Showing results by narrator "Rachel Perry" in All Categories

Corey has just been released from jail, and all he wants is a new beginning. But when his former gang comes knocking, Corey agrees to vandalize the home of Kent Hopper, the prosecutor who put him away. To erase the guilt she carries from getting away with a crime, Tessa spends most of her nights riding her motorcycle. When she catches Corey destroying her father’s car, she doesn’t see a criminal: She sees a way to finally right her own wrongs. So instead of turning Corey over to the police, she convinces her father to give Corey a second chance.

School teacher Julie Barlow and her two best friends, Beth and Aggie, are looking forward to an adults only beach vacation. Julie also plans to use the time to figure out why her perfectly planned life has gone terribly amiss. They’ve barely hit the road when a frantic call from Julie’s mother hijacks their best laid plans. Uncle Tony “Lucky” Costa is missing. Always entertaining, often irresponsible, never reliable, Uncle Lucky was a favorite with her friends. For Julie, for whom he’d been a sometimes surrogate father, not so much.

Dangerous Jokes develops a novel, well-researched, and compelling argument that lays bare the power of demeaning jokes in ordinary conversations. Claire Horisk draws on her expertise in philosophy of language and on evidence from sociology, law, and cognitive science to explain how the element of humor—so often used as a defense—makes jokes more potent than regular speech in communicating prejudice and reinforcing social hierarchies.

The Unfortunate Problem with Grandmother’s Head and Other Stories is an eclectic collection of short stories carefully selected from over three decades of professional works that are intriguing, thought-provoking, and entertaining.

Millie Parker just moved to a new town with her teen sister in tow. The only romance on her agenda is what she's writing in her secret novel, but sometimes romance can't be avoided. Especially when your new neighbor is the insanely handsome and all around nice guy, Jameson Lane. He's everything a woman could want in a man, but Millie doesn't want a man. Not now; not ever. Too bad her heart didn't get the memo.

When Christine, an idealistic young American teacher, meets and marries Hideki Yamada, an aspiring Japanese high school baseball coach, she believes that their love with be enough to sustain them as they deal with cultural differences. However, Hideki's duties, and the team of fit, obedient boys whom he begins to think of as a surrogate family, take up more and more of his time, just as Christine is struggling to manage the needs of their multiply-disabled daughter and their sensitive son. Things come to a head when their son is the victim of bullies.

What began as an effort for a college professor to get to know her students turned into an invitation to be initiated into a National Panhellenic Conference sorority and serve as its faculty advisor. For the next seven years, Mathews attended sorority and fraternity chapter meetings, Greek Week competitions, leadership retreats, and mixers and formals. Combining her personal observations with ethnographic field analysis and research, this book examines how white Greek letter organizations help reshape the conceptual boundaries of society's most foundational relationship categories.

Norah Sullivan thought she had said "goodbye" to her hometown, Waverly, Texas, for good, but circumstances beyond her control have her packing up and moving home. Now, it would seem fate is hell bent on shoving the one man she absolutely cannot stand in her face everywhere she goes. He's rude and grumpy, and it's a crying shame someone so handsome is so unlikeable.

On the day she was diagnosed with HIV and thrust from the confines of her suburban mom bubble into the scary and unpredictable world of AIDS, Julie promptly found herself fighting for her life and rights amidst a disease she never imagined would hijack her future.

Carbs aren't causing your weight gain. Dairy may not be the reason for your upset stomach. And your liver isn't fatty because of the occasional hamburger. It's time to enjoy eating everything again—and to reclaim our health along the way. Eat Everything offers a better alternative to complicated, minimally effective, and highly restrictive diets. Physician Dawn Harris Sherling lays out compelling new evidence implicating food additives as the real culprits behind diet-related diseases and shares simple, actionable advice to heal.

Monster slayer Sandra Barlowe ventures to Madrugar, Mexico to investigate the brutal death of a local rancher. While the signs initially point to a vampire, the deeper she dives into her investigation, the more the murder appears to be the handiwork of something else…something much more terrifying.

Jessica Morrison’s parents were murdered sixteen years ago. Now the killer is coming for her. Looking back, Jessica had a picture-perfect childhood, but that was all ripped to shreds when her loving parents were killed. Eventually, the case went cold and Jessica realized the police barely investigated. She was too young to do anything about their inaction, so she concentrated on growing up as fast as possible under the care of her uncle. But life had never been the same after that day and her uncle never opened up about the details of her parents death. And he never will because now he’s dead.

This is the story of what the most vulnerable wage earners—gig workers, restaurant staff, early-career creatives, and minimum-wage laborers—do when the economy suddenly collapses. In Side Hustle Safety Net, Alexandrea J. Ravenelle builds on interviews with nearly two hundred gig-based and precarious workers, conducted during the height of the pandemic, to uncover the unique challenges they faced in unprecedented times.

Whether it's a painful end or a joyful beginning—or even an uncertain middle—theologian and minister Amy Davis Abdallah has found something that helps: rituals. In Meaning in the Moment, she shows why we need rituals to help survive and even thrive through various seasons of life. Starting with the foundation that rituals are a core, and underexplored, part of Christian practice, Davis Abdallah draws from theology, psychology, and personal experiences in creating rituals for herself and others.

After losing her young son in a tragic accident, Eve struggles to protect the one child she has left, a teenage daughter who just might be pure evil. The dark side of magic is where the Ragman dwells. Nobody knows that better than Eve. Desperate for a child, she called on that cunning conjurer eighteen years ago. Her daughter, Abbey, was the result.

In April 1938, Swift River Valley residents held a farewell ball to mark the demise of the quintessential New England town of Enfield and its three smaller neighbors, Greenwich, Dana, and Prescott. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts sacrificed these three towns to build the Quabbin, a massive reservoir of drinking water for residents of Boston. Three prominent residents attended the somber occasion.

Spiritual blogger (Ash and Starlight) and pastor Arianne Lehn provides encouragement for the spiritual journey in these honest and poetic prayers drawn from everyday emotions, joys, and frustrations of our days. Ash and Starlight features prayers for centering, confession and surrender, trust, comfort and strength, discernments and thresholds, waiting and struggle, and seasons and liturgical times of the year. The compilation of prayers will help listeners find connection and wholeness in their own spiritual pilgrimage.

We all have stories to tell, but not everyone gets the mentoring and training or encouragement to become a great storyteller. Founded a quarter century ago, Girls Write Now has empowered young women and gender-expansive youth to harness their creative talents, gaining confidence, skills, and a community supporting them in sharing stories the world needs to hear.