Literature audiobooks Audiobooks

She knows what she wants, and how to get it Avery Preston knows her mind. The Women’s Studies and Literature professor is latest in a long line of feminist firebrands determined to break the mold at Wolcott University. When her biological clock tells her it’s time to bust a move, Avery does what she does best—she takes care of business all by herself. Or, so she thinks…. Dominic Mann is happy with his life just as it is The widowed baseball coach is content, and sees no point in changing his lineup this late in the game. Still, a man would have to be dead not to notice a live wire like Avery Preston. But a one night stand was all either of them wanted. There’s only one complication The clinic where Avery was inseminated has been hacked. Now, she not only knows who the father is, but she knows the father. In the biblical sense. Avery shows up on Dom’s doorstep with a bun in the oven, a bellyful of ethical righteousness, and the absolute conviction that she doesn’t need him, and soon, the two of them are caught in a rundown between their hearts and their heads.

There is no way to really start this story. My story really has no beginning and no ending. It's like I was plucked from non-existence and dropped smack dab into the worst possible nightmare. I am not sure if I ever felt a moment of comfort or love from my parents, my sister I have, but from the ones that created me I don’t think I did. When you go your entire life not feeling the shelter of a parents love, I think even if for only a second if it was present it would be unforgettable, even to an infant. I cannot move forward without going back. I do not want to go back. I am scared of very few things in this world, but my past is something to bring on the cold sweats and break me into a ball of rage and pain. The trapdoors I call them, the ones containing all of the fury and pain, they need to be broken open. I have fought against it for too long and now I face my own death or my own redemption. I face the fact she will never be back and I accept the moment I broke. That’s one of the many doors I fear opening. Doors that are closed and locked and barricaded in for a reason. What I share with you, will make your skin crawl, and sadly I haven’t even scratched the surface. My name is Noah Beckett, and this is my story. There will be moments I disgust you, I will undoubtedly break your heart. I am a master of making ugly even worse but I can bring out beauty in the worst of all things. I do not judge, I would have answered to a bullet a long time ago if I did. You may not like my choices or the things I say and the way I live, but you will respect it because I have earned it.

From Susannah Marren, author of A Palm Beach Wife , comes her next book set in the exclusive, glamorous world of Palm Beach. Marren follows two sisters as one offers the ultimate selfless act to the other, proving the very meaning of family in this novel of artifice and intrigue. Veronica and Simon Cutler and their dazzling adult daughters, Elodie and Aubrey, strike an enviable pose, the ultimate Palm Beach family. In a town where social aspirations, wealth and charm prevail – they are transcendent. While the sisters are polar opposites, they are fiercely loyal to one another. When Elodie receives the shocking news that she is no longer able to conceive a baby, she turns to Aubrey. Aubrey, a free spirit, isn’t interested in marriage or children, yet when her sister asks her to carry her child, she can’t say no, despite her mother’s warnings. And then one stupefying secret, meant to be buried forever, is unearthed and no one in the Cutler clan is able to turn back. As the family is shaken to their core, Aubrey and Elodie must realize their places in the world and the lives they want to lead. In the midst of the unforgiving opulence of Palm Beach, A Palm Beach Scandal is a story for our times. A captivating tale of discovery, sisterhood and love for others where you least expect it.

In this international bestseller by the award-winning novelist Mariana Leky, a heartwarming story unfolds about a small town, a grandmother whose dreams foretell a coming death, and the young woman forever changed by these losses and her loving, endearingly oddball community On a beautiful spring day, a small village in Western Germany wakes up to an omen: Selma has dreamed of an okapi. Someone is about to die. Luisa, Selma’s ten-year-old granddaughter, looks on as the predictable characters of her small world begin acting strangely. Protesting that they are not superstitious, each of the villagers grapples with the buried secrets and deferred decisions that have suddenly become urgent in the face of death. Luisa’s mother struggles to decide whether to end her marriage. An old family friend, known only as the optician, tries to find the courage to tell Selma he loves her. Only Sad Marlies remains unchanged, still moping around her house and cooking terrible food. But when death finally comes, the circumstances are outside anyone’s expectations. Across three defining moments in her life, Luisa grapples with life's big questions alongside her devoted friends, young and old. A story about the absurdity of life and death, a bittersweet portrait of village life and the wider world that beckons beyond, it is also a thoughtful meditation on the way loss and love shape not just a person, but a community. Mariana Leky's What You Can See from Here is a charmer―a moving novel of grief, first love, reluctant love, late love, and finding one's place in the world, even if that place is right where you started.

Summer fiction at its page-turning best for fans of Elin Hilderbrand, Holly Chamberlin, and Nancy Thayer! Colleen French, acclaimed author of The Summer I Found Myself , brings readers to Albany Beach, Delaware, where one woman must decide whether to seek out the daughter she gave up for adoption. Each year, the start of summer brings bustle and much-needed tourist dollars to the little town of Albany Beach, Delaware. For Natalie Sullivan, this season is proving more stressful than others. It’s make-or-break time for the Irish pub her husband, Conor, recently bought with his brothers. Their two children are thriving, but she’s experiencing pangs of loss at the end of her childbearing years. When sixteen-year-old McKenzie starts gushing about Bella, the new coworker at her summer job, Natalie suddenly finds her past and present in conflict. Bella, two years older than McKenzie, looks so similar that a customer remarks that they could be sisters. And when Natalie learns that Bella was adopted, she is propelled back into a heartbreaking decision. As a college student, Natalie became pregnant and put her baby up for adoption. Now, the more McKenzie talks about Bella, the more Natalie wonders: could Bella be her daughter? Conor insists it’s a mistake to pursue the matter. Natalie’s child belongs to another family now; that was the agreement in the closed adoption. Still, Natalie can’t resist spending time with Bella. As their bond deepens, McKenzie accuses her mother of caring more for a stranger than for her, and Natalie begins imagining what it would be like to have Bella as a second daughter. What will the impact be if Bella really is her biological child? And if she isn’t, can Natalie embrace the joy and potential in her own family, without always wondering about what could have been?

