Showing results by narrator "Aven Shore" in All Categories

At 31, Tricia Downing was in the best shape of her life. In the summer of 2000, Tricia, an avid cyclist, drove across the country for what amounted to 18 races in 23 days. She returned from her adventure to a fresh start: a new job awaited her, and determined to make the next summer the year she would make her mark on the world of cycling, she began a rigorous training strategy. But on September 17, 2000, Tricia Downing's life took a detour. While training on her bicycle, Tricia collided with a car that turned directly in her path, and instantly became paralyzed from the chest down.

Times are hard for folks and it’s even harder for siblings Calvin and Abigail Shepherd after the untimely death of their mother at the height of the Great Depression. With dust storms ravaging their home in Ross, Oklahoma, they wonder how they are going to make ends meet.

When Poe Baxter fled her job as an English professor, she was thrilled to be launching into her career as an antiquarian book dealer with a trip to Edinburgh. But she soon finds that her queries into a particular book’s provenance are drawing some less than desirable attention to her....

After a lifetime of failed relationships, non-binary history professor Sam Bell is committed to a new (non)romantic strategy: Thirst Only. It's the actual drinking where things get too complicated, where Sam inevitably gets hurt. Sam is good at being thirsty, though, especially when it's karaoke night at The Moonlight Cafe. Moonie's is fun. Comfortable. Safe. Except for tonight, when one by one, all of Sam's friends abandon them. Disappointed, they prepare to leave—until their #1 karaoke crush catches their eye . . .

Farya Navurian seems like an ordinary young woman trying to get ahead in the city while struggling with depression. But her depression is anything but ordinary - it has the power to destroy time and space. Growing up the moody daughter of a space-faring hero of the Greater Anointed Imperial Ohioan Commonwealth, Farya annihilated most of that world and its history, leaving behind the husk-like Buckeye State. One day at a record swap, she meets Bryan, a divorced telecom CEO. More than record collecting, what they share is that they each carry a howling secret.

Yet another village full of complaints. Daine listened, delivered all the justice she had power to give, and prepared to move on. All in a day's work for a Knight of the Road. Of course, some disliked her intrusion into their schemes, but they were of little concern. They had tried to stop her before and would doubtless try again. Things change when Daine is charged with the protection of a simple stable boy. Shadows gather around those like Daine who seek to bring light, and their eyes are fixed on the boy.

TJ Cutler's life has been anything but easy. Looking at him now, no one would guess that the successful MMA fighter and business owner was once a homeless drug addict who witnessed his father brutally murder his mother when he was just a child. But TJ knows how harsh reality can be for some, and he dedicates his life to helping those who are struggling like he once did.

Never question a mother’s intuition. My water isn’t supposed to break while there’s a storm raging, when my husband isn’t on the island, and as the power flickers out. Darkness covers the cabin as I cling to my belly. I never imagined it happening like this. Trained as a midwife, I know I can deliver my daughter.

Nicholas Nicastro revisits a haunting mystery that still fascinates a nation a century later. His masterly re-imagining of these tragic events sees beyond the prejudices that destroys families and taints small communities but corrodes civilization itself. Nicastro’s simple storytelling style with its kaleidoscopic perspectives is moving, beautiful, and profound.

Attorney Seth Bader and his wife, Vicki, moved to New Hampshire in 1992. Three tumultuous years later, their marriage ended and left Vicki a broken woman, driven to the edge as Seth seduced their teenage son, Joey, into a violent plot to kill her in cold blood. What followed was one of the most bizarre and harrowing crime stories in New Hampshire history.

Jani freaks when her parents tell her they are moving to the country, away from the home she loves, the friends she’s had since kindergarten, and all the horses at the riding stable. Her only consolation is that she can bring Keeta, her beautiful pinto mare, with her. But adventures await. While cleaning out the barn on their new property, Jani sees a swirl of movement beside the black, twisted stone in the corner. The barn is haunted! With the help of a new friend, Jani sets out to solve the mystery behind the wild, angry spirit and set it free.

With only her sorcerer’s powers and the swordswoman Corson to protect her, the Lady Nyctasia was forced to flee her beloved city of Rhostshyl. Solving riddles and casting spells, fighting pirates and helping escaped slaves, sword and sorcery have stood back-to-back dueling with adventure. But now, Nyc’s beloved city needs her. This is no street brawl, but a civil war, which Nyc must win...or all is lost!

Her beloved city in dire straits after a bloody civil war, the spell-casting Lady Nyctasia is forced to seek alliance with a neighboring state. But the rumored marriage-treaty has loyal swordswoman Corson whetting her blade…matrimony being no proof against murder. Between NYC and the cloaked assassins stands only a tormented nobleman—whose enigmatic past bears close examination indeed.

Cobb wanted a simple life. He wanted excellent steaks, great coffee, friends, and a quiet place to restore his favorite ship. Working for a recovery operation turned out to be the best place to find parts cheap. She had other plans for him. He wanted the staff of the deep space salvage ship, Oxcart, to treat him just like another member of the crew. Not the man he really was. Light years from Earth, he thought his secrets, his past, wouldn't matter. Especially not to her.

How long, exactly, had June been coming to Moonie's for the sole purpose of pining after the bartender? Long enough to know, probably, that there was no good reason for Mal Edwards, a bastion of stability and good sense, to see any kind of future with June anyway. Was it even fair to express feelings to a woman like that when June was barely around, on the road more than she wasn't?

The rich and famous are converging on the iconic Savoy Hotel in swinging '60s London—including a famous Broadway producer with anger issues, a demanding Indian raja, and a gorgeous film star with certain kinky predilections. All is as it should be—until the murder of a showgirl threatens to scandalize the hotel.

Paisley Sutton hates to see an old barn falling down, so when she has a chance to take in a crew of friends to salvage timbers, she goes in with gusto. But when they find the bones from a decades-old murder, Paisley begins to wonder if maybe some things should just be let go to ruins. Maybe some secrets need to stay buried. If Paisley decides to salvage more than just wood and reveal the murderer, will she be the next body buried in a barn?

Ghosts just don’t show up for anybody. So when I meet the spirit of a former slave named Moses, I know he needs my help. But I didn’t expect to be taking on half of my town, or the powerful men who seem to run everything and have done so for years. Secrets are being uncovered, and some people would do anything to keep them buried, no matter who gets hurt. I’ll need the help of history and friends I can trust if I want to save Moses’ graveyard and protect his legacy. If only everyone believed it was one worth protecting….

The life of a sword-for-hire was often uncertain, but for beautiful, sensual Corson Brenn Torisk it was the only one worth living. When Corson was hired by the Lady Nyctasia, it seemed that fortune was smiling at last. The Lady was pretty, amusing, and rich, and her reputation for sorcery, she assured her new bodyguard, was greatly exaggerated. For Corson had little liking for magic, and less for magicians. But she had a high regard for her own skin, and when her employer's enemies proved both numerous and determined, she soon decided a sword was not enough.

In VOLUME 9 of The Things Our Fathers Saw® series, ‘Homefront/Women At War’, we will take an often-overlooked view of the story of World War II. You will visit with the people on the homefront, from schoolkids navigating growing up during the Great Depression and the War, to the women on the factory floor and the armed services, newly independent but having to fight for their rights and later, their jobs, laying the seeds of societal change for the future.