Showing results by narrator "Dina Pearlman" in All Categories

Everyone knows a woman who loves horses. Maybe she rides whenever she can find the time, maybe she rode as a young girl, or maybe she just devoured the Black Stallion books. Twenty years ago, Nancy Shulins let go of one dream - having a child - and worked toward another one: learning to ride and, eventually, having her own horse. In the process, she learned what it means to love another being so much you can’t imagine life without them.

It's 1955. Seven days before her graduation from Barnard College, Susan Levitt asks herself, "What if you lived your entire life without urgency?" - just before going out to make things happen to her that will shatter the mask of conformity concealing her feelings of alienation. If Susan continues to be "good", marriage and security await her. But her hunger is rising for the self-discovery that comes from existential freedom.

When a futuristic chalice transports San Francisco-based videogame programmer Marian Tyler back to 1100 AD it turns her life into a living knightmare. Dashing Sir Thomas de Percivale is on his way to his execution - unjustly accused of a crime he didn't commit - when a 'witch' drops out of the sky and knocks him off his horse thus saving his life. Together they must flee for their lives, outwit the Bishop of Durham and stay alive long enough to reclaim Sir Thomas' birthright.

Chances are you've been there before: On an awkward first date where you find yourself stuck playing 20 questions with a person who has broccoli stuck in their teeth, or the one who shows up so on-the-rocks wasted that they end up passed out in their bowl of clam chowder before the main course arrives. All My Friends Are Engaged is a collection of dating disaster stories, packed with witty and relatable answers to the age-old annoying question of "Why are you still single?"

Mia Appleby finally has the life she always wanted. She's escaped her trailer trash childhood and built a nice life for herself with a marketing job and a cute, little condo. But no matter how much baggage she's ditched from her past, she still hasn't managed to shake her greatest weakness - men. So when her new neighbor turns out to be single and oh-so-sexy, Mia's worried she's playing with fire… Kevin McKnight can't get enough of his gorgeous neighbor, but after one amazing night, she's already showing him the door.

While it's tough to understand what leads a person into addiction - to witness someone you love kind-of kill herself - the truth is that you can learn from it. By the time Céline died at age 30, she was Kermit The Frog green and she vomited blood more frequently than she was able to eat. In less than a decade, she had gone from summa cum laude Columbia graduate to NYU PhD student to unemployed, rambling, stumbling drunk saddled with a cirrhotic liver beyond repair.

Life in Bodega Bay on the rugged, foggy coast of northern California has been pretty quiet since Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds there. But antiques dealer Toby Sandler learns that his new business partner Charlie has been found dead on an abandoned boat in the harbor. When the local sheriff discovers that Charlie’s newly acquired Hitchcock artifacts and a painting of an angel are missing, he enlists Toby and his wife, Nora Barnes, an art historian, in the investigation.

The cave of Lascaux may be closed to the public, but five scholars a day are allowed inside, and Nora Barnes has finagled an appointment. True, she may have fudged a bit in her letter to the authorities, but she does teach art history, and she isn’t about to miss her chance to see the world’s most famous prehistoric paintings. Nora and her high-spirited husband, Toby, are visiting the Dordogne, in the southern French region of the Aquitaine. Aware that the Dordogne’s renown for cave art is matched only by its reputation for delicious cuisine, the couple has also signed up for a cooking class at a nearby château.

Holly Parker's life changes forever when she visits Enchantment Spring with her older sister Madison. They hike through the woods, and when they reach the spring, Holly's disappointed. A concrete coffin full of water? She expected a pool surrounded by flowers, birds, dancing dragonflies. But fine. They eat the lunch they packed, and lounge around in the sunshine a while. As they get ready to leave, Holly dabbles her fingers in the water. And sees a face beneath the surface.

Matti Glover is thrilled to learn that hot Hollywood heartthrob Antonio Reed is not only filming a movie in Santa Fe, but staying in the exclusive complex where she's housesitting. She rescues him from a busload of teenage girls, and grateful and intrigued, he asks her for a date. Matti's caught up in a Cinderella dream come true - until midnight hits and it's pumpkin time. Any reader who ever cherished a secret crush on Robert, Justin, or Orlando will enjoy this romp through the fan's ultimate fantasy.

