Showing results by narrator "Diane" in All Categories

The United States is full of natural wonders, but few remain unspoiled by man as much as Yosemite National Park: a 750,000 square acre park near the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Despite being inhabited by people for nearly 3,000 years, the relatively remote spot helped ensure that even as America expanded west, the Yosemite area avoided being settled or exploited like so many other areas on the frontier.

This serves as the second volume of a series covering the amazing 50 states. It looks at the facts about each state, its history, and interesting little tidbits of information about each.

Newly-widowed Francesca Canelli is not your typical soccer mom but she would do anything to help her 15-year-old son, Matt, a passionate soccer player determined to honor his dad's memory. Financially strapped and emotionally devastated, Francesca accepts a sexual proposition from the coach of Pegasi United who promised to secure Matt a starting position on his premier St. Louis team. Their bargain quickly sours when the coach abuses Francesca, demeans Matt, and threatens to renege on the deal.

Penthea is tall - very tall - and that's wreaking hell on her romantic ilfe. A friend suggests she go to Spells 4 U, the magic shop, to find a solution. But the magic sold at Spells-4-U has a reputation for going wrong, and it's not undeserved....

Now is the time to overthrow! Let's overthrow right now! Who and what and how and why? Well, you gotta listen to this audiobook to find out!

Nancy Jane Moore wrote her first flash fiction many years ago when everyone in her writing group decided to enter a contest for one-page stories. None of them won, but she got hooked and has been writing short-shorts ever since. Her first project for Book View Café was posting a free flash fiction every week for a year. Some were reprints, others older stories that needed one more revision, but quite a few were written in the week they went up. This 52-story collection includes most of those stories and a few new ones as well.

The word is out about Sadie Hoffmiller's amateur detective work, but it's not the kind of publicity Sadie wants. When Jane's article threatens Sadie's reputation in the community, she accepts her first investigation-for-hire and travels to Portland, Oregon - if only to give herself some space from her whispering neighbors. And from Pete, who is sending her mixed signals about their budding relationship. Sadie hopes the Portland air will clear her head, and she is eager to get to work for May Sanderson, who has suspicions about her father's untimely death.

After seven years, the Giant has nothing left to say to his friend the Cornish ogre, and so he returns home to his castle - only to find that in his absence, the children have been playing in his beautiful garden. At once the selfish Giant builds a high wall to keep the children out of the garden.Winter turns into spring all over the country - but not in the selfish Giant'sgarden.

Bret Harte is best known for his stories of the pioneering days in California, so this humorous parody of English Gothic novels is a delightful departure. Harte sets his unlikely tale in Regency England with all the cliches and plot conventions present in abundance. The two main characters Lady Selina and Edgardo hide their amoral pasts from each other, unaware that they're a perfectly suited couple. In the mix are mysterious villains, dark secrets, past scandals, forbidden romance, hidden panels, murders, ghosts, all ending with the requisite deus ex machina conclusion.

What's Worth Learning? addresses the central question of general education. For learners facing a complex, unpredictable, and dangerous future, it asks and answers the question: What knowledge is absolutely essential for every learner? In simple, jargon-free language, the book explains why the "core curriculum" in near-universal use in America's classrooms was poor when it was adopted in 1893 and why it grows more dysfunctional with each passing year.

Ten years ago, "Eva Maria Staal" kept a gun in her purse. It was a present from her boss, Jimmy Liu, the international arms dealer extraordinaire with a taste for high-class male escorts. Together, Jimmy and his devoted assistant traveled the world’s most dangerous hotspots, closing deals with ruthless warlords and corrupt generals, and trading Stinger missiles in Karachi, AK-47s in Chechnya, and hollow-point bullets in Islamabad. But burdened by her conscience, Eva Maria finally got out, married an optometrist, and had a baby. Now, assailed with memories of her secret life, she must reconcile her suburban present with a repressed but ineradicable past.

Sadie Hoffmiller has relocated from Colorado to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is starting a new job as an informant for the Bureau of Land Management on an archeological site. Being in the middle of nowhere and digging up artifacts from hundreds of years ago is supposed to keep Sadie out of trouble - until recent burials are found on the ancient site. Before Sadie knows it, she's arrested for starting a bar fight, a new friend is missing, and she's worn out her welcome in Santa Fe in more ways than one.

When Clare Thaddeus' sister was abducted, she was five and her family fell apart. Now, twenty-seven years later, there's a chance Lynnie could still be alive! Divorced parents, a rebellious daughter, and a devoted sister find their lives in turmoil once again. This time, will crisis tear them apart or will forgotten love knit them together once more?

Sadie Hoffmiller believes in her abilities as a cook and as a detective. She believes in the beauty of a perfectly baked pumpkin roll. She does not, however, believe in ghosts. As Halloween approaches, Sadie is looking forward to spending her favorite baking season of the year making delicious New England recipes in Boston, Massachusetts, with her favorite leading man, Pete Cunningham, as they babysit his three young grandsons. When the boys insist that Mrs. Wapple, the woman who lives across the street, is a witch, Sadie and Pete are anxious to distract the boys from such silly ideas.

Sadie Hoffmiller has survived eighteen months of nonstop adventures filled with murder, deceit, and danger. She could really use some rest - and maybe even some time to heal - relaxing in the tropical paradise of Kaua'i. However, palm trees and sunshine are not as effective a medication as Sadie had hoped. And when she finds herself entangled - literally - with a dead body, she is forced to face the compounding fears and anxieties that are making her life so difficult to live.

Are you, like all of us, looking for the truth about your life? For direction, purpose, and momentum? Perhaps the answers you seek are just one word away.... Questions: Directions to Who You Are contains 52 thought-provoking reflections, each inspired by just one word. Open your heart and mind to these words, and embark on the journey of a lifetime.

The themes of shared experience, the relationship of human beings to one another throughout time, and the ultimate power of place are explored in this poem by one of the most revered American poets, Walt Whitman. Its setting of NYC is dear to narrator Diane Havens, a native New Yorker, a Brooklynite.

Children's stories and songs about Sam, the Broken Robot, and his pretend family and grandparents, who all live on an urban farm. Included are the "Toothbrush Song", "First Day at School" song, "Dancin' in My Room", "Potty Song", and many more. Sam teaches sharing, respecting differences, doing good deeds, and living healthfully as he talks to animals and solves problems.

Unexplained Explained is a compelling study that looks deep inside the world of the Paranormal and Supernatural. Producer Paul Wookey decides to go on a personal journey to investigate the universal ghost and spirit experience joined by psychic medium Diane Howe. Paul travels to Pendle known for its history of witchcraft and medieval practices. The Anchor Pub based in a beautiful part of the Dales in England holds secrets and paranormal activity yet to be discovered.

Ecclesiastes reminds us of the transitory nature of life and ponders its meaning. Many familiar phrases and passages are found in it -- the most well known perhaps "To everything there is a season..." In fact, many book titles are taken from Ecclesiastes: John Grisham's "A Time to Kill", Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises", Henry James' "The Golden Bowl", Edith Wharton's "The House of Mirth", and James Agee's "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men".