Showing results by narrator "Julie McKay" in All Categories

Nicolas’s pulse shoots up, and he sucks in a breath. “Are you saying you willingly took the life of another person?” “Yes. God is the reason I killed her. Will you absolve me, Father?” As Nicolas fumbles for his phone to send an urgent text for help, he hears the chair in the other booth squeak, and a shadow passes in front of the screen. His pulse pounds in his temples and he starts to sway, dizziness washing over him. Help isn’t going to make it in time.

Disgraced ex-cop Angie Pallorino is determined to make a new start for herself as a private investigator. But first, she and her lover, newly promoted homicide detective James Maddocks, attempt a quiet getaway to rekindle a romance struggling in the shadows of their careers. The peace doesn’t last long when human skeletal remains are found in a nearby mossy grove. The peace doesn’t last long when human skeletal remains are found in a nearby mossy grove.

Although the Stock Market had crashed recently, it was too early for most people to predict that the Great Depression was about to get underway. For 39-year-old spinster schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers, it’s business as usual. And part of her usual business is taking her class for an outing to the aquarium to see the penguins. Instead, she spots the floating corpse of Wall Street broker Gerald Lester and quickly realizes that Inspector Oscar Piper of NYPD Homicide isn’t up to solving this tricky case.

Street kids are disappearing, but how do you report it to the police when they don’t believe you exist to begin with? Jinx LeDoux bolts upright, gasping for air, her heart pounding. Something has happened. Something she can’t quite remember. Worse, she’s surrounded by darkness. She puts her hands on the ground, trying to grasp something familiar. The splintered wood of her abandoned apartment isn’t there. It’s something hard, cold, and round. She grabs the bars with both hands, but they don’t budge. She’s in a cage.

Nell Endicott and the other Seaside Knitters are helping their friend Gracie Santos open the Lazy Lobster and Soup Café on Pelican Pier. They do however take a break to attend a special yacht club dinner held to honor Gracie's aunt - wearing their finest knitting creations. Under the full moon, a local scuba dive club witnesses a blood-red Ferrari flying off a cliff and onto the granite rocks below. Gracie's aunt was behind the wheel, and it was murder. Gossip builds, rumors circulate, and the Seaside Knitters try to figure out a killer's strange pattern....

In Sea Harbor, the holidays mean cozy fires, festive carols, and soft skeins of yarn waiting to become hats and sweaters and scarves. And this year, Izzy and the other Seaside Knitters are also knitting tiny ornaments to decorate a tree for the first annual tree-trimming contest. Their holiday cheer is multiplied when Izzy's younger brother, Charlie Chambers, unexpectedly arrives to volunteer at a local clinic. He brings with him outspoken hitchhiker Amber Hanson, who is returning to Sea Harbor to claim an inheritance.

Amber Olivier awakens in a cold sweat, the bitter taste of blood in her mouth and her head throbbing. Not even a hint of light reaches her. She reaches left, right, and above, but within inches, her hands meet a solid structure covered with satin. She bangs on the top of the enclosure, but the cushioned fabric only creates a dull thud. Beyond panicked, she screams until her throat burns and she doesn’t have another breath of air in her.

Madison Avery looks down from her penthouse as a light flicks on in the building across the street, and a man and woman enter the vacant apartment. As the woman steps onto a large blue rug, the man raises his hand to the back of her neck. The woman collapses, and Madison sucks in a breath. The man checks for a pulse then reaches into his pocket. He must be calling for help. But then Madison sees the glint of the knife. She grabs her cell phone and dials 911. If the police don’t catch him now, she can’t help them later.

Not long after Isabel "Izzy" Chambers opens up a knitting shop in the sleepy fishing town of Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, a diverse group of women begins congregating each week to form the Seaside Knitters. Izzy raises some eyebrows when she rents the apartment above her shop to Angie Archer, whose reputation for loose behavior and a quick temper has made her unpopular with many locals. But could any of them have wanted her dead? Angie's body is discovered drowned in the harbor, her long red hair tangled like seaweed in a lobster trap.

