Showing results by narrator "Kirby Heyborne" in All Categories

Half a century has passed since Zebulon Finch was gunned down and then inexplicably resurrected to experience a second life. Picking up his tale where he left off, Zebulon heads to Nazi Germany on a top-secret mission. From there he escapes to the shiny new world of the suburbs - a tidy neighborhood hiding dark secrets. He will exchange the pains of this world for what he believes will be peace among the stars.

In the best-selling tradition of A Man Called Ove and the beloved film Love Actually, a quirky, socially awkward man goes on a quest to find his wife a last-minute Christmas gift and encounters several distractions - including bumping into his ex-girlfriend who was the one who got away.

Renew your imagination for what family life can be. Many of us feel overwhelmed about the prospect of raising children in our high-performance, rapid-pace culture. Reflecting on difficulties from our own families of origin can increase our doubt and insecurity about being a good parent. Positive examples of family life can seem few and far between. Mark and Lisa Scandrette understand these challenges, and in Belonging and Becoming they cast a compelling vision of what the family can be.

Yuki Nakahara is an American. But it's the start of World War II, and America doesn't see it that way. Like many other Japanese Americans, Yuki and his family have been forced into an internment camp in the Utah desert. But Yuki isn't willing to sit back and accept this injustice - it's his country, too, and he's going to prove it by enlisting in the army to fight for the Allies.

New York Times best-selling author Jeff Benedict has seen both good and bad in his career as a journalist. Some of the best are the extraordinary people he has met who have made deliberate choices to live happier lives despite the extreme hardship that each of them have faced. Although life will knock us down from time to time, this book is an important reminder that we all can make a choice to get back up, brush ourselves off, and keep pressing forward.

Abandoned in the jungle of the Nepalese Borderlands, two-year-old Nandu is found living under the protective watch of a pack of wild dogs. From his mysterious beginnings, fate delivers him to the king's elephant stable, where he is raised by unlikely parents - the wise head of the stable, Subba-sahib, and Devi Kali, a fierce and affectionate female elephant. When the king's government threatens to close the stable, Nandu, now 12, searches for a way to save his family and community. A risky plan could be the answer.

Beginning with the Old Testament and walking through the life of Jesus, Rusty unpacks seven core promises of God - and reveals what you need to do in order to unlock them. What is it God wants from you? When you do it, what can you trust He will then do in response? And how can you confidently move forward in life without wearing yourself out trying to guess God's will or somehow earning his unconditional love and boundless grace?

Dust and prairie were abundant on the Texas Panhandle, the land that gave birth to generations of Moores. But instead of working the land or the cattle that fed upon it, the Moore brothers, Colton and Caleb, heeded another call. Their dreams, paired with hard work and family sacrifice, eventually became reality. The Moore brothers, with their boundary-exploding athleticism, innovation, and appetite for risk, became stars on the burgeoning freestyle ATV and snowmobile circuits.

The US military is preparing to withdraw from Iraq, and newly minted lieutenant Jack Porter struggles to accept how it's happening - through alliances with warlords who have Arab and American blood on their hands. Day after day, Jack tries to assert his leadership in the sweltering, dreary atmosphere of Ashuriyah. But his world is disrupted by the arrival of veteran sergeant Daniel Chambers, whose aggressive style threatens to undermine the fragile peace that the troops have worked hard to establish.

Norma Hayes has always tried to make Christmas special for her family, but 1944 will make that more difficult with money being tight and wartime rationing making everything hard to come by. Aware of his mother's hardships and the worry from having her eldest son at war, Norma's second son, Dennis, is determined to buy his mother a special gift this Christmas: a lavender blue dress he hopes will bring her comfort.

A Poet of the Invisible World follows a boy named Nouri, born in 13th-century Persia with four ears instead of two. Orphaned as an infant, he's taken into a Sufi order, where he meets an assortment of dervishes and is placed upon a path toward spiritual awakening. As he stumbles from one painful experience to the next, he grows into manhood. Each trial he endures shatters another obstacle within - and leads Nouri on toward transcendence.

Snow! Cookies! Candy! Mouse loves snow days. When he's accidentally swept out the door and into the snow, Mouse has a blast ice-skating, sledding, and building snow animals - always just one step ahead of sly Cat. But above Mouse on a wire sit three cold birds who warn Mouse of Cat's approach. Now it is Mouse's turn to do something nice for his new friends.

Matt Mikalatos offers a poignant and compassionate look at a father's relationship with his children, the healing power of a small act of kindness, and the certainty that even death can't stop love in a deeply moving memoir inspired by a sky lantern with a scribbled note and the journey to find the child who wrote it.

In 1890s South Dakota, Amy and Joshua escape from their mean aunt Vootch. They plan to find their grandparents in New York and manage to team up with a traveling magician, Mortimer Wintergreen, who is also New York bound. Mortimer owns a truly magic hat with a temperamental, mischievous mind of its own. Adventures abound as their way is blocked by outlaws, runaway hot-air balloons, geese, and the persistent Aunt Vootch - but the hat is always ready for action.

In American Will, Governor Jindal brings to life some of the greatest lessons in our nation's history and explores how they have defined our current state of affairs - including the exciting story behind the Louisiana Purchase, the conflict between the Federalists and anti-Federalists, Reagan vs. Nixon's welfare fight, and how the Cold War was nearly lost. Each event relates back to a moment in Governor Jindal's career where he had to make an important decision for the people of Louisiana.

The Reckless Love of God is about pulling listeners in close and asking if they have really considered what it means to say, "Jesus loves you." Nothing changes lives and grows the church faster, more effectively, and more thoroughly than being captivated by this reality. But the love of Jesus is not just a means to another end. Receiving the love of Jesus is the end itself.

In the midst of violent, impassioned racial tensions in Birmingham, Alabama, new football coach Tandy Gerelds was struggling to create a winning football team at Woodlawn High School - one of the last schools in Birmingham to integrate. The team he was handed did not have the caliber of players he needed to win - until he saw Tony Nathan run.

Finn Easton sees the world through miles instead of minutes. It's how he makes sense of the world and how he tries to convince himself that he's a real boy and not just a character in his father's best-selling cult-classic book. Finn has two things going for him: his best friend, the possibly insane but definitely excellent Cade Hernandez, and Julia Bishop, the first girl he's ever loved. Then Julia moves away, and Finn is heartbroken.

From a startling new voice in American fiction comes a dark, powerful novel about a tragic city and its inhabitants over the course of one Halloween weekend. Set in a decaying Midwestern urban landscape, with its goings-on and entire atmosphere dominated and charged by one Jesuit prep school and its students, parents, faculty, and alumni, The Natural Order of Things is a window into the human condition.

Hopper now knows that he is definitely not an ordinary pet shop mouse. With the underground rat civilization of Atlantia all but destroyed and Titus dethroned, Hopper, Zucker, Firren, and a spattering of Rangers are now working to rebuild. But it's difficult. REALLY difficult. Queen Felina, the evil feral royal, has begun amassing a new band of street cats. And without the sinister "peace accord" in place, it is open season on the rodents.