Showing results by narrator "Joyce Bean" in All Categories

Every week for twenty years, three friends meet in a leafy enclosure under the Verrazzano Bridge: Gertie, a feisty Norwegian divorcée and former athlete; Maria, a family-obsessed Italian American widow; and Corinna, a book-loving, hash-smoking eccentric. Together they sit and watch the sea as the ships - and the last years of their lives - sail by. On the eve of Gertie’s eightieth birthday, they realize that time is running out. Gertie decides she wants to travel the world. Maria secretly plots to reunite Gertie and Corinna with their estranged families. And Corinna falls in love.

In her extraordinary follow-up memoir, The Arrogant Years, Lagnado revisits her first years in America, and describes a difficult coming-of-age tragically interrupted by a bout with cancer at age 16. At once a poignant mother and daughter story and a magnificent snapshot of the turbulent ’60s and ’70s, The Arrogant Years is a stunning work of memory and resilience that ranges from Cairo to Brooklyn and beyond - the unforgettable true story of a remarkable young woman’s determination to push past the boundaries of her life and make her way in the wider world.

When a high-society call girl is murdered in her Georgetown home, investigators find two cameras hidden in the walls of her bedroom. One has its memory erased, presumably by the murderer. The second is connected to the Internet through an encrypted connection...and no one knows who's on the other end. Special Agent Allison McNeil is asked by beleaguered FBI Director Clarence Mason to run an off-the-record investigation of the murder because of the murder's similarity to a case she worked a year earlier.

Marika Vecera, an accomplished war reporter, has dedicated her life to helping the world's oppressed and forgotten. When not on one of her dangerous assignments, she lives in Boston, exploring a new relationship with Seb, a psychologist who offers her glimpses of a better world. Returning from a harrowing assignment in Congo, where she was kidnapped by rebel soldiers, Marika learns that a man she has always admired from afar, Pulitzer-winning war correspondent Robert Lewis, has committed suicide.

It's fall in the Sierra Mountains, and Anna Pigeon is slinging hash in Yosemite National Park's historic Ahwahnee Hotel. Four young people, all seasonal park employees, have disappeared, and two weeks of work by crack search-and-rescue teams have failed to turn up a single clue; investigators are unsure as to whether the four went AWOL for reasons of their own - or died in the park.

The children were waiting. Waiting for centuries. Waiting for someone to hear their cries. Now nine-year-old Christie Lyons has come to live in the house on the hill - the house where no children have lived for 50 years. Now little Christie will sleep in the old-fashioned nursery on the third floor. Now Christie's terror will begin...when the wind blows, the children must die!

Elise Brooks dreams of a car accident on an icy road. Weeks later, her beloved husband, Michael, is killed in just such a crash. Now, overcome with grief and uncertainty, Elise believes his spirit may be following her in the form of a raven, trying to tell her something from beyond the grave. Desperate to understand the signs, Elise embraces both the Native American wisdom she grew up with and the world of psychics and seers.

Widowed Kate Everett is looking forward to starting her "second act". She’s planned out everything that she wants - a new house, a new job, maybe even a new man. She can’t wait until everything falls into place. But life has a way of butting in, and Kate soon finds herself dealing with unexpected houseguests, helping her daughter plan the world’s smallest wedding, and sudden unemployment. Things get even more complicated with the reappearance of her old college love, Jake. He realizes the mistake he made years ago in letting her go, and is eager to win her back.

Detective Tess McCrae investigates a grisly crime scene in the ghost town of Credo, Arizona. The evidence suggests a cartel drug hit. But Tess, with a nearly faultless photographic memory, sees what others might miss: This is no drug killing. Someone went to gruesome lengths to cover their tracks. The killer’s trail leads from Tucson to California - from anti-government squatters to the heights of wealthy society. As Tess follows the trail of gore and betrayal, perfect and indelible in her memory, she uncovers far more than one man’s murder and solves much more than one isolated crime.