What if the stories we read were true? What if somewhere along the line monsters created in fiction were really based upon lives torn apart by tragedy? Hanna doesn't know what's happening to her. She doesn't know why her father has just sacrificed his life for hers. She doesn't know who Aimee James is or why she must fear her. She doesn't know what the Roses are or why they're interested in her. She knows there is a dusty stack of journals that drag her into a world she can't comprehend.

The moon peers out from behind the dark clouds, but deep within the swamp, even the tiniest sliver is like a beacon in the pitch black. The path is barely discernable, but she knows the way. She steps up to the edge of the water and stares at the silver locket in her hand, a picture of two girls inside. One is her. The other…is waiting. She begins to sing, and the winds pick up her tune. The water stirs, and from the center of the angry current, the young woman emerges. Her haunting voice carries over the water.

In the newest mystery from the national best-selling author of Murder in Merino, the sleuthing skills of Izzy Chambers Perry and the Seaside Knitters are tested as death mars the beginning of the school year....

Religion lurks in the floorboards of our daily lives, whether we want it to or not. A departure from more traditional approaches to "Religion 101," Religion Is Not Done with You gives thought-provoking context to the basics of religious studies by challenging listeners to consider the origins of their assumptions about religion and broaden their perspectives on what religion is and does. Religion scholars and Keeping It 101 podcast duo Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst and Megan Goodwin offer their straightforward, plainspoken overviews of religious studies theory.

Izzy Chambers is head over heels. She’s about to marry the love of her life, but much remains to be done before their big day. So the Seaside Knitters have pitched in to help and are even knitting Izzy a beautiful lace wedding shawl. Meanwhile, Izzy’s aunt, Nell, has hired a gardener to spruce up the backyard where the wedding will be held. The gardener, Claire, is just returning to Cape Anne after a long absence, hoping to put a dark secret to rest and find peace for herself.

How do we explain our newfound cultural investment in empathy and social justice? For decades, Joseph Campbell had defined our cultural aspirations in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, emphasizing the value of seeking glory and earning immortality. His work became the playbook for Hollywood, with its many male-centric quest narratives. Challenging the models in Campbell's canonical work, Maria Tatar explores how heroines, rarely wielding a sword and deprived of a pen, have flown beneath the radar even as they have been bent on social missions.

As parents, we all want to raise kind and loving kids who will grow up to be conscientious adults. But when you look closely at our society - especially at the statistics surrounding rape, domestic violence, and sexual assault - it's clear that something needs to change. It's time to teach our sons compassion and empathy.

Bastard Out of Carolina, nominated for the 1992 National Book Award for fiction, introduced Dorothy Allison as one of the most passionate and gifted writers of her generation. Now, in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, she takes a probing look at her family's history to give us a lyrical, complex memoir that explores how the gossip of one generation can become legends for the next.

Late summer blooms in beautiful Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, and while a harvest thrives, Izzy Chambers Perry and the other Seaside Knitters will need to cast on their sleuthing skills to save a local farm. Unfortunately, finding a killer can be like looking for a needle in a haystack....

Mackenzie "Mac" Nighthorse is a highly respected homicide detective and a career cop. There isn't a dangerous situation that can back him down. However, the personal becomes uncomfortably entangled in the professional when he goes undercover in a high class BDSM club as a male submissive in order to find a Dominatrix who is winning the trust and then murdering her chosen partners. When his path crosses Violet Siemanski's, he realizes he's found a Mistress willing to be his ally in finding the murderess.

Sexual Intimacy for Women helps female couples examine the emotional, physical, and psychological aspects of their relationships, with the goal of creating more intimacy. Exercises and client-based anecdotes from Dr. Corwin’s years of experience with same-sex couples help women overcome common issues around orgasm, body image, identity, aging, and parenthood. Dr. Corwin dispels myths, examines the intricacies of female desire, and gives advice to help couples achieve long-lasting, healthy, and fulfilling relationships.