Showing results by narrator "Patricia Rodriguez" in All Categories

All Ria ever wanted was a family. Growing up alone in foster care, she imagined just how it would be. So when she fell in love with Grayson and had their daughter Shelley, she was determined to make his family love her too. Until one morning, Grayson leaves the house for work and never comes home. Left to raise Shelley alone, Ria is forced to turn to her husband’s family, to let her intimidating mother-in-law into her life, allow her to babysit Shelley, and accept her financial support. But Ria is about to learn that every Parker wife has secrets.

Natalie began to question her family's idyllic existence the summer she turned 15. The arrival of a soft-spoken stranger, an American draft-dodger called River, would test the morals and beliefs of the family and the community to the breaking point. The series of events following that summer day would leave relationships shattered and the Ward family changed forever.

For Sydney Flynn, her treasured family home, Starlight Cottage, is her sanctuary. The house on the beach, surrounded by glittering turquoise waters, is the perfect place for her fresh start, piecing her life back together after it fell apart. That’s until her knees almost buckle at the sight of Nate Henderson. Nate is back to make it up to Sydney, but can she forgive him for all the heartbreak he caused? And it’s not only about her - Sydney is a single mother to Robby, her whole world, and she won’t let just anyone into their lives. Can she trust that Nate has really changed?

Sequel to international best seller Block 46 and next in the award-winning Roy & Castells series. Whitechapel, 1888: London is bowed under Jack the Ripper's reign of terror. London 2015: actress Julianne Bell is abducted in a case similar to the terrible Tower Hamlets murders of some 10 years earlier and harking back to the Ripper killings of a century before. Falkenberg, Sweden, 2015: a woman's body is found mutilated in a forest, her wounds identical to those of the Tower Hamlets victims.

Then: Three-year-old Ally was found alone in a parking lot. She was barefoot and dressed only in a yellow sundress. In the middle of winter. What kind of person would abandon their daughter? Now: Fifteen years later and Ally has a new family. But her real father has sent her a letter. And now, Ally is missing.

Cory is the child of two worlds: when his birth-people come, they will break his mother's heart...but they may also be this world's only salvation. Molly and Gene Myers rescued Cory and kept him safe from those who wanted to use his remarkable knowledge and power for their own ends...and in doing so, they rediscovered themselves and fell in love with a remarkable child. In this gripping sequel to Our Child of the Stars, Cory and his new family are having to deal with the consequences of fame - but Molly is more concerned about the future, for Cory's people are on their way.

Ten years after a boy and his father went missing in the wilderness of Minnesota's Boundary Waters, the boy - who is no longer a boy - walks back out of the forest. He is violent and uncommunicative. The authorities take him to Congdon Mental Institution in Duluth, on the edge of mighty Lake Superior. There, language therapist Maya Stark is given the task of making a connection with this boy/man who came back from the dead. But their celebrity patient tries to escape and refuses to answer any questions about his father or the last 10 years of his life.

Christmas may come but once a year but human emotions, the driving force of our characters, are with us every day. Yet, somehow these same emotions when they happen at Christmas seem amplified; we seem more tender to their touch, their words. Whether it’s a long-lost returning soldier wondering how best to return to the arms of his family without too great a risk of shock... Or a prodigal son whose taken path has driven pain into his own and others hearts… These stories reveal much about the human condition.

Three young girls are missing, all of them cold cases and all of them forgotten. When Detective Jess Bishop identifies a disturbing link between them, she’s determined to find out what happened to the girls as she fights to reopen their cases. Then a fourth child is taken. Eight-year-old Ava is snatched from her hospital bed, and Jess suspects right away that it’s linked to the other cases. As Ava’s illness worsens, Jess is in a race against time to save the girl before it’s too late. But is she missing something right in front of her, something that could put other lives in danger?

Baby is 12 years old. Her mother died not long after she was born, and she lives in a string of seedy flats in Montreal’s red light district with her father Jules, who takes better care of his heroin addiction than he does of his daughter. Jules is an intermittent presence and a constant source of chaos in Baby’s life - the turmoil he brings with him and the wreckage he leaves in his wake. But Baby has a gift - the ability to find the good in people, a genius for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness that fall into her lap.

