Showing results by narrator "Natalie" in All Categories

What does it take to have a long writing life? Drawing on her years of writing, teaching, and practicing Zen, Natalie Goldberg shares the experiences that have opened her to new ways of being alive - experiences that point the way forward in our lives and our writing. The "great spring" of this book title refers to the great rush of energy that arrives when you think no life will ever come again - the early yellow flowering forsythia, for example.

After overhearing two crooked Chicago cops plotting against her, Avery Pierce goes on the run, not knowing who she can trust. When her low finances force her to take a job as a sex phone operator, she struggles, so when a caller senses her desperation and inexperience and offers assistance, she’s tempted to agree. As soon as Sheriff Grayson Monroe meets the new waitress at his favorite diner, something about her strikes a familiar chord. When he sees her enter his lifestyle club, the desire to get to the bottom of her evasive eyes and answers to his probing questions takes hold.

The telegram Samantha Sawyer Rodriguez holds is her key to freedom: her late uncle, Ezra, has left her his ranch in Sweetwater Springs, Montana. At last, she and her young son will have a true home, and she can finally pursue her dreams of raising her prized miniature horses and building a sanctuary for wayward orphans. Prosperous rancher Wyatt Thompson has long coveted that river property. It’s bad enough that Ezra’s niece refuses to sell it, but worse by far that she’s stubborn, proud, and beautiful.

A keenly perceptive coming-of-age novel set at a prestigious New England prep school, as nine young women navigate their ambitions, friendships, and fears against the backdrop of a scandal the administration wants silenced. An all-girls boarding school in a hilly corner of Connecticut, Atwater is a haven for progressive thinking and feminist intellectuals. The students are smart, driven and worldly; they are also teenagers, learning to find their way.

In this inspiring think piece and call to action, the founder and CEO of the global climate action movement 1 Million Women explains why the place for climate action is here, why the time is now and how women can work together to lead the way. As Natalie Isaacs says, this is the decisive decade for climate action and we have to make it count. We need to build a new world, starting immediately.

Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy (2009) traces the lives of six North Korean defectors from Chongjin, a city in northeastern North Korea in North Hamgyong Province. The narrative examines their daily lives and occupations. Listen to this in-depth summary by Swift Reads to learn more.

I’m supposed to be his prisoner—but I’m the one that won’t let him leave. Every time he has a new hit, the separation is unbearable. I wait for him to come home on pins and needles. I paint alone in the bedroom, and now my artwork has changed. I used to paint homes and landscapes…but now I’ve painted a person. A man standing on the bank of a lake surrounded by snow.

When multiple murders terrorize a small town college campus, FBI profiler Violet Darger heads to rural Michigan to investigate. As soon as she arrives, a grim history begins to emerge. The crimes have progressed steadily over a period of 18 months. Indecent exposure to stalking. Stalking to rape. Rape to murder. The UNSUB's emphasis on power and control rapidly verges toward full blown sadism. He grows ever bolder, ever more vicious.

After Kelsey is assaulted, her FBI foster parents plead with her to spend a few weeks with their friends in Montana while they investigate the incident. Since she would do anything for them, she grudgingly agrees, wondering how she will pass the time on a ranch in the middle of nowhere without going stir crazy. As soon as she catches sight of her two hosts, Greg and Devin, she figures: What better way to take her mind off her troubles than with an affair with one of them?

For former FBI-agent-turned-thief Blair Morgan, the world’s most unbreakable vault is her most irresistible target. Blair Morgan has embraced her second career - as an elite thief. Her heist crew has set their sights on their latest target: the Sierra Diamond, an 872-carat stone worth $27.3 million. It will be encased in a new vault known as the Sky Safe, a revolutionary strong room built into the side of a Los Angeles high rise. The FBI says the Sky Safe is impenetrable. Naturally, Blair and her crew think otherwise...and if they succeed, it will be the greatest heist ever pulled.

A caravan driven at breakneck speed through the hills of Montana is the least of Magdalena Baxter's concerns. Evicted from their home, and due to soon give birth, the Gypsy woman is forced to follow her husband, Oswald, a drunk and abusive miner who hopes to find work in a neighboring town. Despite calling Sweetwater Springs home, wealthy banker Caleb Livingston clings to his elitist East Coast ways. While this may have brought him prestige, he's missed out on romance at every turn.

Schoolteacher Harriet Stanton has always believed in happily ever after. Only, the one she thinks she wants forever with is newly married... just not to her. But when a mysterious stranger rescues Harriet from an accident, she discovers heroes can be found in the most unlikely places...

The Fogg River Seminary, a girls’ school in a small Illinois town, is supposed to be just another stop on Maryse and Vasyl’s endless travels. They’ve made lucrative use of Maryse’s “foreign” looks in their melodramatic séance act—and an act is all it is. Then, during their performance, a blizzard sweeps in and cuts them off from town completely. In the freezing halls, there’s a voice speaking the secrets of the dead, and Maryse has no choice but to listen…because this time, the voice is real.

Once a city of enormous wealth and culture, Prague was home to emperors, alchemists, astronomers, and, as it’s whispered, hell portals. When music student Sarah Weston lands a summer job at Prague Castle cataloging Beethoven’s manuscripts, she has no idea how dangerous her life is about to become. Prague is a threshold, Sarah is warned, and it is steeped in blood. Soon after Sarah arrives, strange things begin to happen.

The last thing Doctor Mitchell Hoffstetter wanted was to put up a stranded motorist at his cabin, but seeing the bruises marring Lillian’s face stifles his irritation. He couldn’t help offering comfort when her grief kept her awake, and for all her sass and independence, she succumbed to his commands and touch without pause. They went their separate ways the next day unable to forget that one hour. Mitchell soon discovers Lillian is living in the motel in town.

Within this audiobook, you'll find myriad approaches to Alice, from horror to historical, taking us from the nightmarish reaches of the imagination to tales that will shock, surprise, and tug on the heart-strings. So, it's time now to go down the rabbit hole, or through the looking-glass or...but no, wait. By picking up this audiobook and starting to listen to it, you're already there, can't you see?

For the first time in her life, Ireland Mills is happy with her body. No more fad diets, no more hiding from every camera in the room, no more low self-esteem. She’d rather be alone than with someone who’ll only love her if she’s skinny. Caleb Carpenter and Ben Weber are everything Ireland and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce dreamed of when conceptualizing the “Real Kansas” promotional campaign. They’re handsome, young, educated, and totally dedicated to their small prairie town.

The time has come for Cassiopeia Vitt to sell her ancestral home. It sits on a Spanish bluff by the Mediterranean Sea, and bears the name Casa de Hace Mucho Tiempo, House of Long Ago. Trapped inside its walls are memories from a time when Cassiopeia was growing from a rebellious adolescent into a thoughtful young woman - regretful times when she often found herself estranged from her parents. Also inside, are 15 paintings, each one a masterpiece, together representing an investment in the 10s of millions of euros - her father’s private art collection - which she intends to donate.

For an imperial assassin, assignment as a courtesan in the Floating World seems like a waste of her talents...until killers target her clan sisters. In the legendary Floating World, wars are waged with wit, the strongest soldier can be bound with threads of silk, and flesh is the currency by which life, death, and freedom can all be purchased. Half-elf Jie bemoans her temporary assignment as a Night Blossom in the most sought-after house, even if it's the perfect cover for her real work as an assassin in the emperor’s service.

Julia is married to a renowned psychiatrist, deeply loves her stepson and is forging a career as a journalist. When a writing job exposes Julia to phone sex, she glimpses a world that stirs her fantasies but threatens her carefully constructed life.