Showing results by narrator "Allyson Johnson" in All Categories

"The dead can't hurt you. Only the living can." Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies - and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer's shortcomings.

Single dad of Seattle Dr. Mark Herron can't believe anyone would celebrate their divorce. The dissolution of his marriage left him and his son with a huge hole to fill in their home - and their hearts. So when he overhears a lovely stranger and her friends celebrating the end of her marriage, he's mystified - and then intrigued - by her determination to put the past behind her. But when he learns that Tori Jones needs a job, he knows this can't be a coincidence.

Claudia Rankine's bold new audiobook recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV - everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive.

In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines eight inventions - clocks, steel rails, copper communication cables, photographic film, light bulbs, hard disks, scientific labware, and silicon chips - and reveals how they shaped the human experience. Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer.

Two decades before the Civil War, a middle-class farmer named Samuel Maddox lies on his deathbed. Elsewhere in his Virginia home, a young woman named Kitty knows her life is about to change. She is one of the Maddox family's slaves - and Samuel's biological daughter. When Samuel's wife Mary inherits her husband's property, she will own Kitty, too, along with Kitty's three small children. After Samuel's death, Mary decides to grant Kitty and her children their freedom and travels with them to Pennsylvania, where she will file papers declaring Kitty's emancipation.

Readers and listeners can't get enough of Honor Harrington and her world, and here David Weber is again, accompanied by some of the top science fiction writers in the field - including John Ringo, Eric Flint, Timothy Zahn and Weber himself - with new adventures of the best starship commander in the galaxy, and explorations of previously uncharted corners of her universe. It's a party - and you're invited!

Lady Dame Honor Harrington - starship captain, admiral, Steadholder, and Duchess - has spent decades defending the Star Kingdom of Manticore against all comers. Along the way, she has become the legend known as "the Salamander" from her habit of always being where the fire is hottest... and also a national best seller.

A grim, haunted expanse of space, vast light years filled with dead, empty worlds. A dark place, the graveyard of an empire…and a frontier where vast riches can be had by those with the courage - and the luck - to survive. Andi Lafarge and the crew of Pegasus are among the elite of the strange brotherhood that ventures forth, seeking the remnants of humanity’s lost past. She and her people will face the deadliest challenges, fight constant battles, and plunge forth into the darkest corners of the lost region of space.

What is the reality of policing in the United States? Do the police keep anyone safe and secure other than the very wealthy? How do recent police killings of young Black people in the United States fit into the historical and global context of anti-blackness? This collection of reports and essays explores police violence against Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities, miscarriages of justice, and failures of token accountability and reform measures.

The hottest military science-fiction series of all time continues. The mission: to boldly explore David Weber’s Honorverse; to deliver all the action, courage, derring-do, and pulse-pounding excitement of space naval adventure with tales set in a world touched by the greatness of one epic heroine: Honor Harrington.

David Weber himself here contributes three never-before-published excursions into Honor's world, among them the story of how she first discovered her own inner strength and courage; and a chapter in the history of the telepathic treecats, who form a bond with their chosen human that can only be severed by death.

The essays gathered in The Early Imperial Republic move beyond the question of whether the new republic was an empire, investigating instead where, how, and why it was one. They use the category of empire to situate the early United States in the global context its contemporaries understood, drawing important connections between territorial conquests on the continent and American incursions.

The hottest military science fiction series of all time continues. The mission: to boldly explore David Weber's Honorverse; to deliver all the action, courage, derring do, and pulse pounding excitement of space naval adventure with tales set in a world touched by the greatness of one epic heroine: Honor Harrington.

Positive Parenting for Autism delivers practical guidance that will empower parents to implement the techniques used by professionals to help their child with autism build essential social and life skills in an encouraging, affirming way. Raising a child with autism is one of the most challenging responsibilities any parent can face. It can be difficult to manage the commitments of daily life and also feel as though you’re doing all you can to support the development of your special needs child.

A comprehensive biographical and critical reading of the works of American poet and memoirist Maya Angelou (1928-2014). Linda Wagner-Martin covers all six of Angelou's autobiographies, as well as her essay and poetry collections, while also exploring Angelou's life as an African American in the United States, her career as stage and film performer, her thoughtful participation in the Civil Rights actions of the 1960s, and her travels abroad in Egypt, Africa, and Europe.

Acclaimed author of The Adults Alison Espach’s short story "In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People" is an at-once hilarious and heart-breaking portrait of a dead woman’s marriage and the Volvo that stood in the middle of it all.

The story of modern management generally looks to the factories of England and New England for its genesis. But after scouring through old accounting books, Caitlin Rosenthal discovered that Southern planter-capitalists practiced an early form of scientific management. They took meticulous notes, carefully recording daily profits and productivity, and subjected their slaves to experiments and incentive strategies comprised of rewards and brutal punishment.

Katya deals in Authenticities, trading on nostalgia for a past long gone. But when she encounters a stranger who calls himself Johnny in the woods - even she can't say whether it's real or not.

The Goode-Brown family, led by matriarch and pillar of the community Minnie Mae, is plagued by old secrets and embarrassment over mental illness and illegitimacy. Meanwhile, single mother Francine Clark is haunted by her dead, lightning-struck husband and forced to fight against both the moral judgment of the community and her own rebellious daughter, Mona. The residents of Opulence struggle with vexing relationships to the land, to one another, and to their own sexuality.

Wren Matthews thought she’d outgrown nursery rhymes a long time ago. But that was before she knew that songs of twinkling little stars and four-and-twenty blackbirds were the key to an ancient, hidden magic. Wren’s discovery catapults her into a world of buried secrets, strange dreams, and a mountain fortress under an aurora-filled sky. But just as she starts to master her unique abilities, her new world begins to crumble around her...and only she can save it.