Showing results by narrator "Laurie Klein" in All Categories

Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert of Green Gables had no intention of adopting the talkative, mischievous, red-headed girl the orphanage in Nova Scotia sent by mistake. What they wanted was a sturdy, sensible boy to help with the chores. Instead, they got 11-year-old Anne Shirley, whose capacity for adventure was only matched by her bright spirit and love of life. Still, there was something about the little girl that gave them second thoughts. She was keen of wit with a scintillating effervescence that was purely captivating. Just perhaps....

In 1836, when she was nine years old, Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Comanche Indians. This is the story of how she grew up with them, mastered their ways, married one of their leaders, and became, in every way, a Comanche woman. It is also the story of a proud and innocent people whose lives pulsed with the very heartbeat of the land. It is the story of a way of life that is gone forever.

This is the second story in the Anne of Green Gables series. Skinny little red-haired Anne has changed into a pretty 16-year-old and is all grown up - well, sort of grown up. The story opens with Anne as a school teacher at Avonlea school. When Anne reached the school that first morning, she was confronted by prim rows of "shining morning faces". She had sat up until nearly midnight composing a speech which she had revised and improved painstakingly. It was a wonderful speech with fine ideas. And then, she couldn't remember it!

This is a captivating, good-humored look at family life in a small farming community in Indiana in the early 1900s.

Anne is growing up and leaving the Island to spend four years of her life at Redmond College. She meets a wonderful new friend in Philippa Gordon, offspring to an old and exclusive "bluenose" family. Phil's family ties, combined with her beauty and charm, open the gates of all the social cliques and clubs at Redmond. And where Phil went, Anne went. Thus, Anne found her social pathway at Redmond made very easy while other freshettes were doomed to remain on the fringe of things.

Tiana was a Cherokee woman. She grew up learning the magic, spells, and nature religion of her people. Before Sam Houston became the father of Texas, he was a young man who had run away from his home in Tennessee to live among the Cherokee. He came to love Tiana. As the Cherokee would say, she walked in his soul. But Sam was a white man, and Tiana, a Cherokee. And the dreams each had for their land and their people were far apart.

Set in 17th century England, this marvelous tale is about Mistress Clorinda, a tempestuous stable brat born out of wedlock. It’s a story of rebellion, dark secrets and great love. At a young age Mistress Clorinda inspires her father, Sir Jeoffry Wildairs to publicly acknowledge her. She grows to be a strong, defiant, aggressive woman of great beauty, who triumphs over all. She survives her mother’s attempt to murder her, her nurses neglect, and her own checkered past, to become, at last, a lady of quality.

Tiana was a Cherokee woman. She grew up learning the magic, spells, and nature religion of her people. Before Sam Houston became the father of Texas, he was a young man who had run away from his home in Tennessee to live among the Cherokee. He came to love Tiana. As the Cherokee would say, she walked in his soul. But Sam was a white man, and Tiana, a Cherokee. And the dreams each had for their land and their people were far apart.

In a land where justice was found in the barrel of a gun and the line between outlaw and citizen was thinly drawn, two women struggled, fought, and won. Rebecca, the elder, beautiful and defiant, found herself in the majestic mountains of Utah, forced to marry a brutal polygamist. All she wanted was to become a physician - and a free woman. Katie, younger, innocent, passionate, risked her life so her sister might have a chance for freedom. She risked all to establish a sprawling sheep ranch and prove that a woman could do it all - on her own.

Twenty-year-old Halsey and 24-year-old Gertrude, nephew and niece of Rachel Inness, a well-to-do middle-aged spinster, talk Rachel into renting a large country house for the summer. Mysterious happenings occur the first night they are there, something or someone falls down the stairs in the middle of the night. A man is dead at the foot of the circular staircase. Now the question arises as to who he is and why was he in the house.

A cool New England background mingled with the passion of hot Cherokee blood to challenge the savage land - that was Deborah Leigh, a copper-haired beauty, gently reared. To all appearances she was white. But she could never forget, never betray her Indian ancestry. She was swept away from her family’s gracious home in Georgia onto the Cherokee Trail of Tears – the migration of a whole tribe driven from their lands to travel west beyond the Mississippi. The Cherokee blood in Deborah rebelled against the government that oppressed them.

Four short stories are included in this volume of Kipling works. They are: "Mowgli's Brothers" - Mowgli, a small boy, is found orphaned in the jungle by wolves and raised by them; "Kaa's Hunting" - Mowgli is kidnapped by the Bandar-log (monkeys) and rescued by Kaa, a python; "The White Seal" - The community of seals believe a great white seal will come, and deliver them from the wrath of the seal hunters; and "Rikki Tikki Tavi" - A young mongoose defends his human family against a pair of marauding cobras.

“I would give my life for my children, but I wouldn’t give myself.” So said Edna Pontellier to her friend one summer as they sat beside the sea. It was the summer she learned to swim, fell in love, and awoke to the reality of her empty role in a loveless marriage. But she was a good wife. Edna dutifully returned home to the prison of her well-ordered life in New Orleans. Although close friends offered advice, the search for herself was a journey she must make alone. And in the end, Edna found herself returning to the sea where it all began.

Winter 1914. Sara Lee Kennedy reads the newspaper account of the war in Europe and is appalled. Others in her sheltered Pennsylvania home are interested only in her coming marriage to solid, self-centered, Harvey. Struggling with compassion, Sara Lee feels compelled to help the suffering Belgian Army whose country is overrun by Germans. She defies her parents and travels alone to the front lines to help anyway she can. It is there she meets Henri, a Belgian officer.

After two hellish years on the rim of the Arctic, Philip Weyman stumbles back toward civilization, half-starved and half-crazy. He stumbles onto Josephine Adare, a beautiful woman living alone in the wilderness. She asks for his help, “I need you to pose as my husband to help me save my home from a band of outlaws and cutthroats.” She persuades him to stay and fight for her. But he has no idea he will be joining a battle with the silent strength of the Cree Nation as his ally. Nor does he realize, the final battle will require every ounce of his strength and will...

Pinocchio is a naughty, disobedient wooden puppet that longs to grow up and become a real boy, but as long as he misbehaves and disappoints his father, old Gepetto, he is doomed and his dream will never be realized.

Nicki Chandler was too busy fighting natural disasters on her homestead and trying to avert a range war to worry about romance. She was more likely to chase a man off at gunpoint than invite him in to tea. Then a handsome stranger with a mysterious past came looking for a job. In desperate need of a strong back to help with the work, Nicki reluctantly allowed him to stay, completely unprepared for the assault he would make on her heart.

Cole Cantrell has no premonition that his life is about to change forever when he saves the life of a beautiful stranger. Still haunted by his wife’s death, he fights his growing attraction to the mysterious Stephanie, afraid that she belongs to another man. Stephanie has no memory of who she is or how she came to be in the middle of Wyoming Territory among strangers. Her only clues to the past are frightening dreams, a gold wedding band, and a confusing note that poses more questions than it answers.

Wyoming Territory in 1869 is no place for a woman, but when Kate Murphy's husband dies of Cholera, she is stranded there with no money and no way to leave. At the end of her rope, she accepts a job as a saloon girl in the tiny town of Horse Creek. There she is discovered by the mysterious Jonathan Cantrell who hires her to keep house for him and his two unruly sons. Jonathan has the face of an angel and the devil's own temper. But sweet Kate has a temper of her own and is more than a match for him.

Nan Prince first becomes interested in medicine as a child, as the ward of the widowed physician Dr. Leslie. In time she becomes his protégée. But when she enters medical college, she realizes that she will have to choose between marriage and her career, between the demands of her society and her obligations to her true self.