Showing results by narrator "Janet Metzger" in All Categories

In a world of border walls and obstacles to migration, a lottery where winners can gain permanent residency in the United States sounds too good to be true. Just as unlikely is the idea that the United States would make such visas available to foster diversity within a country where systemic racism endures. But in 1990, the United States Diversity Visa Lottery was created to do just that. Dreamland tells the surprising story of this unlikely government program and its role in American life as well as the global story of migration.

In A Bias for Action, Sumantra Ghoshal and Heike Bruch reveal that only 10 percent of managers act purposefully to get truly important work done. A Bias for Action shows that great managers produce results not by motivating others, but by engaging their own willpower through a powerful combination of energy and focus. Bruch and Ghoshal provide simple strategies for bolstering individual willpower and action-taking abilities, and explore ways to marshal the willpower of others to encourage collective action.

Great medical practices create an experience so positive that patients can't stop talking about it. Patients talk to friends, relatives, and acquaintances about the care they received. They can't help posting nice things about this great practice on social media. And they can't imagine recommending anyone else. Patient Care The Sandler Way shows how to create this experience. It offers timeless, proven principles for effective patient care, based on the communication skills and success principles of the Sandler Selling System.

Jewel Austin is a foster mother to dozens, but forms a special bond with five foster girls she welcomed under her roof long ago. Through handwritten letters, Jewel keeps in touch with these women she nurtured to adulthood. Now in her eighties, Jewel's time is short, and her last letter spells out an unusual request. The five women have never met but Jewel's last wish is for them to return to Lavender Valley Farm together, back to the refuge where they once found the love and support they craved.

Georgia Moore is still grieving from the loss of her dear husband, Lee, when she discovers she can't remain in their home. With nowhere to turn, she accepts the invitation to return to Lavender Valley in the hopes that she can once again find a purpose. Lavender Valley Farm needs her, and Georgia soon finds her place managing the household, using her skill with a needle, and assuming a motherly role to her sisters of the heart.

Lydia Morrow has always been a bit of a nomad, but she has upped her game recently and does her best to live off the grid—because that's what people do when they're hiding from something. The invitation to return to Lavender Valley Farm makes Lydia suspicious, but Harry's credentials in law enforcement and Lydia's love for Jewel wins her over. Lydia sets out from Yakima in her motorhome, heading toward the promise of safety, and the anonymity of a new small town.

Dolly Parton's success as a performer and pop culture phenomenon has overshadowed her achievements as a songwriter. But she sees herself as a songwriter first, and with good reason. Parton's compositions like "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene" have become American standards with an impact far beyond country music.

Ellie Calvin is caught in a dying marriage, and she knows this. With her beloved daughter away at college and a growing gap between her and her husband - between her reality and the woman she wants to be - she doesn’t quite seem to fit into her own life. But everything changes after her controlling mother, Lillian, passes away. Ellie’s world turns upside down when she sees her ex-boyfriend, Hutch, at her mother’s funeral and learns that he is in charge of a documentary that involved Lillian before her death. He wants answers to questions that Ellie’s not sure she can face....

Micki Armstrong lost her husband years ago when her children were very young, but with her love of computers and hard work, she built a wonderful home and life for them in Seattle. Now her son and daughter are in college and she's adjusting to her empty nest, living for their visits during their breaks. But Micki has kept a secret for years, and when her daughter discovers it, the bond she thought was unbreakable threatens to shatter, and Micki is left questioning her life's choices.

Harriet "Harry" McKenzie is coming to terms with buttoning up her thirty-year career with the Salem Police Department when she finally sees the letter sitting in her pile of mail. She is shocked to read that Jewel Austin has put her in charge of her estate. The beloved woman was a foster mom and guide to Harry throughout her teenage years and now she's gone. If that isn't enough of a blow, Jewel's will threatens to uproot Harry's entire life.

Olivia Davis credits her foster mom for helping uncover her kind heart and gift for helping animals when she was only a child. With Jewel's encouragement, Olivia becomes a successful nurse in Spokane. Her career brings her immense satisfaction, but her true joy comes from her marriage and the son she loves more than anything. Simon is a rebellious teenager spiraling out of control, and Olivia and her husband are powerless to stop him. After years of heartbreaks and disappointments, Olivia is dealing with the unbearable loss of her family when she receives an unexpected letter.

