Showing results by narrator "Susie Berneis" in All Categories

Cal Hudson knows the world can be an ugly place. As a reporter for a big Chicago newspaper, he's journeyed into the darkest corners to expose the vilest crimes, but the world he and his devoted wife, Faith, share is much nicer. They've made sure of it, creating a tranquil haven in suburban River Ridge to protect their precious nine-year-old son. But then the unthinkable happens: he vanishes. In a split second at a local carnival, their storybook world begins unraveling.

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.

Set in the 1870s, Edith Wharton examines the American elite culture on the East Coast. Newland Archer is a lawyer and heir to one of New York City's most prominent families. He is arraigned to be married to May Welland. Newland is pleased with the prospect, until he meets Countess Ellen Olenska, May's older cousin. Suddenly, Newland begins to doubt his arranged marriage and society's shallow rules as his attraction to Ellen increases.

In "The Quiet Little Woman" a lonely orphan girl named Patty desires only for a family to love her. When a family finally does come for Patty, she learns it is because they need a servant. But it happens that there is one person who cares about Patty, whose life will soon change forever.

From the snow-covered prairie to the remote Australian Outback, a cowboy's loving kiss makes this Christmas merry and bright in each of these novellas.

“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.

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.

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's chance to restore a rare first edition of Beauty and the Beast seems a fairytale come true - until she realizes the book last belonged to an old friend. Three years ago, Max Adams fell in love with Emily and gave her the copy of Beauty and the Beast. Soon afterward, he died in a car crash, and Brooklyn has always suspected his ex-girlfriend and her jealous beau. Now she decides to find out who sold the book and return it to its rightful owner - Emily.

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.

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.

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.

Brooklyn Wainwright is thrilled to be appearing on the hit TV show, This Old Attic as a rare-book expert. Her first subject is a very valuable first-edition copy The Secret Garden. Its owner, Vera, is eager to have Brooklyn recondition it for resale. But a furious man viciously accosts Brooklyn, claiming that Vera found the first edition at his garage sale, and he wants it back - or else. In the days that follow, Brooklyn visits Vera's flower shop…and discovers her dead.

After Wanda Frawley’s tragic suicide, rare-book expert Brooklyn Wainwright makes an intriguing discovery in one of Wanda’s old books: A copy of Pride and Prejudice contains a very interesting letter addressed to the deceased’s spouse. In it, Wanda’s sister professes her love for Wanda’s husband. Soon, additional pieces of correspondence are discovered between the covers of other Jane Austen titles, each hinting at sordid secrets - and, perhaps, murder.

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....

"A Merry Christmas" is the famous Christmas scene (Chapter Two) from the immortal Louisa May Alcott novel, Little Women. The four March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, and their mother, celebrate Christmas without their father who has gone to war. Newly impoverished, after father's financial loss, the sisters work outside the home for money to support the family, and rediscover the true meaning of Christmas in the process.

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.

In 1890s New York, beautiful, wealthy Francesca Lund is an intriguing prospect for worthy suitors and fortune hunters alike. Recently orphaned, she copes by working with the poor in the city's settlement movement. But a young woman of means can't shun society for long, and Francesca's long-standing acquaintance with dashing Edmund Tracey eventually leads to engagement.

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.

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.