Showing results by narrator "Linda Stephens" in All Categories

Sixteen-year-old Mary Swan Middleton is devastated when her artistic mother is killed in a plane crash. The family maid, seeing Mary's loneliness and desperation, suggests she volunteer to help the poor. Soon, Mary realizes there is more to life, love, and faith, than she ever knew.

Set in 1936 Kansas, Where Willows Grow transports listeners to America's drought-stricken heartland as the hopes and dreams of hardworking farmers blow away with the wind. As pregnant Anna Mae and her husband Harley struggle to feed their growing family, Harley travels 100 miles to build a WPA monument. But Anna Mae grows increasingly desperate as months drag on with no word from her husband.

A storyteller in the very best southern tradition, Lee Smith pens unexpected plots vibrant with luminous prose. Her powerful short stories in Me and My Baby View the Eclipse capture those extraordinary moments in everyday life when greatness and tragedy shimmer through the surface. This collection was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

For the inimitable Lee Smith, place is paramount. For 45 years, her fiction has lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. But never before has she written her own story. Set deep in the rugged Appalachian Mountains, the Grundy of Lee Smith's youth was a place of coal miners, mountain music, and her daddy's dimestore. It was in that dimestore - listening to customers and inventing life histories for the store's dolls - that she began to learn the craft of storytelling.

Lee Smith is one of today's most critically acclaimed authors writing about contemporary life in the South. In Family Linen, with a remarkable economy of description and dialogue, Smith sketches eccentric, yet familiar characters moving through a family drama that resonates with both tension and humor.

A consummate storyteller in the Southern tradition, Lee Smith tugs at her listeners' heartstrings with this haunting narrative that reads like a country ballad. Touching, funny, and sad, its down-to-earth characters are somehow familiar and endearing as they do their best to meet the demands of daily life.

Lee Smith, author of the acclaimed The Last Girls, delights with a tale of dry wit. Smith has won many prizes, including the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Academy Award in Literature.

Drawn to the enduring truths of Kim Vogel Sawyer’s gentle stories, fans and critics alike have fallen in love with the novels of this ACFW Book of the Year Award winner. Set in 1888 Kansas, A Hopeful Heart tells the story of a young woman from Back East who’s convinced she must settle for a life that’s second best. But as she struggles to overcome the challenges of a new faith and the hardships of frontier life, she may discover that—for her—the best is yet to come.

Stealing with Style is a Mystery Guild Book Club Selection, and the first in a series starring the witty and charming Sterling Glass, an intrepid antiques appraiser and amateur sleuth. In her debut adventure, Sterling must foil a plot set up by a shady construction company looking to bilk the elderly out of their prized possessions. Following a trail of clues from her small Virginia town to New York City, Sterling and her #1 guy Peter try to bring these crooks to justice.

In this anthology of creative nonfiction, 28 writers set out to discover what they know, and don't know, about the person they call Mother. Celebrated writers Samia Serageldin and Lee Smith have curated a diverse and insightful collection that challenges stereotypes about mothers and expands our notions of motherhood in the South. The mothers in these essays were shaped, for good and bad, by the economic and political crosswinds of their time.

As a family clinic administrator, Michele Layton has seen her share of suffering. But never anything like this. Not here in St. Cloud, Minnesota. A local activist has been found murdered, his body frozen like a statue and placed in a Winter Carnival ice sculpture display. Next a vicious hate crime puts a man in the ICU. And locked away in the Holy Rest mental ward, a deranged man of the cloth prays for more sinners to be punished - and waits for a sign from above.

NPR's popular new podcast features spirited round-table discussions covering a wild and unpredictable landscape of pop culture subject matter, from the 50th anniversary of Gilligan's Island to "pop culture carbon dating" (why some things age well and others not at all) to the "what's making us happy" segment of the show, which always leaves listeners with a smile.

The beautiful young Esther has been chosen as queen by the king of Persia. Surrounded by servants, each day she wears gorgeous dresses and eats delicious foods in his luxurious court. Still, she remembers the promise made to her uncle when she was a child. She tells no one that she is Jewish. One day the prime minister, angry because Esther’s uncle does not bow to him, arranges a decree ordering all Jews to be killed. Will Esther find the courage to stand up for her people, even if it means revealing her religion to the king?

Oliole Fontenot has moved to Cantrell from New York City to set up her own photography studio. When she is commissioned to do a series on women in the West, she realizes that this is the chance she needs to establish her reputation as an artist. But a handsome rancher begins to capture her heart, and she must reevaluate what she wants. Is God being too bountiful with his blessings?

Isabel Leon, the Marquesa, is an actress who has appeared in performances across the country, yet now she finds herself living in the small western town of Cantrell, Montana. With the town booming, the Marquesa decides it needs a grand hotel. It will take the help, and the heart, of a handsome stranger to make her dream a reality. As their relationship grows, the Marquesa finds her faith getting stronger, too.

Critically acclaimed author Gish Jen is a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee and the person John Updike proclaimed as the young novelist most likely to become his successor. In The Love Wife, Jen poignantly explores the explosive dynamics of a mixed-race modern family.

Lee Smith, one of today's finest writers in the Southern literary tradition, has been compared to Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. This collection of nine stories, ranging from poignant ballads to delightfully inventive forms, showcases Smith's celebrated talent. The stories will make you chuckle and leave you with a satisfying sense that no matter how unruly or warped life may seem, equilibrium can be found after all.

Set in 1889, this compelling sequel to Dawn’s Prelude explores the effects of sin and forgiveness on life and love.As she steams closer to Alaska’s Sitka Island, 18-year-old Phoebe Robbins wonders what this wild, untamed land might offer her. Before she can set foot on its shore, however, she tumbles into deep water and finds herself in the rescuing arms of Dalton Lindquist.

Set in the wilds of 1876 South Dakota, A Claim of Her Own by two-time Christy Award finalist Stephanie Grace Whitson follows the fortunes of 20-year-old Mattie O'Keefe as she embarks upon an arduous journey to find her brother Dillon. When she reaches the gold-rush boomtown of Deadwood, no one seems to know where Dillon is. The resourceful Mattie begins to pan for gold anyhow, hoping her brother will soon arrive. But a relentless stalker draws closer to his prey.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, The Devil's Dream is an animated, lyrical novel that is meant to be savored as spoken word. Consummate storyteller Lee Smith's creation will delight anyone who enjoys the sound of language and a good story.