When Jack Roberts walks into the James & James Detective Agency, co-owner Alice James can hardly believe her luck. The body of Roberts’s daughter, Laura, a Las Vegas cocktail waitress, was found just days before, bashed over the head and set ablaze in the Nevada desert. It is a horrific crime - and cracking it could mean big business for James & James. There’s no shortage of suspects to keep them busy; everyone, from the victim’s obsessive ex-boyfriend, her mentally unbalanced tenant, her temperamental roommate, her shady fiancé, and even her volatile father, is under suspicion. But can the partners do what the police couldn’t?

Sonnet Romano’s life is almost perfect. She has the ideal career, the ideal boyfriend, and has just been offered a prestigious fellowship. There’s nothing more a woman wants - except maybe a baby...brother?When Sonnet finds out her mother is unexpectedly expecting, and that the pregnancy is high risk, she puts everything on hold - the job, the fellowship, the boyfriend - and heads home to Avalon. Once her mom is out of danger, Sonnet intends to pick up her life where she left off.

Fall comes to Pepin County with a vengeance as Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins confronts a new evil festering beneath the placid surface of the Wisconsin farm community. A refugee from the Twin Cities, Claire has slowly adapted to small-town life - especially now that she loves and lives with Rich Haggard. But in this rural area, other folks are dangerously restless.

Never get attached - private nurse and protected witness Claire Turner lives by this motto. Fleeing a treacherous past, she knows no other way. Never give up - In the twilight of his life, George Bellamy makes it his final wish to reconcile with an estranged brother. He and Claire journey to Willow Lake - where it all went wrong for him 50 years ago.

When caregiver Faith McCallum arrives at the enchanted lakeside estate of Avalon's renowned Bellamy family, she's intent on rebuilding her shattered life and giving her two daughters a chance at a better future. But she faces a formidable challenge in the form of her stubborn and difficult new employer, Alice Bellamy. While Faith proves a worthy match for her sharp-tongued client, she often finds herself at a loss for words in the presence of Mason Bellamy - Alice's charismatic son, who clearly longs to escape the family mansion.

Kate and Alex Rocket are blessed with a wonderful marriage and a lovely home. Although Kate is unable to bear children, she and Alex look upon Sara and Emily, affectionate daughters of their good friends Don and Debbie Winter, as part of their family. With one phone call, everything changes. Sara accuses Alex of a heinous act, opening up a vicious rift between the couples. In a single moment an idyllic all-American life has imploded into an unfathomable nightmare. Kate can only watch helplessly as her innocent husband is convicted and sent to prison.

An out-of-state corporation wants to pump the river nearly dry and float the water to southern California's thirsty cities in huge rubber rafts. With lobbyists, lawyers, and dirty tricks, the company intends to get what it wants - any way it can. Against this corporate Goliath, a community protest group and four unusual individuals are drawing a line in the sand.

The unsolved murders at a remote Wisconsin farmhouse half a century ago have receded into time. But one deranged man will do anything to make sure that all of Pepin County remembers that bloody day. When a quantity of dangerous pesticides is stolen from the local co-op, Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins is called in to investigate. The thief has left one bizarre clue: the finger bone of a child long dead.

P.I. Sharon McCone is sick and tired of San Francisco's persistent rainy weather, so she jumps at the chance to investigate the sabotage of a movie being filmed on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The documentary is based on the writings of Elson Wellbright, a descendant of a missionary family and scholar of Hawaiian culture and history. Wellbright's son is bankrolling the project and has angered many members of the family, who aren't anxious for the film to be completed.

International lawyer Sophie Bellamy has dedicated her life to helping people in war-torn countries. But when she survives a hostage situation, she remembers what matters most: the children she loves back home. Haunted by regrets, she returns to the idyllic Catskills village of Avalon on the shores of Willow Lake, determined to repair the bonds with her family.

We all need to think more like entrepreneurs. Seeking and seizing opportunities, boldly taking risks, quickly changing course - achieving success today requires the kind of action-first, fake-it-'til-you-make-it ethos celebrated in the tech industry. This formula is not typically a female one. Women tend to be cautious. We overthink our next moves, become paralyzed by fear, and simply don't act. We might be safer...but we're also stuck.