Showing results by narrator "Therese Plummer" in All Categories

Speed: the most demonized - and misunderstood - drug in the land. Deprived of the ingrained romantic mysticism of the opiate or the cosmopolitan chic of cocaine or the mundane tolerance of marijuana, there is no sympathy for this devil. Yet speed - crystal meth, amphetamines, Dexedrine, Benzedrine, Adderall; crank, spizz, chickenscratch, oblivious marching powder, the go-fast - is the most American of drugs: twice the productivity at half the cost, and equal opportunity for all.

From the introduction to Philadelphia Noir: "America's first great city, first capital, and first industrial metropolis contained from the beginning the mix of poor workers and elite culture, of ethnic enclaves and religious intolerance, of easy skullduggery and flesh-pot possibilities, that led Lincoln Steffens in 1903 to famously rule it 'corrupt and contented'."

For Chickies life was good. Life was perfect until . . . CRAAACK . . . the Chickies have a new brother! With engaging rhymes and endearing illustrations, Janee Trasler's books are perfect for babies and toddlers to enjoy. Big sisters- and brothers-to-be will be excited to take a cue from the...

Stylist Jessica Champlin knows it takes more than a darling goldendoodle to save a marriage. She and her ex-husband, investigative journalist Sebastian Hess, had too many irreconcilable differences for even their beloved dog Baxter to heal. So they've agreed to joint custody, and life has settled into a prickly normalcy.

Cleveland, is now a city of zombies and a penal colony. Cahill, a criminal serving his sentence decides to forgo joining the surviving men in order to live on his own. At first he’s terrified of zombies, but that terror gives way to curiosity and he begins to conduct research in order to...

"Bursting with wise observations." -- J. Courtney Sullivan, author of The Engagements and Maine "Gleams like a jewel." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer "Stunning. . . Unique and unforgettable." -- Glamour Hailed as one of the best books of 2014 by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Elise Juska's The...

Learning to go potty is tricky for the Chickies! This lovable, heart-warming series makes a great gift for any new family. Experience all of the big parenting milestones with the Chickies. With engaging rhymes and endearing illustrations, these books are perfect for babies and toddlers to enjoy...

Cheep cheep cheep! What does it take to get little Chickies to sleep? Meet the Chickies in their very first book. With engaging rhymes and endearing illustrations, these books are perfect for babies and toddlers to enjoy. Young readers will love to fall asleep along with the Chickies!...

"If, on an early summer’s night, you wanted to kill a man, how would you do it? Would you lay a trap, sharpen a dagger, uncork a poison? Personally, I’ve always leaned toward the dramatic. But looking back, I wonder now if the events of last summer didn’t begin with a quieter sort of murder." So ponders Alexandra James, a beautiful, driven, yet troubled New England Chronicle reporter. She is assigned to cover the death of Thom Carlyle, son of one of the most powerful men in Washington. Just back from a year abroad, Thom falls from the top of a Harvard bell tower on a warm summer night.

When Jill McCorkle feels a short story coming on, she goes right ahead and "wastes" wonderful ideas instead of hoarding them for a novel. The result is another extraordinary collection of stories and characters. In "It's a Funeral! RSVP," the storyteller is a woman who takes up self-styled "careers" that suit her circumstances. Now she's stumbled onto one that's so successful that she just can't quit. It's planning funerals, what she calls Going Out Parties, in which the clients are the soon-to-be-deceased themselves.

A week after his 11th birthday, Caleb Vincent vanishes with hardly a trace. After a three-year search, he is found living a seemingly normal life under a new name with a man he calls his father. While outwardly stunned with joy at his safe recovery,Caleb's parents and sister are privately scrambling to gather together the pieces of a shattered family. To escape the relentless media attention surrounding her son’s return, Caleb’s mother, Marlene, decides to flee the country and seek refuge in Costa Rica with Caleb and his younger sister, against her estranged husband's wishes.

For 30 years, Lucinda Delaney Schroeder held an unusual government position: She was one of the handful of women special agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In August 1992, she accepted an assignment that forever changed - and endangered - her life. She posed as a big-game hunter in Alaska in order to infiltrate an international ring of poachers out to kill the biggest and best of that state's wildlife. A Hunt for Justice recounts her dramatic story - a story she was not legally permitted to write about until her retirement in 2004.

Twelve-year-old May is living in a desolate situation with only her grandmother, who is depressed about the absence of May’s mother, and her father, who works long hours and is almost never around. Due to her circumstance and her resentment over having to live in a low-income neighborhood, May often finds herself picking fights and getting into trouble. But when May is caught graffiti-ing her least favorite teacher’s classroom, she is faced with a choice: expulsion or one-on-one summer school with the teacher she most detests.

There's nothing 10-year-old Lily Sinclair likes about her new life in the city with her single mom. She misses her best friend, who seems to have forgotten her and their secret place, Willowood. She never sees her mom, who's working long hours at her new job. She's managed to make an enemy of the class bully. Mrs. Hiller from across the hall, who takes care of Lily after school, keeps preparing yucky healthy snacks for her. And she can't get her mother to tell her anything about her absent father. Her only source of comfort is her beloved pet gecko, Weemis.

When 12-year-old Hershey must run away with her mother to a women's shelter, she wonders how, among other things, she'll compete in the town talent show with her best friend, Phoebe; who will take care of her cat, Augustus Gloop; and if she'll survive being on a new bus route with her sworn enemy.

In News from Heaven, Jennifer Haigh—bestselling author of Faith and The Condition—returns to the territory of her acclaimed novel Baker Towers with a collection of short stories set in and around the fictionalized coal-mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania. Exploring themes of restlessness...

Maya saw her first demon when she was seven. She learned to hide what she saw, ignore the paranormal beings around her and build an ordinary life. But she had to tell her secrets somehow, so she began drawing, creating her own world, her own characters. Twenty years after that first demon entered her life, her normal existence is shattered when she's faced with two of her comic book characters come to life. Living in our world for years, each has his own agenda.

It starts as a case of mistaken identity but it will slowly blossom into the union of two people so right for each other all of New Orleans society will stand up and take notice. As soon as aristocratic Rafael Navarro lays eyes on the copious curves of Catherine Mayfield he knows he must have her. His machinations will soon be his mistake; he has taken her to be a woman of another name and of easy virtue. He only realizes his flagrant folly after compromising Catherine's good name.

“I scoop the doll off the floor. I make reborns. Dolls that look like newborn infants. The point is to make them look almost, but not quite real.” An affecting tale of the struggle to retain one’s humanity in the face of societal breakdown. With the population sliding toward unemployment...

When journalist Kim Kavin decided that she wanted a puppy, she did what millions of people do every year: clicked on an online photo and submitted an application. She had no idea that the adorable brindle - advertised as healthy and near her home in New Jersey - was actually a last-minute rescue from a gas-chamber shelter in North Carolina. Blue had arrived in the Northeast with at least a dozen other dogs in an RV that is just one among countless transports whose sponsors are dedicating their efforts to saving dogs.