Showing results by narrator "Laural Merlington" in All Categories

Between hosting a haunted house on her lawn, serving on the town’s 400th Anniversary Planning Committee, and prepping for the Fall Festival’s 10k fundraiser, Lilly has her hands full. She doesn’t have time for prickly newspaper reporter Tyler Crane, who’s been creeping around town, looking for dirt on Goosebush’s most notable families...until he’s found dead on the race route moments before the start. An unfortunate accident? Or did Tyler unearth a secret that someone in Goosebush is willing to kill to keep?

So you think you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood, the girl with the unfortunate name and the inability to tell the difference between her grandmother and a member of a different species? Well, then, try your hand at answering these questions: Which character (not including Little Red herself) is the most fashion challenged? Who (not including the wolf) is the scariest? Who (not including Granny) is the most easily scared? Who is the strangest? (Notice we’re not "not including" anyone, because they’re all a little off.) Who (no fair saying "the author") has stuffing for brains?

When your worst fear comes true.Someone is watching Kaycee Raye. But who will believe her? Everyone knows she’s a little crazy. Kaycee’s popular syndicated newspaper column pokes fun at her own paranoia and multiple fears. The police in her small town are well aware she makes money writing...

This stimulating collection of essays in an autobiographical framework encompasses Gerda Lerner's theoretical writing and her organizational work in transforming the history profession and in establishing Women's History as a mainstream field.

Cosmopolitan meets Scientific American in this entertaining and informative question-and-answer book on human attraction. Based on the latest studies in science, Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes? answers more than 100 wild, weird, and very pressing questions.

The Reagans is a penetrating portrayal of one of the most powerful couples of the 20th century. Distinguished biographer Anne Edwards paints the first in-depth, intimate portrait of the man who became our 40th president and the woman without whom he might never have reached such heights. It was a dramatic love story from the start: Nancy was always first in Reagan's thoughts, and he was paramount in Nancy's actions. But this obsessional love had a darker side for the four Reagan children.

Megan Sawyer should be shouting from the barn roof. Washington Acres survived its first year, the cafe has become a hot spot for locals, and Winsome's sexy Scottish veterinarian is making house calls-and not just for the animals! But as summer slips into fall and Winsome prepares for its grand Oktoberfest celebration, beer isn't the only thing brewing. When the town pub's owner is killed in a freak accident, Megan suspects something sinister is afoot in Winsome, but no one is listening.

Starting in spring 2006, journalist Laurie Abraham sat in with five troubled couples as they underwent the searing process of group marriage therapy. Published as "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" the resulting article generated intense reader response. While space limitations allowed Abraham to focus only on one couple in her article, this book, which grew out of it and the reaction it inspired, tells the moving, fascinating story of all five.

For many Americans, the birth certificate is a mundane piece of paper, unearthed from deep storage when applying for a driver's license, verifying information for employers, or claiming state and federal benefits. Yet as Donald Trump and his fellow "birthers" reminded us when they claimed that Barack Obama wasn't an American citizen, it plays a central role in determining identity and citizenship. The Birth Certificate: An American History traces the document's two-hundred-year history to explain when, how, and why birth certificates came to matter so much in the United States.

Paige Winterbourne is a witch. Not that you'd notice - no warts, no green skin, no cute little wiggle of the nose whenever she casts a spell. No, most of the time she's just a normal 23-year-old girl; works too hard, worries about her weight, wonders if she'll ever find a boyfriend. Okay, so she does have an adopted teenage daughter, Savannah, who wants to raise her black witch of a mother from the dead. And who is being stalked by a telekinetic half-demon and an all-powerful cabal of sorcerers.

With spring’s arrival in Goosebush, Lilly and the Beautification Committee turn their eyes to new projects. A cleanup of the historic Goosebush Cemetery may be in order after Lilly and Delia find the plots there sorely neglected and inexplicably rearranged. Lilly soon discovers that Whitney Dunne-Bradford snapped up custodianship of the graveyard once she inherited Bradford Funeral Homes. But before Lilly can get to the bottom of the tombstone tampering, she stumbles upon Whitney’s body at the Jayne family mausoleum. 

