Showing results by narrator "Ted Brooks" in All Categories

G. Scott Graham first started practicing vipassana meditation in 1996. In addition to his daily practice, Scott joined 10-day courses twice each year, whenever possible, alternating between sitting and serving. Scott joined a course on December 11, 2019. In the early hours of Sunday, December 22, 2019, the day Scott's course ended, his husband of 31 years, Brian Stephens, burned to death in a horrific automobile accident. Two months later, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world essentially shut down.

Springville Community Christian Church is nestled in the mountains of North Carolina and is a quiet, Mayberry-esque type of town - that is until a ruthless businessman sets his sights on the town and opens the first bar in the middle of the quiet community. Pastor Daniel Whitefield seeks only to do the will of God. Nothing more, nothing less.

These are the end times. We hear this sentiment in one way or another from various sources, from the fundamentalist preacher, to the scientist warning us of climate change. This is a time of economic uncertainty, political oppression, and cultural unraveling. Apocalypse, in the ancient world and today, is the experience of disconnection and of unraveling. It is when old gods are dying and the old stories no longer have meaning.

Rather than as a Falstaffian figure of limited intellect, Edmund Wehrle reveals Babe Ruth as an ambitious, independent operator, one not afraid to challenge baseball’s draconian labor system. To the baseball establishment, Ruth’s immense popularity represented opportunity, but his rebelliousness and potential to overturn the status quo presented a threat. After a decades-long campaign waged by baseball to contain and discredit him, the image of Ruth that baseball perpetuated still informs how many people remember Babe Ruth to this day.

Bucky Veil was a professional baseballer who played the game in the early years of the 20th century, a time when baseball was beginning to evolve into America's national pastime. As a 22-year-old rookie with the 1903 Pittsburg Pirates, he pitched in the first world series of modern major league baseball, thus witnessing firsthand an important milestone in the history of the sport.

Lische, the second book by Wynn Johnson, reads like a novel but the people we meet and the events that take place were very real. The author relates in detail how his ancestor, Lische, establishes his farm after staking his claim in the wild lands of Kentucky in 1857. He marries his childhood sweetheart, Sally, in 1858 and, almost against his original idea of leading a simple, self-sufficient farming life, becomes the patriarch of a very successful family where their businesses make them very wealthy.

Inspired by August Derleth’s seminal book The Wisconsin, Richard D. Cornell traveled the Chippewa River from its two sources south of Ashland to where it joins the Mississippi. Over several decades he returned time and again in his red canoe to immerse himself in the stories of the Chippewa River and document its valley, from the Ojibwe and early fur traders and lumbermen to the varied and hopeful communities of today.

When he loses his wife to a drunk driver, Richard Anthony Millay believes there will be no more brightness in his future. He may be right, for it is the darkness of an unrecalled past that pulls him away from everything he thought was real. Moving into the house that his wife had wanted so badly before she died, he soon comes to discover that it holds dark secrets, secrets that will haunt him in ways he couldn't imagine.

Lizzie Moran is desperate to help her best friend’s husband recover from grief-stricken despair after her friend passes away. But their love was unlike anything Lizzie has ever seen. A love she knows will never happen for her, considering the bad choices she’s made. Jack Clark is ready to take whatever measures necessary to yank his brother out of the abyss he’s fallen into after his wife’s death. And when he meets the lovely Lizzie who has the same goal, he is perfectly willing to put aside their differences, for the sake of his brother.

Kay Sullivan Lynch, reinstated to the Chicago Police Department after two years as a widowed mom of four, not only plans to excel on the force, but to show her brothers - who opposed her return to "the job" - that she's up to the challenge. Captain Flynn Dowd, battling demons of his own, empathizes with Kay's struggles - but Sidewalk Santas collecting for the hungry are dropping dead all over Chicago. No apparent motive, no identifiable MO. It's up to Kay and Flynn to stop the "Santa Slayer." As they race against time to stop the killer, Kay's grief-deadened senses awaken to Flynn's overwhelming sexual magnetism.

FBI agency brass and Sullivan family connections force Special Agent Bobbie Leighton into an undercover operation with inactive homicide detective Joe Sullivan. Posing as a wealthy Texas cattleman and his arm-candy wife, the two are assigned to infiltrate Bradley Sterling’s black-market operation. Suspected of baby trafficking, Sterling may be connected with Jimmy Sullivan’s murder.

Most California histories begin with the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the late 18th century and conveniently skip to the Gold Rush of 1849. Noticeably absent from these stories are the perspectives and experiences of the people who lived on the land long before European settlers arrived. Historian William Bauer seeks to correct that oversight through an innovative approach that tells California history strictly through Native perspectives.

Dr. Molly Jordan treats Detective Danny Sullivan when he's rushed into her ER with a critical bullet wound. Molly has never experienced a pure carnal reaction to a patient before, but Danny sparks heat in her. A cop's widow and single parent, Molly is fiercely averse to the life of worry that loving a police officer entails. And Danny isn't any cop. He's the son of a retired police commissioner and one of six siblings who are all law enforcers.

Veterinarian Matty Connors' visions lead her to homicide detective Brian Sullivan once again, despite her resolve to remain anonymous the past four years. Her official work with the police in California resulted in the brutal murder of her fiancé and, since, a recurrent nightmare she barely survives. Brian, the reputed ladies man of the Sullivan family, has yet to give his heart to a woman until Matty lays claim to it. Is Brian her nightmare slayer and ultimate truth?

In 1690, a dramatic account of piracy was published in Mexico City. The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez described the incredible adventures of a poor Spanish-American carpenter who was taken captive by British pirates near the Philippines and forced to work for them for two years. After circumnavigating the world, he was freed and managed to return to Mexico, where the Spanish viceroy commissioned the well-known Mexican scholar Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora to write down Ramírez's account as part of an imperial propaganda campaign against pirates.

Four short stories in one package. Stories include: "Lucky Stiff", about a homeless man who comes across a black plastic bag filled with money; "Banding Together", a story about a musician checking Craigslist for a band to join and the frustration he encounters along the way; "State Pen Pal", about a man who writes to another man in prison while pretending to be a woman; and "Friends for Life", the touching story of two guys who grew up together in the same neighborhood and how they were close friends until something drove them apart.

The Tyrell Brothers Circus was rolling during the 1986 season. With dozens of cities to cover between spring and fall, Rick Tyrell and his brother, Buck, had their hands full just managing the staff, the equipment, and all the animals. What they didn't need was the person responsible for sabotaging their show. Two performers were dead, as was the biggest African elephant in any circus. Ring acts were sabotaged, and someone has a score to settle with the Tyrell Brothers. But who could it be?

Robert looked at the glowing, bubbling water. Something was coming up. Something was surfacing; something big.

15 short stories by the author of the Cooper, P.I. series.

Legends that endured for centuries, endure for a reason. In the wilderness of Southeastern Alaska, the Kushtaka is one such legend. Known as the Land-Otter Man among the Tlingit Indians, the Kushtaka are shape-shifting, time bending, mythical creatures capable of taking your deepest fears and turning them into a nightmarish reality.