Cops drink coffee. They don't belong in Ellen Rosings's Victorian tearoom. But when her opening day thank-you tea ends in the murder of the president of the Santa Fe Preservation Trust, the police invade her haven. Enter Detective Tony Aragon: attractive and unsympathetic, with a chip on his shoulder that goes beyond the murder investigation, and Ellen's delicate bone china cup is full. Is the murderer one of her honored guests, or the ghost rumored to haunt the building? Will Ellen solve the mystery, or will the Wisteria Tearoom's premiere turn out to be its - and Ellen's - finale?

From acclaimed romance writer Rexanne Becnel comes a story of passion and hidden identity in the post-war American South. As a dark figure on horseback approaches the resplendent Louisiana estate of Sparrow Hill, a chill runs through Lacie Montgomery, the lovely head of the Sparrow Hill School for Young Ladies, because she is not exactly who she appears to be - and the exposure of her darkest secret could mean the closing of her beloved school and the end of its rightful place in the Kimbell family legacy.

Kylis believes she can protect herself, but when the commander of the prison Screwtop threatens her lovers, she understands her own vulnerability. Jannine loves the accomplishment she feels in her Virtual Reality job...yet she fears doing it too well, and attracting the attention of her superiors. Lais, the freak, flees from comfort and rewards, knowing too much about herself.

Beautiful, blond Liza Silvestri has put her bad-girl ways behind her and is living the California dream in a Malibu beach house with her adoring venture-capitalist husband, Jay - until gunfire erupts one evening at their L.A. loft. Liza doesn't dare call the police - she's got a secret in her past - and it turns out Jay has secrets of his own.

Celebrated for her award-winning political columns, criticism, and poetry, Katha Pollitt offers something new in this poignant, hilarious, and sometimes outrageous collection of stories drawn from her own life.

Flasher is the story of a one-time hippie love pirate, slum goddess, a Ruby Tuesday of the '60's who mutated into a blossoming writer on the Lower East Side art scenes in 1990's. When our feminist Bukowski meets a sculptor who designs fetishwear at a New Years Day party, her life changes and becomes a consideration of the values and costs of love and friendship, sexual freedom (is there such a thing?), and the importance of family - real and inherited.

Rabbi Gabrielle takes leave from her rabbinical duties to pursue a doctorate in biblical studies at the University of Chicago. She is summoned to Israel by the Director of Antiquities in Jerusalem when her scholarly live-in boy friend cannot be found to help investigate the robbery of a newly discovered cave at Qumran, site of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. In the search to find him, Gabrielle becomes aware of her friend's involvement in this robbery and while attempting to shield him, gets swept into a cloak and dagger intrigue involving the Catholic Church and the Government of Israel.

A prized Torah scroll is stolen from Ohav Shalom. The FBI determines the event to be a "Hate Crime" and initiates an investigation. But Rabbi Gabrielle unearths clues into the theft that lead in another direction. While intensely active in her daily rabbinical duties, her attention is drawn back 65 years to the origin of the stolen Torah in the Ukraine. The discovery brings this liberal rabbi into conflict with the powerful and well-organized Orthodox Jewish community in New York. Internecine warfare between Jewish denominations must be pacified before Rabbi Gabrielle can return to her post at Ohav Shalom.

Rabbi Gabrielle continues her personal and professional odyssey, this time toying with running for a seat in Congress. In the process she becomes entangled with a Korean computer geek who operates a successful on-line political campaign website for underfunded, unknown candidates. At the same time her congregation has lost a child burned to death in an accident lighting Hanukkah candles.

Rabbi Gabrielle, a young female rabbi in Washington, DC, is called upon to defend an accused rapist in court, imperiling her career. She must negotiate a hostile climate both in her synagogue and in the community, while attempting to live a normal life as an attractive, unmarried woman. Here is a chance to have an internal look at the life of a clergywoman in a profession that has long been a man's proprietary domain.