Showing results by narrator "Carrington Macduffie" in All Categories

When four women meet in a hot tub at a spa, they realize they share a common problem: toxic relatives. Polly, 60, has to nurse a haughty, ailing mother-in-law. Beth's fiance's two-faced mother is plotting to sabotage their wedding plans. Julia, 30, has a sweet, traumatized little stepdaughter whose terror of a grandmother is undermining her best efforts. Carolyn, 37, suspects her wealthy father's new wife hides a scheming mind beneath her saccharine smile.

Mindfulness offers us a way to be fully in the present moment—and as we start to embrace this practice, we learn that our lives are made of present moments. That gift of presence is the palpable experience of awareness that appears when we remember to be mindful of those moments. In twenty short chapters, meditation teacher Tracy Cochran encourages us to see presence as a living force—and to recognize and explore how that shows up in our lives.

In the bucolic mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, a young woman is found dead of a heroin overdose, her baby lying at her side. While this should be an open-and-shut drug case, restraint marks on the victim suggest that the death might not have been completely accidental.

Alison Larkin Presents is delighted to publish these selected New York short stories by Edith Wharton, whose inside knowledge of New York's upper class is put to sparkling use here.

When we think of slavery, most of us think of the American South. We think of back-breaking fieldwork on plantations. We don't think of slavery in the North, nor do we think of the grueling labor of urban and domestic slaves. Rachel May's rich new book explores the far reach of slavery, from New England to the Caribbean, the role it played in the growth of mercantile America, and the bonds between the agrarian South and the industrial North in the antebellum era - all through the discovery of a remarkable quilt.

Jessica Hagedorn's edgy and entertaining new novel centers on the lives of two women who are neighbors in Manhattan's West Village. Mimi Smith is a filmmaker of low-budget slasher movies in search of new material. Her neighbor Eleanor Delacroix is a legendary writer of erotic fiction, now nearing eighty and addicted to cocaine and gin. Their personal and artistic lives begin to collide in unexpected ways.

As the mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, shakes off a long, hard winter, famous photographer Rudolph Steiner arrives to do a feature on mountain tourism. Steiner is accompanied by his assistant and sexy young wife, but he has another reason for the visit: to reconnect with the woman, Eliza, who left him 25 years ago to marry another man: Trafalgar City police sergeant John Winters. When Steiner is found dead in his luxury hotel room, suspicion falls upon Eliza.

T-FLAC/psi operative Simon Blackthorne goes to Africa to continue the global war against paranormal terror, never expecting to clash swords with strong-willed Kess Goodall. Kess struggles in her own desperate battle to unravel a deadly secret that has killed millions in the tiny country of Mallaruza. But Simon proves to be the ultimate distraction: his very presence takes her body to the edge of a pleasure-filled abyss.

It’s the end of March, and Trafalgar, British Columbia, is preparing for the last influx of skiers for the season. Schools are closed for a week, with teachers, parents, and students preparing to relax at home or head out on vacation. But for Cathy Lindsay, the week of relaxation doesn’t work out as planned when she is gunned down by a sniper on the hiking trail high above town, her small dog the only witness. Cathy - a middle-aged, middle-class, small-town resident, high school English teacher, and married mother of two - is an unlikely candidate for a murderous ambush. As Sergeant John Winters begins his investigation, he finds himself frustrated at every turn.

Fifteen years ago, a young girl by the name of Moonlight Smith went to the house of her best friend, Nicky Nowak, for a sleepover. Moonlight joined the family for breakfast the following morning and was then picked up by her mother. Shortly after, Mr. Nowak went for a walk.

Twelve short stories, 12 points of view, 12 neighborhoods of the same town, and finally, 12 pieces of the same puzzle. Paris Noir takes you on a ride through the old medieval center of town with its intertwined streets, its ghosts, and its secrets buried in history. You'll cruise Paris with its nightclubs full of mysterious beauties who seem to have a lot to hide.

Populating a small town in the Pacific Northwest, the characters in Lucia Perillo’s story collection all resist giving the world what it expects of them - and are surprised when the world comes roaring back. An addict trapped in a country house becomes obsessed with vacuum cleaners and the people who sell them door-to-door. An abandoned woman seeks consolation in tales of armed robbery told by one of her fellow housewives. Together, Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain is a sharp-edged, witty testament to the ambivalence of emotions.

Bibi Fortunata was the hottest ticket in town; singer, actress, and celebrity. Two years ago she was arrested on suspicion of murdering her lover and his new mistress, who was also Bibi's best friend. Bibi was front-page news in a way her publicists had never dreamed. But the police were never able to prove anything and Bibi was set free, with the cloud of suspicion and murder still hanging over her. Bibi left for Barcelona where she quite simply disappeared. But when Bibi's daughter comes to Mac Reilly and Sunny Alvarez for help, they can't resist the temptation to solve this mystery....

Sixty-year-old Jane Hunter, forced into early retirement from her job as a university librarian, is seeking a new challenge to keep her spirits up and supplement her meager pension. But as she’s about to discover, a retiree’s life can bring new thrills—and new dangers. Cameron “Cam” Clewe, an eccentric 33-year-old collector, is also seeking something—an archivist to inventory his ever-expanding compendium of rare books and artifacts.

Whether you're hoping to obtain a raise from your boss, convince an insurance claim representative to reimburse your medical treatment, or persuade your spouse into spending less time watching TV, Winning Every Time will be your guide for truly practical and helpful advice about how to make that case effectively, and win it hands down.

Unable to approach her own long-buried history of loss and displacement, Historian Joan Severance takes refuge in the cool library rooms and the crumbling probate lists from Renaissance times. As Joan's disturbed, hyperintuitive mind falls increasingly under the spell of Valparuta and the charismatic resident archivist, Chiesa, a beautifully dressed heroin addict, she is forced to confront her long-submerged past.

In The Genial Gene, Joan Roughgarden forcefully rejects ideas that have come to dominate the study of animal evolution. Building on her brilliant and innovative book Evolution's Rainbow, in which she challenged accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation, Roughgarden upends the notion of the selfish gene and the theory of sexual selection and develops a compelling and controversial alternative theory called social selection.

As manic teens in the ’90s punk scene, Gogo Germaine and her girl gang of delinquents engage in a vivid spectrum of misbehavior—from truancy to tattoos to trespassing. Here, in the underbelly of adolescence, music is God and the rest is a rush of nihilism. Gogo and her friends stumble through sound and fury into questionable firsts at varying degrees of sobriety. Many of us blunder through that black hole. It is a point of universal convergence, manifested by divergent experiences. Gogo’s rebellion may look different from yours, but the visceral highs and lows will be familiar.

Diana stands before the mirror, preening with her best friend, Maureen. Suddenly, a classmate enters holding a gun, and 17-year-old Diana sees her life dance before her eyes. In a moment, the future she was just imagining is sealed by a horrific decision she is forced to make.

We live in a world that's very different from the one in which Emily Post came of age. Many of us who are nice (but who also sometimes say "f*ck") are frequently at a loss for guidelines about how to be a good person who deals effectively with the onslaught of rudeness we all encounter. To lead us through this this miasma of modern manners, syndicated columnist Amy Alkon - The Advice Goddess - gives us a new set of manners for our 21st-century lives.