Showing results by narrator "Mia Barron" in All Categories

It's August 1984, and paperboy Christopher Stewart has gone missing. Hours later, 12-year-old Sammy Cox hurries home from his own paper route, red-faced and out of breath, hiding a terrible secret. Crystal, Sammy's 17-year-old sister, is worried by the disappearance but she also sees an opportunity: the Stewart case has echoes of an earlier unsolved disappearance of another boy, one town over. Crystal senses the makings of an award-winning essay, one that could win her a scholarship - and a ticket out of their small Iowa town.

Raising empathetic and unselfish young people in today’s “all about me” world might seem impossible, but parents can take meaningful action to protect children from these harmful influences. Written by a psychologist with decades of clinical experience, Childhood Narcissism: Strategies to Raise Unselfish, Unentitled, and Empathetic Children explains how selfish, entitled behavior can take root in a child and shows parents how to stop it before it’s too late.

College admissions season at Seattle's Elliott Bay Academy is marked by glowing acceptances from top-tier institutions and students as impressive as their parents are ambitious. But when Stanford alerts the school it's allotting only one spot to EBA for their incoming class, three mothers discover the competition is more cutthroat than they could have imagined.

Gemma Smythe dedicated her life to the glory of battle. With her fellow War Monks, she worshipped the war gods, rained destruction on her enemies, and raised the dead when the fancy struck. Until her sister Keeley became the prophesied Blacksmith Queen, and Gemma broke faith with her order to journey to the Amichai Mountain and fight by Keeley's side. The Amichai warriors are an unruly, never-to-be-tamed lot, especially their leader-in-waiting, Quinn. But when the War Monks declare support for Gemma's ruthless sister Beatrix, the immaturity of her key ally's the least of her problems.

At 32, Faith Frankel has returned to her claustro-suburban hometown, where she writes institutional thank-you notes for her alma mater. It's a peaceful life, really, and surely with her recent purchase of a sweet bungalow on Turpentine Lane, her life is finally on track. Never mind that her fiancé is off on a crowdfunded cross-country walk, too busy to return her texts (but not too busy to post photos of himself with a different woman in every state).

Why do some failures inspire breakthroughs and others breakdowns? Most new products fail. So do most businesses. And most of us, if we are honest, have experienced a major setback in our personal or professional lives. Exploring her own experiences of failure - losing her job and sending CVs into a void, clinging to a relationship that was clearly not working, Megan McArdle shows how to recognize when you're in a rut and how to bounce back successfully.

Talia Inger is a rookie CIA case officer assigned not to the Moscow desk as she had hoped but to the forgotten backwaters of Eastern Europe - a department only known as "Other". When she is tasked with helping a young, charming Moldovan executive secure his designs for a revolutionary defense technology, she figures she'll be back in DC within a few days. But that's before she knows where the designs are stored - and who's after them.

In 1997, Eve Foster’s daughter, Kelsey, runs away to New Mexico and vanishes without a trace. Eve is convinced that she’s the victim of a serial killer who’s been hunting women in the region, but Kelsey’s body is never found. Years later, Eve dies, leaving everything to her adopted twin daughters. The majority of the wealthy estate in Vermont goes to Lisa, the “good daughter,” while Connie inherits only a small stipend and a property in New Mexico. Connie arrives in New Mexico to find a small dilapidated red house in the desert and the home’s mysterious caretaker.

Meet Libby Weeks, author of the mega-bestselling fantasy series the Falling Children—written as “F. T. Goldhero” to maintain her privacy. With the final manuscript months overdue to her publisher and rabid fans around the world growing impatient, Libby is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Already suffering from crippling anxiety, Libby’s symptoms quickly accelerate. After she forgets her dog at the park one day—then almost discloses her identity to the journalist who finds him—Libby has to admit it: she needs help finishing the last book.

A terrifying nightmare sets off a series of attacks on Deena Bartlett's five senses, and her eighty-year-old Aunt Agatha is responsible. But the old woman is not alone. She's made a monstrous bargain with the Sensu, a malevolent entity whose stock in trade is attacking a person's senses, one by one. It has promised Agatha health in return for one evil act—the killing of her niece.

In another life, Agatha Cardiff was Congressman Paul Paxton’s chief of staff, a coolheaded fixer who made all his problems disappear. At Paxton’s behest, she covered up a shocking scandal that would have ruined a powerful senator’s career. It was one moral compromise too far and Agatha vowed, Never again. After twenty years in exile, Agatha’s life in the margins of Washington, DC, is about to become much more difficult.

How do we provide discipline that is effective but not overly harsh? How do we teach our kids to be resilient and manage their feelings when we have trouble managing our own? Drawing on their extensive knowledge of ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and PACEs (protective childhood experiences), psychologists Morris and Hays Grudo describe a balanced parenting approach to help parents manage these tricky balancing acts with confidence.

When DC crime scene analyst Dr. Ellie Carr is called to investigate the heartrending case of a missing baby, she's shocked to discover that the child's mother is her own cousin. Close during their impoverished childhoods, Ellie and Rebecca eventually drifted apart. Rebecca is now half of a Washington power couple, and she and her wealthy lobbyist husband, Hunter, have been living a charmed life in an opulent mansion—until their infant son is taken. At first antagonists, then allies, Ellie and Rachael race to find the baby alive and bring the kidnappers to justice.

In Out of Touch, Professor of Psychology Michelle Drouin investigates what she calls our intimacy famine, exploring love, belongingness, and fulfillment and considering why relationships carried out on technological platforms may leave us starving for physical connection. Drouin puts it this way: when most of our interactions are through social media, we are taking tiny hits of dopamine rather than the huge shots of oxytocin that an intimate in-person relationship would provide.

Using real-world examples, illustrations from their own lives, and a researchbased approach, dynamic daughter-mother duo Lauren Reitsema and Joneen Mackenzie guide you through familiar relationship situations. Their suggestions can be used with your partner, coworkers, children, extended family members, and friends. Drawing from their experience teaching thousands through The Center for Relationship Education, they introduce practical, easy-to-use strategies that will help you communicate more effectively and work through relationship challenges with confidence.

Mia Tathers is an ATF Special Agent. It’s not like she needs Conroy to protect her. However, when it becomes clear someone is recreating her biggest mistake, Mia has to face her own inability to forgive Conroy for what he took from her. It’s the only way she’ll stay alive.

Graduate student Wendy Zemansky was hoping for a normal semester at an isolated university in upstate New York. Since coming off disability and starting medication for bipolar disorder, Wendy longs to feel like a “real” functioning adult, a respected colleague in her writing program. But when her roommate goes missing, Wendy plunges into an investigation that is roadblocked by vainglorious professors, specious doctors, and dubious friends.

When Kendra Brennan moves into her grandfather's old cabin on Hidden Lake, she has a problem and a plan. The problem? An inflammatory letter from A Very Disappointed Reader that's keeping her from writing her next novel as long as its claims go unanswered. The plan? To confront Tyler, her childhood best friend's brother - and the man who inspired the antagonist in her first book - in order to prove to herself that she told the truth as all good novelists should.

Sixteen-year-old Addison is on the run. She’s leaving her life on New York’s streets behind for a new one with Rafe, armed with just his phone number on a scrap of paper. She’s taking the subway to meet him in New Jersey. He’ll take care of her. Or so she thinks....

The following books are included: The Harlan Ellison Hornbook and Harlan Ellison's Movie.