Ex-cop Sally Fairburn has put the world of crime behind her, but when her old boss contacts her about working her first case as a detective, she can’t resist. The high-profile Austin case will be her first opportunity to prove herself. Retired accountant Joseph Austin has been found dead and his wife, Fiona, in a coma, in their exclusive Peakhurst mansion. It’s a suspected burglary gone wrong, but something about the murder scene doesn’t add up. Why is nothing valuable missing?

It's the summer of 1967. The sun shines brightly over Boundary Pond, a holiday haven on the US-Canadian border. Families relax in the heat, happy and carefree. Children run along the beach as the heady smell of barbecues fills the air. Zaza Mulligan and Sissy Morgan, with their long, tanned legs and silky hair, relish their growing reputation as the red and blonde Lolitas. Life seems idyllic. But then Zaza disappears, and the skies begin to cloud over....

Because Audrey died in a car crash when I was a toddler. At least, that’s what my mother told me. Afterwards, my father couldn’t cope with the grief, and he left us. She brought me up on her own and was always fiercely protective. She never let me out of her sight. Now, as Audrey and I sip wine on my deck by the lakeside and begin to piece together the puzzle of our family history, it turns out the past didn’t happen the way I was told.

For centuries, Westerners have tried to ‘fix’ African economies. From the abolition of slavery onwards, missionaries, philanthropists, development economists and NGOs have arrived on the continent, full of good intentions and bad ideas. Their experiments have invariably gone awry, to the great surprise of all involved. In this short, bold story of Western economic thought about Africa, historian Bronwen Everill argues that these interventions fail because they start from a misguided premise: that African economies just need to be more like the West.

The action swings from London to Sweden, and then back into the past, to Franco’s Spain, as Roy and Castells hunt a monstrous killer...in the latest instalment of Johana Gustawsson’s award-winning series. Spain, 1938: the country is wracked by civil war, and as Valencia falls to Franco’s brutal dictatorship, Republican Therese witnesses the murders of her family. Captured and sent to the notorious Las Ventas women’s prison, Therese gives birth to a daughter who is forcibly taken from her.

When Kaye Bennett, matriarch of the Bennett family, summons her adult children to the shore house, she anticipates a vacation full of nostalgia. It’s a chance to relive the carefree joy of summers past: basking in the hot sun, cooling off in the surf, and enjoying long, relaxing evenings watching fireflies on the deck. But when Kaye’s son and daughter arrive, late and uncooperative, it becomes clear the family desperately needs to reconnect.

A no-nonsense guide for those new to the workforce, those looking for a job, career changers and career builders. In this book written by an expert in career transition who has helped thousands of people find their own 'job utopias', listeners will find a down-to-earth, accessible approach to becoming more valuable to current employers while developing long-term personal competitiveness to attract future employers and seize the opportunities that are waiting out there.

Before Coco and Christian, there was Lucile. She was one of the world's most glamorous women and the most famous fashionista of the Edwardian age. Yet, couturiere Lucile, Lady Duff Gordon was born plain Lucy Sutherland and grew up in a stone farmhouse in Ontario, Canada. How she went from a backwoods farm to presiding over an international fashion empire is a remarkable story of unshakeable determination and female achievement at a time when it was thought that a woman's place was in the home.

Did you know that images of the mind shape how we think, feel and behave? The way we frame scenarios has the power to impact our attitude and actions. But what if we could consciously choose to cast things in a positive light? Equipping you with the tools you need to harness the power of mental imagery, "Imagine" will help you achieve your goals and reach your full potential. With Dr Lydia Ievleva’s extensive experience incorporating mental imagery with a wide range of athletes, business and health professionals, her tried and tested advice will allow you to take back control.

It seeks to explain this perfect storm of money, technology, and partisanship that has created two entirely separate news spheres: a small, enclosed circle for the right wing and a sprawling expanse for everyone else. This leads to two sets of facts, two narratives, and two loudly divergent political sides with extraordinary anger all around. Based on extensive interviews with leading media figures and politicos, this book traces the development of the media machine, giving suggestions on how to restore our national dialogue while defending our right to disagree agreeably.