Showing results by narrator "A A Maynard" in All Categories

In Shattered to Shining, nine women and one male domestic violence survivor describe how they were shattered, as their home became a place where physical and sexual violence, emotional and psychological control dominated their lives. Through persistence and courage, they have risen above their situation and come out the other side shining with positivity, strength, commitment, and empathy for others.

Astronauts Jim Parker and Michael Murphy, aboard the space shuttle Charger II, were wrapping up a routine mission. Just prior to re-entry, they encountered a mysterious cloud bank in space and were never heard from again. Two years later, a metal box was unearthed at a construction site in St. Louis. In it was a previously unknown, yet apparently authentic, journal of the historic Lewis and Clark expedition: written by astronaut Jim Parker. Did Parker and Murphy alter history, or save it?

Losing my job was bad, but ending up on my witch of an aunt's doorstep as a last resort was even worse. Her offer? Embrace the magic I've always denied and come work for her at our family's haunted manor. The one staffed by monsters who aren't just people in costumes, including two in particular who draw me in immediately.

Marty Keller, ex-Texas Ranger turned bounty hunter, is on the vengeance trail to find the three men who murdered his family. After being wounded, he is cared for by the widow of a murdered sheriff and she convinces him to search for the sheriff's killer as well. She asks a friend of the sheriff, an Indian, to help. The two are slowed by many battles along the way but eventually track the killers across the Southwest into Mexico. Side-tracked again, Marty gets involved in defending a large ranchero from Mexican bandits.

Reuben and Amy Corbin, brother and sister, are left destitute in 1886 when Quantrill's Raiders burn their Missouri farm, kill their father, and ride off with all the livestock and supplies. Reuben swears that somehow, someday, he will find and kill the individual raider he saw gun-down his father. With no means of support, brother and sister decide to try for Oregon. They find work and earn enough money to join up with a wagon train. The wagon train becomes the platform for a continuous array of adventures, hardships and close, new-found relationships.

For Jack Hale the Cumberland country on the borders of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee meant the way to great riches. As the advance man for British Mining interests, Hale was in the Kentucky hills to buy coal mining rights from the mountain folk. Hale’s chance meeting with a young mountain girl has a dramatic impact upon both their lives, sending each of them onto opposite paths before they converge again much later.

Haunting, majestic, and powerful, the Columbia River flows down from the rugged Rockies, through the deep, forbidden forests, and across the open plain. Along its banks, bold, strong men of ambition and enterprise sought their fortune. It was a time and a place where the fur trade could make you wealthy...or get you killed. Into this land of adventure and treachery came Jared Flynn, a man running from his tragic past.

Hallettsville, Texas was home to ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed. But after taking an oath for the Union he discovered Yankees had taken over his plantation, named him an outlaw when he resisted, and framed him for murder... Now with a signed confession in his hand naming the real murderer, Creed can finally clear his name. With his nephew and sister-in-law, he's headed for Texas. But his trail is fraught with danger...and it won't do Creed much good to gain his reputation if he loses his life in the process.

Ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed is still intent on taking back his land from Yankee carpetbaggers and clearing his name. But a noose still hangs over Slate Creed's head for a crime he didn't commit. Now there's only one hope to clear his name: saving the neck of the man who framed him. The whole town wants Dick Barth dead, except for Creed, he needs him breathing - and confessing. But freedom for both men makes trouble a sure bet - especially when the wager is paid in blood.

It was Martha Doak's last wish, and it may lead Slate Creed to his last showdown. Creed promised the half-blood squaw that he'd see her son Little Bee safe and sound to his uncle in the Choctaw Nation. Trouble is, the trip will take him through some of the meanest badland settlements the Nations have to offer. Towns where Little Bee's kind isn't wanted...and the rebel Creed is. As murderous bushwhackers stalk their trail, the boy and Creed live by quick wits, cold steel, and an unbreakable pact bound by honor and daring....

Hallettsville, Texas was overrun by Yankees and Northern corruption after the Civil War, and ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed lost everything when Yankees stole his home, named him an outlaw and condemned him to die as well... On the run since his home-coming after the Civil War, Slate Creed sees a chance to clear his name. To do so, he must find Quade, the man who helped frame him. The hard part will be getting him back to Texas to tell the tale...especially when a trumped-up charge of murder threatens to put both their necks in the noose.

When the Civil War ended, Confederate Captain Clete Slater was looking forward to going home to his family and enjoying a peaceful life on his family's plantation in Texas. He was greeted by the Union Army and Carpetbaggers taking over everything. When he resisted and fought for his home, they framed him and declared him an outlaw, forcing him to hit the trail. Now he has a crooked federal marshal with an itchy trigger finger dogging his trail.

The Civil War left Clete Slater with three things: a price on his head for a crime he didn't commit, his new assumed name of Slate Creed, and a savage thirst for vengeance. To follow the trail of his brother's killers, he left his family, the girl he intended to marry, and his ravaged Texas hometown behind. The Union Army wants Creed, dead or alive. But even far from Texas in the wide-open gambling dens of New Orleans, the bluecoats are just a hoofbeat behind. With luck, Creed might escape the bloodthirsty bluecoats.

The Union nearly killed him in the Civil War. Then the bluecoats and carpetbaggers stole his Texas plantation and turned what was left of his family against him. His Texas home-town became an armed camp, full of corrupt, greedy Yankees anxious to wipe out any veteran that showed up in tattered Confederate gray. Any other man would have just drifted on, but not Confederate Captain Clete Slater.

The Civil War was hell for Captain Clete Slater, a forgotten hero of the Confederacy, and the Texas Reconstruction's even worse. His Texas home-town is overrun with carpetbaggers and bluecoats. He's hunted by the law for a crime he didn't commit. He rides south to Mexico with a new name, Slate Creed, to hide his real identity. Riding across the Rio Grande, Creed expects to find frontier justice for the real culprits. Instead he finds another country torn apart by its own civil war.

Creed was willing to risk his life by going home to the girl and the land he loved. Texada and Texas. Both represented his future and as long as he could breathe he would determine his own destiny. But the road home lay through Victoria County, a place that many considered to be lawless and wild even before the War. He knew he was inviting trouble, but he was in a hurry. Riding into the town of Victoria, Creed finds himself caught in a standoff between the angry townsfolk and the company of Union soldiers sent to occupy the town.

Drew: Bailey's beautiful, but you're not supposed to notice your best friend like that, so I keep my thoughts to myself. When I need a pretend girlfriend for a party at work, she says yes; mainly so she can finally meet the guy who's been driving me nuts on the job. I keep telling her, no, he's not attractive. He's a pain in my ass; attraction's got nothing to do with it. Not that I'm attracted to him. Obviously.

A man and a woman who used to be lovers meet by chance after not having seen each other for about six years. At first, their reminiscences about their romance proceed with fondness. Then, due to his lack of sensitivity, the woman gets up and leaves.

Originally published in 1856, The Kidnapped and the Ransomed is the personal memoir of Peter Still, who was born a slave. He was yoked to servitude for more than four decades in Alabama and Kentucky. Still was finally freed with the help of two Jewish brothers.

Sarah Mapps Douglas was an African American lecturer, writer, and fervent abolitionist. Douglas’ address, now commonly referred to as "Sarah Mapps Douglas Urges Support for the Anti-Slavery Cause", made in 1832, is essential Civil War-era rhetoric for the abolishment of slavery. As an address, it is also extremely historically important as one of the only public speeches on the subject made by a black woman.