Showing results by narrator "Linda" in All Categories

Winners of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, O. Henry Award and Edgar Awards, the 19 writers in this 2005 edition are not just considered some of the best Southern writers, but among the best American writers period. With works by such writers as Dennis Lehane, Moira Crone, Robert Olen Butler, Cary Holladay, Tom Franklin, and Rebecca Soppe, this collection provides an electrifying current of deep, dark subjects set in the brutal, but charming south.

Sixteen-year-old Mary Swan Middleton is devastated when her artistic mother is killed in a plane crash. The family maid, seeing Mary's loneliness and desperation, suggests she volunteer to help the poor. Soon, Mary realizes there is more to life, love, and faith, than she ever knew.

Imagine you're at a dinner party with some of the most successful authors of our time. "Book Mama" and Beautiful Writers Podcast cocreator Linda Sivertsen is the host. As she shares her story of the many hilarious, outrageous, and practical things she did to launch her bestselling writing career, your favorite writers chime in with their own anecdotes, leaving you enlightened and newly inspired. The wisdom in this book will nourish anyone who appreciates the art of storytelling and dreams of living a creative life.

"My name is Linda Buchan, and when I was 18 years old I died. It was Saturday, June 27, 1998, when my young life ended and my new life began. A life that was to be so completely different to the one that I had envisaged, the one that I had expected...." In Linda Buchan's raw and powerful memoir, she shares her journey from the terrible night when the life and future she thought lay ahead of her was shattered.

Anne has spent most of her 13 years dreaming of the day she and her best friend Penelope will finally leave Saint Lupin's Institute for Perpetually Wicked and Hideously Unattractive Children. When the big day arrives, a series of very curious happenings lead to Anne being charged with an epic quest. Anne, Penelope, and new questing partner Hiro have only days to travel to strange new locales, solve myriad riddles, and triumph over monstrous foes - or face the horrible consequences.

In the west, Hinduism is a religion that everyone has heard of, but one that few truly understand. It is regarded as one of the world's great religions and considered the indigenous religion of India. However, Hinduism, as it is conceived of today, is a conglomerate of a number of indigenous Indian religions. It was only the nonindigenous populations in India, namely the Turks and later the British, who defined what Hinduism was.

Alexandra Belarus was an artist stuck working in her New York family’s business…until she discovered her true legacy - a deep and ancient magic. Lexi became the last practicing Spellmason, with the power to breathe life into stone. And as her powers awoke, so did her family’s most faithful protector: a gargoyle named Stanis. But when a centuries-old evil threatened her family and her city, Stanis sacrificed himself to save everything Lexi held dear. With Stanis gone, Lexi’s efforts to master Spellmasonry - even with the help of her dedicated friends - are faltering.

Alexandra Belarus is a struggling artist living in New York City, even though her family is rich in real estate, including a towering Gothic Gramercy Park building built by her great-great-grandfather. But the truth of her bloodline is revealed when she is attacked on the street and saved by an inhumanly powerful winged figure. A figure who knows the Belarus name....

Lee Smith is one of today's most critically acclaimed authors writing about contemporary life in the South. In Family Linen, with a remarkable economy of description and dialogue, Smith sketches eccentric, yet familiar characters moving through a family drama that resonates with both tension and humor.

From scream queens to femmes fatale, horror isn’t just for the boys. Gothic media moguls Meg Hafdahl and Kelly Florence, authors of The Science of Monsters, and cohosts of the Horror Rewind podcast called “the best horror film podcast out there” by Film Daddy, present a guide to the feminist horror movies, TV shows, and characters we all know and love. Through interviews, film analysis, and bone-chilling discoveries, The Science of Women in Horror uncovers the theories behind women’s most iconic roles of the genre.

Stoicism, the classical philosophy as a way of life practiced by the Greeks and Romans, continues to resonate in the modern world. With more than 40 essays and reflections, this book is simultaneously a guide to practicing Stoicism in your own life and to all the different aspects of the modern Stoic revival. You will learn about Stoic practical wisdom, virtue, how to relate wisely to others, and the nature of Stoic joy.

Amanda Storey was sent by her company to a tiny rural town to convince the community that having a chain mega-supermarket built there would be a boon to their economy and job market. She never showed up for the town hall meeting, even though the company insists she was scheduled to be there. The motor inn where she had reservations claimed she never checked in, and police have not found any trace of her body or her car. This is what really happened.

The second of four novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring famed detective Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four is set in London but has its origins in colonial India. Four men in Agra make a pact to share the proceeds of a stolen treasure, but they are deceived by a fifth, who finds and takes the loot back to England and hides it. A decade on, young Mary Morstan receives the first of several lustrous pearls in the post - a mysterious gift delivered to her on the same date for several years.

Terrie Myers didn't believe life would give her a second chance at love. She had managed to survive cancer, but she had lost the man she thought she loved. Returning to her parents' vacation house on the Texas Gulf Coast, she never expected to fall for the man living in the bungalow next door. Sadly, he was already married. Still, she couldn't help the way she felt or deny the joy of living he gave her.

When Jasper and Scruff hear about the Reach Fur the Stars talent show they know it’s their big chance to shine. But while Scruff hopes his magic act will dazzle the judges, Jasper wants the limelight all to himself. And they’re not the only ones who want to get their paws on the Grand Prize – the Sophisticats have a sneaky plan to steal the show. Will Jasper and Scruff team up in time to stop the cunning cats?

The novel opens with Mr. and Mrs. Parker’s visit to Sanditon, a village on the coast of Sussex. Sanditon is being developed into a bathing-place under the patronage of the two principal proprietors of the parish, Mr. Parker and Lady Denham. Mr. Parker suffers an injury and receives assistance from a local farmer, Mr. Heywood. The latter’s daughter, Charlotte, is of marriageable age and has three eligible suitors: Lady Denham’s foppish son, Sir Edward; Mr. Parker’s devil-may care brother, Sydney; and Arthur, who is an unemployed hypochondriac.

A universe governed only by an entity called Fate. Time an unknown, unrecognised quantity. An itinerant artificial intelligence visitor from a sister universe, on an unsanctioned mission of discovery, disrupts the established flow of life, causing Fate to instigate a catastrophic sequence of resets.

Following a painful breakup, aspiring manga writer Shinichi Aizawa retreats from the world and devotes himself to writing. His first concept is Otherworld, a fantasy series set on distant a world peopled by various races. When it is promptly optioned, he finds himself teamed with artist Midori Kano. That's when the fox appears on his doorstep, in the midst of a titanic thunderstorm. Fleeing from the creature, the writer and artist find themselves transported to a world which seems to mirror that of Otherworld.

First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice is the most polished of Jane Austen’s novels, with a humorous and upbeat mood. It was written at a time when the author’s narrative powers were fully developed and the story flows with an ease that conceals the skill of its construction. The plot line follows the sequence of a love relationship apprehended, misunderstood, and finally realized, which has since become a standard format of the romcom genre. However, Austen complicates the action by involving not one but four romantic relationships in the plot.

Addiction is the perpetual epidemic, where swarms of human moths flutter to the flames of hell. Because that warm blanket of a heroin high, that joyful intoxication of a pint of vodka, that electric energy from a line of cocaine, over time leaves you with a cold loneliness and a bitter heart. Relationships destroyed, bodies deteriorate, loved ones lost, yet the craving continues for that which is killing us—living, as the title suggests, like an Orphan of Bliss.