Showing results by narrator "Laurel Lefkow" in All Categories

Set 300 years after the events of Alien: Out of the Shadows and Alien: River of Pain, Alien: Sea of Sorrows deals with the rediscovery of dormant Xenomorphs (Aliens) in the abandoned mines of LV-178, the planetoid from Alien: Out of the Shadows, which has now been terraformed and renamed New Galveston. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation, reformed after the collapse of the United Systems Military, continue their unceasing efforts to weaponise the creatures.

Father of cyberpunk William Gibson’s original script for Alien III, written in 1987 as a sequel to Aliens, never made it to our screens, although it went on to achieve cult status among fans as the third instalment that might have been after being leaked online. This terrifying, cinematic multicast dramatisation - directed by the multi-award-winning Dirk Maggs - is the chance to experience William Gibson’s untold story and its terrifying, claustrophobic and dark encounters between humans and aliens, as a completely immersive audio experience.

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an 1100-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe and built her back up again. At 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. After her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than an idea: vague, outlandish, and full of promise.

When we think of the forces driving cancer, we don’t necessarily think of evolution. But evolution and cancer are closely linked, for the historical processes that created life also created cancer. The Cheating Cell delves into this extraordinary relationship, and shows that by understanding cancer’s evolutionary origins, researchers can come up with more effective, revolutionary treatments.

In The Soul of Wealth, Daniel presents 50 short essays which explore what wealth really is and provides practical suggestions for how to change your thinking and your actions in small, powerful ways, for a wealthier life.

On a perfect August morning, Elle Bishop heads out for a swim in the pond below 'The Paper Palace'—her family's holiday home in Cape Cod. As she dives beneath the water she relives the passionate encounter she had the night before, against the side of the house that knows all her darkest secrets, while her husband and mother chatted to their guests inside.... So begins a story that unfolds over 24 hours and 50 years, as Elle's shocking betrayal leads her to a life-changing decision—and an ending you won't be able to stop thinking about.

A magnificent portrayal of 1890's America and the harsh realities of a dog-eat-dog world, Sister Carrie lies at the forefront of American Naturalism. When poor young provincial woman Carrie Meeber arrives in Chicago, she little expects to be catapulted from lower-class woman to prominent Broadway actress. Passive and yielding, she lets circumstances coerce her into action and by good fortune she arrives at fame. It is in Chicago that Carrie meets a successful businessman, Hurstwood, who helps her establish her name.

On a near-abandoned research base in an Arctic ice field, a skeleton crew works to ensure the centre doesn’t collapse amid treacherous storms. Officially, Trieste Grayling arrives in order to explore and film a sunken shipwreck for a documentary film; privately, she's working through a complicated grief. Trieste soon realises she's not the only one who was attracted to this intense isolation in order to escape her ghosts.

Ariel Price wakes up in Lisbon, alone. Her husband is gone—no warning, no note, not answering his phone. Something is wrong. She starts with hotel security, then the police, then the American embassy, at each confronting questions she can't fully answer: What exactly is John doing in Lisbon? Why would he drag her along on his business trip? Who would want to harm him? And why does Ariel know so little about her new, much younger, husband? The clock is ticking.

No one knows Margo's real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges. That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo's subtly sinister edge and watches her carefully.

In her memoirs, Wallis Simpson described her time in China as her ‘Lotus Year’, referring to Homer’s Lotus Eaters, a group living in a state of dreamy forgetfulness, never to return home. That year, however, was also used to damn her in the eyes of the British Establishment. Determined to ‘save’ the monarchy, the British government’s ‘China Dossier’ of Wallis’s rumoured amorous and immoral activities in the Far East portrayed her as debauched, influenced by foreign agents, and unfit to marry a king. But little was known about how she spent that mysterious period in her life – until now.

Almost every day we are bombarded with the seemingly incontrovertible message that we must reduce our consumption of meat and dairy—or eliminate them from our diets altogether. But what if the pervasive message that the plant-based diet will improve our health and save the planet is misleading—or even false? What if removing animal foods from our diet is a serious threat to human health, and a red herring in the fight against climate change.

The Age of Innocence is a powerful depiction of love and desire in New York's glamorous Gilded Age. When Newland Archer, happily engaged to May Welland, meets his fiancée's cousin Ellen, his entire future is cast into doubt: strong-willed, witty, and entirely unpretentious, Ellen is unlike any woman he has ever met. He is torn between his infatuation for her and his duty to marry May. In subtle and elegant language, Wharton delivers a critical look at the social mores of the time.

An alternative history of the US space programme, dramatised by Dirk Maggs. What if John F. Kennedy survived the assassination attempt and developed the space programme? President Nixon, with the help of former president JFK, has just green-lit NASA’s first manned expedition to Mars. Aboard the expedition is Natalie York, a geologist who risks everything she loves for the chance to go to space; Phil Stone, former X-15 test pilot; and Ralph Gershon, a Vietnam War hero intent on being the first African American to reach another planet.

What are the secrets to a healthy, happy, and wealthy retirement? To answer that question, longtime Morningstar columnist and podcaster Christine Benz asked 20 retirement thought leaders to go deep on a single lesson that they believe contributes to success in retirement. These lessons range from nitty gritty financial matters to quality-of-life considerations that help pre-retirees and retirees maximize their “time on earth” allocations.

Meet the Sorenson Family. Marilyn has somehow fallen into motherhood and spent four decades married to David, who's pretty certain he loves her more than anyone has ever loved another person. Wendy, their eldest, a cause for concern, soothes herself with drink after being widowed young, while Violet, lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mother, is disturbed by the reappearance of a son placed for adoption 15 years earlier.

In 12 years, Michelle Lyons witnessed nearly 300 executions. First as a reporter and then as a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Michelle was a frequent visitor to Huntsville's Walls Unit, where she recorded and relayed the final moments of death row inmates' lives before they were put to death by the state. Michelle was in the death chamber as some of the United States' most notorious criminals, including serial killers, child murderers and rapists, spoke their last words on earth, while a cocktail of lethal drugs surged through their veins.

The hotly-anticipated sequel to The Devil Wears Prada – the million copy bestseller that took the world by storm. Everything’s in place for the season’s hottest launch: Tall latte (with two raw sugars)? Check. Gucci trench (draped over desk)? Check. Outrageous, unreasonable demands? Check. Andy has just turned thirty and is an incredibly successful magazine editor, working closely with her best friend Emily, another Runway survivor.

Laurel Lefkow reads the stunning new novel from the bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring. When modest Quaker Honor Bright sails from Bristol with her sister, she is fleeing heartache for a new life in America, far from home. But tragedy leaves her alone and vulnerable, torn between two worlds and dependent on the kindness of strangers. Life in 1850s Ohio is precarious and unsentimental. The sun is too hot, the thunderstorms too violent, the snow too deep. The roads are spattered with mud and spit. The woods are home to skunks and porcupines and raccoons.

When White House correspondent Sofie Morse gets a call from the office of First Lady Lara Caine asking her to come in for a private meeting, her curiosity is piqued. Sofie, like the rest of the world, knows only that Lara was born in Soviet Russia, raised in Paris, and worked as a model before moving to America and marrying the notoriously brash future president. Now Lara wants Sofie to write her official biography. After decades of silence, she is finally ready to speak candidly about her past: about her father's work for the KGB, and about her ill-fated relationship with Sasha.