NYPD sergeant Kathleen Mallory is drawn to place far away from home. In a small town in Louisiana, she steps off the train. Within the hour, one man has been assaulted, another has had a heart attack, a third has been murdered, and Mallory is in jail, though she nothing to do with any of these three events. She is there for an entirely different purpose. Seventeen years earlier, Mallory's mother died in this town, stoned to death by a mob, and the six-year-old Mallory had disappeared, to reappear on the streets of New York.

While Lilly digs into a town beautification project, her friend Tamara O’Connor has greater concerns than well-pruned geraniums. The real-estate-firm owner hasn’t been shy about blaming perennial grouch Gladys Preston for thwarting her many attempts to sell off a beautiful beachside property. But accusations fly when Gladys is suddenly found dead - and Tamara is caught standing over the body with a bloody weapon in her hand. As Tamara becomes the prime murder suspect, Lilly and the Garden Squad ladies set out to prove that someone planted the evidence.

Joy Anderson was innocent, young, and trusting when she met Gabe Venture. An aspiring journalist with worlds to conquer, Gabe came to New Mexico to explore the natural wonders of Lost River Cave, with Joy acting as his guide. Surrounded by staggering beauty they both surrendered to a passion too powerful to deny - and Joy gave herself freely to the most extraordinary man she had ever known.

In 1939, the families in a remote Jewish village in Romania feel the war close in on them. Their tribe has moved and escaped for thousands of years, but now, there is nowhere else to go. At the suggestion of an 11-year-old girl and a mysterious stranger who has washed up on the riverbank, the villagers decide to reinvent the world: deny any relationship with the known and start over from scratch. And for years, there is boundless hope. But the real world continues to unfold alongside the imagined one....

How would you feel if your 2-year-old child was diagnosed as autistic and mentally retarded? That he would go into his room and never come out, and would be institutionalized by age 17? This was the grim life sentence handed down to Lori and Jim Cairns regarding their son, JR. This diagnosis was made in 1996 - when little was known about autism, governments offered few helpful resources, and hope for recovery was disregarded as a myth, an urban legend. 

Thanks to her superstitious mother, Esther knows some tricks for avoiding bad luck: toss salt over your left shoulder, never button your shirt crooked, and avoid black cats. But even luck can't keep her family safe from the Great Depression. When Pa loses his job, Esther's family leaves their comfy Chicago life behind for a farm in Wisconsin. Living on a farm comes with lots of hard work, but that means there are plenty of opportunities for Esther to show her mother how helpful she can be.

On the eve of her retirement, Georgia attorney Mikala Aulani is as vivacious and vibrant as ever, eagerly anticipating a happy future with her partner, Ben. But if Kala has learned anything in35 years of practicing law, it’s that the truth can always surprise you. And when Adam Star turns up at her office, confessing to the long-ago murder of his wife, Kala must return to a notorious case that has never stopped haunting her. Ten years have passed since young nurse Sophie Lee was accused of murdering her wealthy patient.

In an age when corporate executives are focused on smoothing out differences and achieving consensus, Saj-nicole Joni and Damon Beyer contend that happy workers aren't always productive; they often become prone to boredom and complacency. While organizational harmony and strategic alignment are important, the health and well-being of organizations also depend on carefully constructed and constructive conflict.

Renowned environmental strategist, speaker, world traveler, and author Paula DiPerna brings a unique voice and optic to demystify and unveil today's most fascinating financial disruption—pricing the priceless to flip conventional ideas of how we value natural assets and why. She asks the provocative question long ignored: Why do we value the indispensable atmosphere at zero, but dispensable production in the trillions? She digs into alternatives, with real-life examples from around the globe of fascinating and pioneering financial innovations.