Showing results by narrator "Maria McCann" in All Categories

“I am opposed to heart disease and cancer the way one is opposed to sin.” With that as her battle cry, health activist and philanthropist Mary Woodard Lasker had a singular goal: saving lives by increasing medical research. Together with her husband, advertising genius Albert, they created the Lasker Foundation, bestowing the Lasker Awards. But the real increase in medical research funding occurred when Mary discovered a revolutionary source: the federal government. “I’m just a catalytic agent,” she would insist, while she tirelessly lobbied Congress and presidents alike.

Welcome to the fascinating world of behavioral paradoxes: apparent contradictions which make sense once we understand the human needs and motivations behind them. This inspiring book invites you to ponder contradictory behaviors which reflect our shared humanity and, surprisingly, offer pathways to improved mental health, meaningful living, and well-being for ourselves and others.

In 1940, art-world icon Georgia O'Keeffe bought a house in a mountain-rimmed New Mexico desert, planning to live there for six months every year. To manage her remote household while she paints, O'Keeffe invited Maria Chabot—a young and naïve would-be writer—to join her. Their tempestuous relationship endured throughout the chaotic years of WW2, the death of Georgia's domineering, philandering husband (Alfred Stieglitz), and Maria's design and building of a remarkable adobe house and studio for the artist in the native village of Abiquiu—a generous gift from an exceptional friend.

Olivia “Livy” Winters agrees to spend the summer at Sanderling Cove on the Gulf Coast of Florida with her two cousins, Charlotte “Charlie” Bradford and Brooke Weatherby, to help manage The Sanderling Cove Inn while their grandparents take a long road trip in Europe. Livy hopes a summer away from her past surroundings and her job as the owner of a bakery in Virginia will help her forget a traumatic incident there.

When the Bough Breaks presents a breakthrough concept of mourning, documenting the process of evolution from initial grief to an altered outlook on life. Excerpts from interviews with fifty parents who lost a child from age five to forty-five trace the road from utter devastation to a revised view of life, resulting in a work that is a tribute to resilience and the indomitable human spirit.

How fast can charity fundraiser CeCe Barclay’s unimpeachable society life come tumbling down? One minute she’s speaking before Chicago’s glitterati. The next, her financier husband is wanted for embezzlement. Her assets seized and her fall mortifyingly public, CeCe grasps for refuge—and employment—as a sorority housemom at Eli Whitney University, her daughter Hayden’s alma mater.

When nurse and fledgling pilot Lucinda Rhodes hires guitar-playing private detective Rolly Waters to track down a Stratocaster guitar owned by her deceased father, Rolly is thrilled to take on her case, especially when he learns the guitar’s original owner may have been Jimi Hendrix.

As children in 1918 Baltimore, Annie, an Irish-American girl, and Vince, the son of Sicilian immigrants, both lose loved ones—Annie’s father and sister to the Spanish flu and Vince‘s brother to an auto accident. The tragedies change how each of them face the world and—after they meet and wed—how they relate to each other.

Brooke Weatherby is tired of being the dependable one, the boring one of everyone at Sanderling Cove. She agreed to come to the cove for the summer, unaware her two cousins, Charlotte “Charlie” Bradford and Olivia “Livy” Winters, would also be there to help manage The Sanderling Cove Inn while her grandparents take a long road trip in Europe.

Ellie Weatherby and the four other grandmothers living at Sanderling Cove decide with only two great-grandchildren, it’s time to swing into action. They invite their grandchildren to spend the summer at the cove, hoping to encourage romance between them. Ellie invites all three of her granddaughters to take over the management of the Sanderling Cove Inn so that she and her bridegroom can spend the time traveling in Europe for their honeymoon.

If you are struggling with your teen’s or young adult’s substance use issues, The Compassion Antidote offers a proven framework for creating change. Catherine Taughinbaugh, certified parent coach, reveals evidence-based strategies for more-productive conversations with your child.

Dakota Kilroy, a twenty-eight-year-old investigative journalist, is haunted by the unsolved disappearance of her best friend, Maddy Montgomery, who went missing at the age of fifteen. When financial difficulties force her to move back home to Santa Monica, California, she cannot take the unanswered questions anymore. Determined to find out what happened to Maddy, Dakota starts ShadowCast, a true-crime podcast to publicize the case. But little does she know that the man responsible for Maddy's disappearance all those years ago is listening in and tampering with her investigation.

Three former friends, now age 57, rally one another through changes and challenges when they get together again for their 40th high school reunion in Port Mariette, a blue-collar town near Pittsburgh in this “coming of age” tale.

Laugh Your Way to a Great Day is a book that explains why meditations and affirmations don’t work for some people and offers a new lighthearted way to move you closer to feeling good.

From the time she was a small child, Donna Lynn experienced night terrors that were so disturbing they affected her waking life and relationships. Eventually she chose to consciously venture into that territory of the unknown to do battle with otherworldly beings who had haunted her dreams since childhood–only to find out they are not here to do battle at all. They come with powerful messages of love and healing on both personal and planetary levels. This book is a message of hope that we as a species can overcome the pervasive consciousness of fear and anxiety in our world today.

Navy lawyer and former First Daughter Faydra (Fay) Green is no longer quite so haunted by the dark events of her recent past and is hoping for some well-deserved rest. But her world is once again turned upside down when a shocking secret about her adopted daughter, Katrinka (Kat), is revealed. But before Fay can help Kat make any decisions about her future, Kat is captured and thrown into an Egyptian prison.

They thought Melfar and Mundani were the only people left on Earth. They were wrong. The hopeful joy wrought by the dedication of the "Book of All Time", with its heady celebration of Meridia as both Melfar Calumet and Mundani Prophet, is shattered when a ship with expansive white wings drops anchor off Selbourne. The ship and its occupants depart as swiftly as they came, taking with them a mirror and two Melfar—including one of Meridia’s infant twins. They leave behind only mystery: Who are these people? And where did they come from?

Faydra "Spider" Green has had a storied career as a navy lawyer, juggling being the daughter of a former US president. She has successfully navigated complex diplomatic situations, pulse-pounding legal investigations, and dangerous military missions, managing each time to save the day. But now, a man who had nearly cost Fay her life has seemingly returned from the dead. Now, hell-bent on revenge, he poses a threat to Fay and national security. Fay will have to go to extraordinary lengths to stop him, even tampering with the bounds of time and space.

Ellis Coldwater is a pretty easy-going bank robber. Wendy Larkin is a pretty woman—a little shy, a little nervous, and a little married. What happens when these two get together “on the job”? Whose recipe for living life will lead to the most happiness, the most laughter, and the least amount of jail time? Our tale jumps in immediately as this novel adroitly rolls up its sleeve to expose the funny bone of crime, love, right, wrong, the pursuit of money, happiness, the vagaries of humanity that gives life meaning.

Meridia is a healer, but can she heal the deep rift of time that drove Earth’s people apart? Bereft of leadership after a critical ritual goes fatally wrong, stalwart remnants of the Mundani Palinjian cult vow vengeance. They blame the Melfar and their Mundani sympathizers, attacking randomly and with escalating brutality. Melfar and their allies look to Meridia, the mixed-race healer who brought them the miraculous Song of All Songs straight from the wisdom of the Migrant.