubborn she-bear at his family's remote wilderness therapy camp. Her identity must stay secret. They agree to pretend they're a couple. But her smart mouth and sexy curves are distracting. He'll do whatever it takes to make sure she's safe, only he never expects the lines between what's fake and what's real to become so blurred.

Max and Ruby have fallen hard for each other after a bitter grad school rivalry turned first into lust, and then into love. When the school year comes to an end, they’re faced with a new challenge: a summer apart. They make plans to visit each other, but when Max comes to Chicago to meet Ruby’s family, she brings with her a secret in a small package – an engagement ring that she hopes will prove her devotion. There’s only one problem.... Max has never been good at first impressions, and she fits into Ruby’s family like a square peg in a round hole.

In the summer of 1996, 18-year-old Jessie Cody's peaceful life is shattered. After discovering her sister's dark secret, she suffers a brutal attack to keep her silent. If the truth is revealed, it will ruin the lives of her family and friends, so Jessie's only choice is to run away. Thirteen years later, Jessie returns home to find she is not the only one harboring painful secrets. As events begin to unravel, the past comes rushing back, and relationships may be destroyed forever. Is it possible for Jessie to redefine her trauma and find a place in the life she left behind?

Thirty years have passed since Christine and her father, Heinz, vacationed together. It was such a disaster - an exasperated Heinz left the moody teenager at a gas station to teach her a lesson - that Christine vowed never to travel with him again. But now her mother is insisting that Christine and her best friend, Dorothea, take Heinz along on what is supposed to be a relaxing girls’ trip to the beach. And she’s not taking no for an answer. Suddenly Christine and Dorothea have a chaperone, though high school is long since over.

Alex thought she had married the man of her dreams: successful, gorgeous, and delighted by her small-town charm. When he walks out six months later, proclaiming to have 'found himself' (with the help of a stunning yoga teacher), she 'finds herself' alone in an unfamiliar city, vengefully drinking through his prized wine collection, living on takeout, and refusing to answer the door. When this fails to cure her broken heart and bruised ego, she reluctantly allows her new friends to intervene.

Forty-six-year-old divorcée Christine is finally happy - or so she thinks. She has an amazing boyfriend but she also has a drama-filled family she fears might scare him off. And when Christine spies her dependable Aunt Inge in the company of a man who is most certainly not her husband, it sends the family drama into overdrive - and delivers an unexpected wake-up call to Christine. Because after witnessing the newfound passion with which 60-something Inge is tackling each day, Christine becomes aware of the mounting frustrations in her supposedly fabulous life. Sick and tired of playing it safe, Christine finally decides the time has come to make some big changes.

Cat and Xander return in a Friessen Family novella about hurdles in this young couple’s relationship. Cat and Xander have been living together for years and for Cat it’s everything she wants until an unexpected complication changes everything in this couple's relationship. But for Xander having Cat means she comes with her very opinionated and interfering father Neil who is always sticking his nose into their relationship.

Blind since 19, Summer has blossomed into a famous woodcarver. When she's almost killed by a serial killer, she's whisked away to a secluded wilderness cabin by the man she once secretly loved. Summer can't get enough of touching professional bodyguard Nick Cassidy's thick, powerful muscles and all those other hard, yummy male body parts that she has always longed to explore.

When Philip Drem, the most feared and hated IRS auditor, is murdered, junk food junkie Jill Smith finds a long list of suspects among Berkeley's eclectic community.

Veteran paranormal investigator Maureen Keslyn never asked for life to be easy - for her, nothing is more invigorating than hunting down and ending a dangerous paranormal adversary. Fortunately, life at Shadow Valley Manor tends to be a little more...interesting...than the experience at your average retirement community.

Growing up, Cat Friessen didn’t always know who she was. In fact, her earliest memory is of being alone in a silent world, terrified and misunderstood, left like garbage in a Mexican orphanage. The memory haunts her, and it’s one she’s never shared with her parents Neil and Candy Friessen, who have given her their name, their love, and a surgery that changed her life for the better. Now 19, Cat struggles with her sheltered existence and the fact that she doesn’t really fit in.

When the body of Shadow Valley resident Dason Williams is discovered in his mother’s basement it appears to be a clear-cut case of suicide, but seasoned paranormal investigator Maureen Keslyn knows otherwise. A photograph on the dead man’s wall links him to a murdered teenage girl whose body bears the marks of a dangerous paranormal creature known as the Medusa. Convinced that the Medusa is on a killing spree, Maureen joins forces with an unwieldy team - Jake, the local sheriff, Matt, the Shadow Valley Manor cook, and Sophronia, a teenage girl with an uncanny affinity for ghosts.

Everyone knows the first time you meet that special someone: Your eyes connect from across the room, and you smile and work up the courage to say hello. It’s a simple feat for most people, but not for Trevor Friessen, who struggles to fit into this world and thinks he always will...that is, until he meets a girl who is as different from him as she is the same.

Ever since discovering her lifelong best friend was sleeping with her (now ex) husband, Christine's trust in other women has been a little shaky. Sure, she has a few close friends, but she's also fiercely independent and shies away from sharing too much with them. When Ruth, one of her colleagues, hears Christine saying that she doesn't feel the need for a best friend, she wishes she could show her how enriching a good female friendship really can be. She embarks on a mission to find Christine’s girlfriends.