Showing results by narrator "Cris Dukehart" in All Categories

Originally published in 1901, A Christmas Inspiration centers around a group of girls spending Christmas at a boarding-house. Once they realize that Miss Allen did not receive any gifts or letters, they come up with a plan to make her Christmas a happy one. This version of A Christmas Inspiration was recorded as part of Dreamscape's Classic Christmas Stories: A Collection of Timeless Holiday Tales.

A big event has Isabella ready to leave home at the crack of dawn. But that's a motion her parents aren't likely to pass. After a two-to-one vote, it's decided that some things need to happen before Isabella can leave the house - like eating breakfast and brushing her teeth! If her house is going to work like a democracy, Isabella knows what she has to do; call an assembly and campaign her way out the door!

Aaron thinks genre fiction is an affront to the fiction-writing craft. He often quotes the essayist Arthur Krystal, who says literary fiction "melts the frozen sea inside of us". Ironically Aaron doesn't seem to realize that he's emotionally frozen. The vivacious Laurie, lover of flamingo-patterned attire and all things hot pink, is the one person who might be capable of melting him.

It's a dream come true for Megan, who's jet-setting to Paris for Fashion Week with Gigi. Meanwhile, back in Concord, Mrs. Wong decides to run for mayor, so Emma and Stewart team up to make her campaign a success. Jess and Cassidy are also hoping for victories - Jess in the a cappella finals with the MadriGals, and Cassidy in the national hockey championships with her teammates. In the midst of it all, the girls - along with their Wyoming pen pals, who drop in for a visit over spring break - dive into Charlotte Brontë's classic Jane Eyre.

It's the most picturesque time of the year in Santa Fe, and Chef Rita Lafitte of Tres Amigas Café hopes the twinkling lights and tasty holiday treats will charm her visiting mom. Rita is also planning fun activities, such as watching her teenage daughter, Celia, perform in an outdoor Christmas play. What she doesn't plan for is murder. Rita discovers a dead actor during the premier performance but vows to keep clear of the case. Sleuthing would upset her mom.

The unspooling of Toni Lee Wells' Tiffany and Wild Turkey lifestyle begins with a trip to the Luckett County Jail drunk tank. An earlier wrist injury sidelined her pro tennis career, and now she's trading her tennis whites for wild nights roaming the streets of Rose Hill, Georgia. Her wealthy family finally gets fed up with Toni Lee's shenanigans. They cut off her monthly allowance but also make her a sweetheart deal: Get a job, keep it for a year, and you'll receive an early inheritance.

This year, the girls are everywhere but home for the holidays. From a tropical cruise to a ski trip to Switzerland, it promises to be a Christmas to remember. Becca, Megan, Emma, Cassidy, and Jess have plenty of reading material to bring on their trips, too, because the book club is tackling the Betsy-Tacy series before their next meeting on New Year's Eve.

Trained to be a courtesan for the vampire elite, Lucy Drake is finally free...and dying from the effects of being a blood slave. The vampire responsible continues to collect humans, discarding them at will. Vowing revenge, Lucy is determined to see him meet his end before she meets hers.

The Great Charleston Earthquake catapults Penrose Heatherton from the 1880s into the present day. Though she's still residing in Arundell Manor, it's a very different world - with a different man inhabiting the ancestral estate. And Keat Arundell is every bit as brooding and intriguing as his ancestor - her former lover - had been.

Could the book club break up? When Jess is offered an anonymous scholarship to a prestigious boarding school, she's not sure that leaving home - and her friends - is what she wants to do. Meanwhile Megan's grandmother comes for a long visit and turns everything in the Wong household upside down; Emma crusades against her middle school's new uniforms; and Cassidy finds out there's a big change ahead for her family.

Right before the start of her freshman year, Emma's family unexpectedly moves to England. The book club is stunned, but thanks to videoconferencing, they can keep the club alive. They decide to tackle Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a particularly fitting choice. In England, Emma deals with a new queen bee, Annabelle, who makes her life miserable. And back home, Annabelle's cousins - who have swapped homes with the Hawthornes - whip the rest of the school into a frenzy.

When Jesse Crane returned to his roots to serve on the Miccosukee police force, he'd hoped to leave behind the violence of the city and the memories of his murdered wife. But bodies start to pile up in Jesse's corner of the sultry Florida swampland. As he probes these crimes, Jesse is drawn to the beautiful Lorena Fortier, a new hire at the local gator farm and research facility. Lorena is a little too interested in Jesse's investigation, but before he can uncover her true motives, they're both pulled into a dangerous web of greed, ambition, and animal cunning.

Abram and Juliette know each other. They've lived down the street from each other their whole lives. But they don't really know each other - at least not until Juliette's mom and Abram's dad have a torrid affair that culminates in a deadly car crash. Later, when they see each other, it's uncomfortable, to say the least. They don't speak.

In a city built on dreams, Trisha Holiday makes her living moving like one. But out of her dancer's costume, she's as down-to-earth as they come. That's why she ignores the admiring note - and the accompanying $1,000 bill - that arrives backstage after one of her ethereal performances. Yet the sender, a wealthy foreign prince, isn't easily dissuaded. Seven years living and studying in the United States have made Malik long for the freedom to choose his own bride - and the woman he wants is Trisha.

Eve's Diary," is the comic tale of Eve, the first woman in the Judeo-Christian creation story. Written in diary form, Eve offers a first-person account of her relationship with Adam, life in Eden, and their experiences after the Fall. "Eve's Diary" is one of many in a series of stories that Twain wrote, all revolving around Adam and Eve. Proceeds from sale of this title go to Reach Out and Read, an innovative literacy advocacy organization.

In the lonely years following the death of her fiancé, Helen is unable to move on with her life. But life itself is moving on around her literally: The building of a dam is forcing her small town and her family home to relocate. But the construction project means more than the loss of a home. Helens brother, Robbie, who disappeared without a trace 15 years earlier, suddenly resurfaces. As he re-enters his sisters life, he reveals the secret of why he left in the first place: a secret that tore their family apart, and affected Helens life in more ways than she ever realized.

Audrun, Davyn, and their four children have fled their war-scourged homeland, joining a karavan headed toward a haven of peace where diviners have said their fifth child - the one Audrun now carries - must be born. But now, desperate to reach safety before the child comes, they have chosen to break off from the karavan and take a dangerous route too near the sentient hell called Alisanos.

As a child, dog-loving Brenna Fallon naively invokes an ancient Celtic deity to save her beloved hound - and inadvertently anchors the new-found power at a spring on her family's farm. She doesn't know she's also left an opening for a far more malevolent force. Years later, thanks to the actions of several angry young men, Brenna discovers the terrible potential of that gateway.

Whether breathlessly enthusiastic serenely calm, or really concentrating on their personal zombie issues, Crane's happy cast explore the complexities behind personal satisfaction. You Must Be This Happy to Enter exists in a world very much like our own but infused with more joy and magic. It's a place where the happy are jailed, the sincere cause confusion, and pop culture so seamlessly melds with real life that characters can walk right out of the television and come live with you.

A new world is emerging years after war destroyed society. In a Minnesota lake, the last surviving loons await the one who can help heal the earth. Each year a human sacrifice is brought to them to be endowed with special gifts, but they come at a terrible price. Even as the rest of the world rebuilds, Grace Kriske's life is shattered. Unable to walk, Grace's only solace is her lover, David Tvedt, a trader who wants to take her away with him - if she'd let him.