Ayahuasca is a powerful tool for transformation, that more and more Westerners are flocking to drink in a quest for greater self-knowledge, healing and reconnection with the natural world. This formerly esoteric, little-known brew is now a growth industry. But why? Ayahuasca is a psychoactive tea that has a long history of ritual use among indigenous groups of the Upper Amazon. Made from the ayahuasca vine and the leaves of a shrub, ayahuasca is associated with healing in collective ceremonies and in more intimate contexts, generally under the direction of specialist – an ayahuasquero . These are experienced practitioners who guide the ceremony and the ‘drinkers’ experience. Ayahuasca has gained significant popularity these days in cities around the world. Ceremonies happen nightly and Hollywood stars, Wall Street players and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs now drink the brew. Why? What effect might ayahuasca be having on our culture? Could it be the LSD of our time? Does the brew, which seems to inspire environmental action, simplified lifestyles and more communitarian behaviour, act as an antidote to frenzied consumerist culture? In When Plants Dream , Pinchbeck and Rokhlin explore the economic, social, political, cultural and environmental impact that ayahuasca is having on society. Part 1 covers the background; what ayahuasca is, where it is found, and its cultural origins. Part 2 explores the role and practices of the ayahuasquero in both Amazonian and Western cultures. Part 3 examines the medicinal plants of the Amazon, looking particularly at the ingredients in ayahuasca and their therapeutic qualities, covering the most up-to-date biomedical research, psychedelic science and psychopharmacology. Part 4 looks more closely at how ayahuasca is perceived and used today, covering law, the drug wars, media and money. Lastly in Part 5 Pinchbeck and Rokhlin question the future of ayahuasca. When Plants Dream is the first book of its kind to look at the science and expanding culture of ayahuasca, from its historical use to its appropriation by the West and the impact it is having on cultures beyond the Amazon.

AN AMAZON BEST SELLING BOOK FOR KIDS! *2020-2021 One Book One School Book of the Year* **Purple Dragonfly Book Award First Place Winner** Should Sophie Stand Up to the School Bully or Become a Snitch? There's nothing worse than being a tattletale... That's what 10-year-old Sophie Washington thinks until she runs into Lanie Mitchell, a new girl at school. Lanie pushes Sophie and her friends around at their lockers, and even takes their lunch money in this entertaining chapter book for middle grade readers. If they tell, they are scared the other kids in their class will call them snitches and won't be their friends. And when you're in the fifth grade, nothing seems worse than that. Then a classmate gets seriously injured and Sophie needs to make a decision: fight back, or snitch? Here's what Goodreads reviewers say about Sophie Washington: The Snitch: "Great children's book that teaches children practical and valuable life lessons." "This would be a great book for the counselor, the library and the classroom ready for reading!" "I liked that, while a heavy subject matter, the book never felt preachy." "Good story about bullying and standing up for what's right." This is the second book in the Readers' Favorite five star rated Sophie Washington book series.

Love is one of our strongest biological drives, but it can be frustratingly elusive and misunderstood. Music, literature, and movies are filled with common folklore about love and millions of TV viewers tune in to shows like The Bachelor and read the latest relationship tome with one simple hope: to uncover some nugget of mystic wisdom that will help them understand the exciting, addictive, insane experience called 'love'. Men Chase, Women Choose, is the first book to offer cutting-edge research that explains how the brain works when two people first meet, start to date, fall in love, and then move into long-term, real love. Maslar's unique approach brings together the latest and most relevant neurological, physiological, and biochemical research on the science of love while incorporating stories and examples of composite characters based on participants of her popular classes and seminars. She explains that 'love' is actually neural activity as well as the presence or absence of certain neurotransmitters that bathe the brain, and it follows a precisely timed path of four, easy-to-understand phases: the exciting norepinephrine-charged meeting phase; the addictive dopamine dating phase; the insane falling-in-love and losing your mind phase; and finally, the safe, warm and wonderful, true, long-term love phase. For the past decade Maslar has made it her mission to learn all she can about the science behind falling in love, including its evolutionary benefits. Her goal?and the purpose of this book?is to help men and women find and maintain love by understanding and applying the science behind it. The bottom line? We actually can have long-lasting, nourishing, exciting, passionate love with little or no risk!

AN AMAZON BEST SELLING BOOK FOR KIDS! Only Losers Don't Have Cell Phones... That's what Sophie thinks in the beginning of this hilarious and heartwarming, illustrated chapter book about fitting in. She feels like an outsider because she's the only one in her class without a cell phone, and her crush, new kid Toby Johnson, has been calling her best friend Chloe. To fit in, Sophie changes who she is. Her plan to become popular works for a while, and she and Toby start to become friends. Things get more complicated when Sophie "borrows" a cell phone and gets caught. If her parents make her tell the truth, what will her friends think? Turns out Toby has also been hiding something, and Sophie discovers the best way to make true friends is to be yourself. Here's what Goodreads reviewers say about Sophie Washington: Things You Didn't Know About Sophie: "Sophie is a real character with flaws and it is fun reading how she matures. The story line was funny and realistic." "Virtues like honesty, friendship and being true to yourself are always in style, and this book teaches that in a fun way. Also, it's great to learn a little bit about Texas too!" "Very well written middle school book." This is the third book in the Readers' Favorite five star rated Sophie Washington book series.

He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?