The last decade has seen an explosion of urban beekeeping in the US, Canada, and Europe, a well-intentioned response to perceived threats to the global honey bee population. Many thousands of people have taken up this seemingly environmentally friendly hobby, tending backyard and rooftop hives (or paying a company to do so) and encouraging honey bees to make honey and pollinate flowers. What could be wrong with that? Quite a lot, in fact. In The Honey Trap, scientist and author Dana Church demonstrates that despite reports to the contrary, honey bees are nowhere near extinction.

Sadie Wilson’s heart stops the moment the phone rings. Deep in her soul, she knows what’s coming, and the voice on the other end only confirms her fears: Emma never made it to school. Her sweet, scared five-year-old climbed onto the bus for her very first day of kindergarten…and then vanished.

Crazy things are about to happen to 12-year-old Frankie Jackson after she signs on to compete in a reality TV show. Not only does she have to win a televised pitching competition, but she also has to figure out who burned down an abandoned houseboat and how come a 15-year-old con artist wants to become her BFF. And weirdest of all—why is she getting phone calls from someone claiming to be the “real” Frankie Jackson?

Twelve-year-old Mary Frances “Frankie” Jackson has been sent to California for the summer to live on a houseboat with her Aunt Roxy. There’s one catch—she can’t get in trouble, or it’s back to New Jersey and juvenile detention camp. Too bad that days after arriving at the houseboat community, Frankie is accused of animal cruelty (killing a cat) and has two weeks to prove her innocence. In the process, she gets to know all the eccentrics on the dock.

As far as 12-year-old Frankie Jackson is concerned, mermaids are like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny—stuff made up by grown-ups so that they can sell movies and toys. At least that’s what Frankie’s dad once told her. But one day, while staying on a houseboat for the summer, Frankie finds herself face-to-face with a mermaid. Convinced that it is a dream, Frankie can’t shake the vision of the blue-haired sea creature. Meanwhile, the town of Sausalito is buzzing with rumors about a wealthy woman who disappeared into the Bay wearing a million-dollar necklace (shaped like a mermaid).

Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, was an eyewitness to America's founding, and helped guide the new nation through her observations and advice to her famously prickly husband, who cherished her. In The Unexpected Abigail Adams: A Woman "Not Apt to Be Intimidated," writer and researcher John L. Smith, Jr. draws on more than two thousand letters of Abigail's spanning from the 1760s to her death in 1818, interweaving Abigail's colorful correspondence with a contextual narrative.

Fifteen-year-old Charlotte is restlessly coming of age in early twentieth-century Basra, Iraq. The daughter of a Seattle doctor and missionary, Charlotte craves an adventure of her own making. Just the thought of the steppes, hills, valleys, and the winding river stirs Charlotte’s imagination and sends her compass of flight dancing. So, preferring the wondrous unknown to solicitude, Charlotte packs up copies of her father’s Gospels and a statue of the Baby Jesus and runs away.

When book dealers Molly O’Donnell and Emma Clarke meet at an estate sale, they are both there for the books. But Emma ventures past a “No Admittance” sign into the basement and finds, not only a vast occult library, but also the dead body of a notorious book thief. She calls Molly, who spots a warning note in Elizabethan script next to the body. Cautious Emma follows Molly’s adventurous lead as they search for the missing book to which the note belongs, which Molly thinks must be a book of spells—a grimoire.

Chief Warrant Officer Necole Belanger created a professional persona that was no-nonsense and highly put-together. But the truth was much more complex. Necole's story is a tale of two lives, the CWO raised in a military family, and the woman coming to terms with her sexuality, in a time where the two could not coexist. A lesbian member of the military police during the LGBTQ Purge in the Canadian Armed Forces, Necole would achieve success and promotion in her career despite a near-constant struggle. But the higher she rose in rank within the Canadian Armed Forces, the less her voice was heard.