Showing results by narrator "Petrea Burchard" in All Categories

April Davis totally has her life in order. Ha! Not really. Yes, she's the Calm Mom - a social influencer with a reputation for showing moms how to stay calm and collected through yoga - but behind the scenes, she's barely holding it all together. Raising tiny humans alone is exhausting, but that's just the chewed-up cherry on the melted sundae of her life. Her kids aren't behaving, her husband left her for his skydiving instructor, and her top knot proves she hasn't showered in days.

Someone is siphoning funds from billionaire Zachary Barron's currency hedge fund. Intent on prosecuting the thief to the fullest extent of the law, he hires Katerina "Kat" Carter, the best forensic accountant in the business, to follow the money trail. Both are shocked when it leads to Zachary's father, Nathan. And he's just the tip of the iceberg. Nathan belongs to a shadowy organization with global ties and unimaginable resources.

An estimated 50 million people in the world suffer from dementia. Diseases such as Alzheimer’s erase parts of one’s memory but are also often said to erase the self. People don’t simply die from such diseases; they are imagined, in the clichés of our era, as vanishing in plain sight, fading away, or enduring a long goodbye. In On Vanishing, Lynn Casteel Harper, a Baptist minister and nursing home chaplain, investigates the myths and metaphors surrounding dementia and aging....

Casey Clemens is having a bad day. And it’s going to get worse. It’s the day before Casey’s fortieth birthday and Hollywood doesn’t want her anymore (not that it ever did). Her career and personal life are a disaster. Frantic to escape her own emptiness, she hops on a plane to England and heads to the countryside to hide. But she can’t hide from herself. A lightning strike, a skidding car, and a horse that might be magical send her through a gap in time to the Dark Ages, where she inadvertently saves King Arthur from Saxon warriors.

Verity Hawkes’ new life in Leafy Hollow almost feels whole. All the self-taught horticulturalist lacks are her Aunt Adeline and a stable relationship. Just when the second missing piece seems like it might be falling into place, Verity’s sleepy town welcomes back an all-too-familiar killer…. Suspicions run rampant when a body is found at the base of Pine Hill Peak, and the mother of Verity’s best friend is the number one suspect. To keep the wrong woman out of prison, Verity must rub shoulders with an arsonist, a hunky lawman, and a pair of dueling pastry chefs.

With Leafy Hollow in a deep winter freeze, landscaper Verity Hawkes is all out of funds. Setting up a private investigator business seems like the best way to indulge her fantasy and make a few bucks. But she never expected her first case would turn the whole town against her. As she investigates a shady, million-dollar crossword competition, even her detective boyfriend sides with her neighbors in thinking it’s legit. But when the contest seems to connect with scruffy dog walkers and a missing investment advisor, Verity hopes she can solve the clues....

Recent sexagenarian widow Dawna Carpenter thought running her own hardware store after the death of her husband was hard enough. With her adult daughter, April, moving back into town, and Darlene, the annoying boutique owner next door to her shop poking around, Dawna has her hands full. But when she finds a dead man in the bathroom of her store, with a framing hammer by his side, she’s in way over her head.

Diamonds, danger, and a deadly secret... A Katerina Carter Fraud Thriller. Private investigator and forensic accountant Katerina Carter uncovers a sinister connection between blood diamonds and organized crime. Then two company employees are brutally murdered and her investigation becomes much more dangerous than she had ever imagined. Can she can stay alive long enough to expose the real criminals...or will her first case be her last? Buy this audiobook today!

Nine years have passed since Ana Koehl had sex with her pot-addicted anesthesiologist husband; seven since she began an affair with a gonzo journalist. She's gratified by her work as a book doula but burdened by her belief that she need always be on call. Her elderly mother's birthday greeting is an inflation-adjusted calculation of the cost of raising Ana in a mice-infested house, her brother has hijacked the will of their recently deceased starchitect father, her adult child is changing rapidly before her eyes, and her best friend advocates for the truth in lies.

Jovie is adrift. She’d been feeling alone ever since her best friend, Micah, left her behind for a new group of friends—but when Micah went missing last fall, Jovie felt truly lost. Now, months later, the search parties have been called off, and the news alerts have dried up. There’s only Jovie, biking around Far Haven, Washington, putting up posters with Micah’s face on them, feeling like she’s the only one who remembers her friend at all.

Desperate to stop her PI business from going belly-up, Verity Hawkes doesn’t hesitate to dive into the next case she finds: a body in a septic tank. But just when she thinks her investigation couldn’t get any more peculiar, she’s shocked to learn the accused perp is the town’s beloved billy goat. Verity must juggle her meddling aunt, a surly former soldier, and a tuxedo-wearing cat to sanitize this baffling homicide.

Matilda Case never thought of herself as a hero. But because she is galvanized-and nearly immortal in her stitched, endlessly healing body-she doesn't have much of a choice. Even if she doesn't want to save the world, she's the only one capable of traveling in time to do so. But her rescue attempt hasn't gone as planned. She's stuck in an alternate universe, and her world is in danger of disappearing.

Most people are keenly aware that every student is different and that today's classrooms challenge educators to build safe and successful learning communities comprising students whose races, languages, cultures, experiences, assets, and dreams vary greatly. This book offers teachers both the foundations for differentiating their instruction and the means to maximize learning opportunities. Everybody's Classroom extends Tomlinson's previous work by looking more deeply at specific student populations to help educators create classrooms that are more inclusive than ever before.

Neil Gaiman is one of the most widely known writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He often attributes this eclecticism to his "compost heap" approach to writing, gathering inspiration from life, religion, literature, and mythology. Readers and listeners love to sink into Gaiman's medieval worlds—but what makes them "medieval"? Shiloh Carroll offers an introduction to the idea of medievalism, how the literature and culture of the Middle Ages have been reinterpreted and repurposed, and how the layers of interpretation have impacted Gaiman's own use of medieval material.

While coping with teenage moodiness can be difficult under any circumstances, it can be especially challenging if a teenager has a serious mood disorder. This concise book is the definitive guide to understanding and getting effective help for adolescents with depression, designed for parents and other adults in contact with afflicted teens.

Verity Hawkes misses her recluse lifestyle, but she’s finally starting to settle in as Leafy Hollow’s resident landscaper. At least until a village-wide cupcake battle helps turn one new visitor from a skeptic to a corpse in record time. When her friend’s crush shockingly confesses to the crime, Verity is once again asked to investigate.... Potential clues come in as fast as the suspects: A documentary film director, a wacky artist, and a feral-cat enthusiast, to name a few. It turns out everyone in town has skeletons in their closet - even her new friends.

Previously published as ShadowMan. There is something terribly wrong in Sanctuary City. When Maggie Bychowski starts her new job as a police officer in Sanctuary City, the small northern California town appears as bucolic as its name. But three young girls are beginning to find out that their beloved home town has a dark, writhing underbelly. When Shadowman, an online fantasy character, starts luring local girls into doing his deadly bidding, Maggie is the only one who can save the town from a powerful evil that threatens to destroy everyone and everything in its path.

A catalyst for change can take many forms. For author Erin Burrell, that life-altering moment began with a jarring knock at the door. A solemn detective delivered the news that a loved one had died. The grief and heart-splitting loss sent her groping for answers. In her search, she was drawn toward an unexpected path - towards the metaphysical. After reading several books about psychic mediums, Erin wondered if she too might be able to connect with her deceased loved one.

Cendrine West can't catch a break. She's close to landing a new job, and things are getting cozy with sexy sheriff Tyler Gates. All that changes when she is kidnapped by renegade witch Aunt Pearl, who is hell-bent on avenging a friend's untimely death. It's Las Vegas or bust...for all the wrong reasons. Rocco Racatelli is a hunky Vegas kingpin - and the next mob target. Lady Luck has dealt him a losing hand and he wants revenge. When Aunt Pearl is a little too eager to help, project Vegas Vendetta quickly escalates into an all-out mob turf war.

A Hollywood movie shoot comes to town and journalist Cendrine West is eager for a scoop. Her witchy family also wants in on the action, but shenanigans with the stars soon turn to Tinseltown tragedy. Bodies are piling up faster than a coven's worth of curses, and everything points back to Cen's starstruck family. They will stop at nothing in their quest for supernatural stardom, even if that means meddling in a murder investigation. The witches have created one spell of a mess and given the killer a chance to get away with murder.