Showing results by narrator "Erica Sullivan" in All Categories

Third-grader Aven Green has been solving mysteries for a really long time—a whole month! She has solved many important cases like The Mystery of the Cranky Mom, The Mystery of the Missing Ice Cream, and The Mystery of the Smelly Feet. Her record is nearly 100 percent, with only The Mystery of the Cereal in My Underpants remaining unsolved to this day. Aven asks all the right questions, wields her detective kit carefully, and follows up on every clue. Then her teacher’s lunch bag, with her lunch still in it, is taken, and Aven’s great-grandma’s beloved dog goes missing.

Aven knows she is an expert baker of cakes and cookies since she has been baking with her mom for a really long time. Plus no one bakes quite like she does. She cracks eggs with her feet and measures sugar and flour with her feet—plus measuring cups—since she was born without arms. And now Aven has her eye on the prize: a beautiful blue ribbon for baking at the county fair. So she teams up with her friends Kayla, Emily, and Sujata. But it turns out they all have very different tastes and a lot of opinions about baking.

Early in her career, Katie Pryal learned that being a professor isn’t easy if your brain isn’t quite right. “I was a junior in college when I finally realized that I was different in a way that my medically inclined parents would call ‘clinical.’” In these deeply personal, fiery essays, Pryal tells her story of transformation that began the moment she chose to publicly disclose her own mental illness and leave her career in higher education to begin fighting for a better world for people with psychiatric disabilities.

Two young women attending college decide to have a summer adventure canoeing the rapids-strewn Thelon River that runs 450 miles through the uninhabited Barren Lands of subarctic Canada. Holly made the trip once before with a group of skilled paddlers she trained with at camp, and she wants to share that experience with her friend and lover, Lee, believing it will draw them closer. But a week in, Holly, the risk-taker, falls while taking a selfie near the edge of a cliff. She is left injured and comatose, and soon dies.

In How We Disappear, award-winning author Tara Lynn Masih offers listeners transporting and compelling stories of those taken, those missing, and those neither here nor gone—runaways, exiles, wanderers, ghosts, even the elusive Dame Agatha Christie. From the remote Siberian taiga to the harsh American frontier, from rural Long Island to postwar Belgium, Masih’s characters are diverse in identity and circumstance, defying the burden of erasure by disappearing into or emerging from physical and emotional landscapes.

Cara Foster is, one might say, eco-anxious—perhaps even eco-neurotic. She eats out of dumpsters—not because she wants to but because it’s the right thing to do—does laundry as seldom as possible, takes navy showers every couple of days, and is reevaluating her boyfriend for killing a spider. Then, during a mimosa-soaked Sunday brunch, she meets her boyfriend’s alluring mother, Millie. As they begin spending time together, getting pedicures and drinking martinis, Cara becomes hooked on Millie and this new freedom from the harsh realities of life in the twenty-first century.

If Kate Chamberlin can’t reveal her true identity to the world, she must settle for sharing only her talent. Hired as a musician for KDKA radio, Kate plays everything from sponsors’ jingles to complex sonatas. As long as the whispers around the broadcasting room refer to her as “Killjoy Kate” and not “Catarina the crime boss’s daughter,” then her life is safe from danger. Or so she thinks. When anonymous violent threats surface, Kate is wary of accepting protection from the handsome Detective Jennings. No one, especially him, can know the gruesome realities of her birth.

What would you do if your country was counting on you to deliver an important message? That’s the story of 16-year-old Sybil Ludington’s famous midnight ride. In 1777, Sybil and her family believe the American colonies should be free from British control, and Sybil’s father leads a regiment of New York militiamen. Using spy tactics and codes, the Ludingtons gather intelligence, hoping to stay one step ahead of their enemies. When British troops raid nearby Danbury, Connecticut, Sybil gallops through the night to call out her father’s men. 

Commercial deep-sea diver Solvig has a secret. She wants to be one of the first human beings to colonize Mars, and she is one of a hundred people shortlisted by the Mars Project to do just that. But to fulfill her ambition, she will have to leave behind everything she has ever known - for the rest of her life. As the prospect of heading to space becomes more real, 37-year-old Solvig is forced to define who she really is. Will she come clean to James, her partner, about her plans? Or will she turn her back on the project and commit to her life on Earth?

Two authors with decades of experience promoting human rights argue that, as the world changes around us, rights hardly imaginable today will come into being.

Darke County, Ohio, 1866. Young Phoebe Ann Moses lives a life of peace and harmony on a farm with her Quaker family and has dreams of living a hunter’s life in the woods. When Jacob Moses, the beloved patriarch, tragically dies, Phoebe’s life is sent into a tailspin. The family suffers in squalor as they move from place to place, until Phoebe is sent to live in the Infirmary, where the orphans taunt and bully her. Desperate to start over, she volunteers to live in a secluded cabin in the woods with a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Wolf, to help them raise their baby.

Twenty years of addiction to cloud, a drug which wipes the user’s short-term memory, have left single mom Mellie with her mind in fragments. With the help of a tough-minded sponsor, and motivated by her own medically challenged daughter, Mellie clings to a fragile sobriety. Then, on the evening of her 29th day sober, a stranger pulls into her driveway and her heart surges. However, when Mellie’s pursuit of this man and the past they may share threatens her sponsor, Mellie will have to put her tiny family and her recovery at risk in hopes of saving the woman who saved her first.

Through explorations of a rich and varied urban landscape, Brenner reveals the complex micro-habitats and surprising nature found in the middle of a city. In her hometown of Seattle, which has plowed down hills, cut through the land to connect fresh- and saltwater, and paved over much of the rest, she exposes a diverse range of strange and unknown creatures.

In response to a string of gold thefts in a Mother Lode mine, Quincannon goes undercover as a newly hired miner to identify and capture the men responsible. Meanwhile, Sabina finds herself not only making plans for her and Quincannon’s wedding, but also investigating both an audacious real estate scam and an abusive young man’s villainous secret.

The Imperiled Ocean by ocean journalist Laura Trethewey is a deeply reported work of narrative journalism that follows people as they head out to sea. What they discover holds inspiring and dire implications for the life of the ocean - and for all of us back on land.

Sarah Morgan Dawson used her diary to record her thoughts and experiences from 1862 to 1865, during the height of the American Civil War. A Confederate Girl’s Diary provides a thorough account of civilian life in Louisiana during and after the war.

Even good parents often underestimate the dangers their children face. Research indicates that one in four females and one in six males are sexually abused before age 18. In most cases, the enemy is not a faceless stranger; it's someone you know and trust. This book provides practical steps to ensure you're doing all you can to reduce the risks of abuse. But since you cannot be with your children 24/7, it goes beyond what you can do as a parent to teach you how to increase your child's own awareness and strategies in the face of potential dangers - without making them fearful.

The Triumph of the Egg is a fictional panorama of a great region of our country, unfolded by a writer who - to quote the New York Times - "depicts life in the Midwest as Dostoevsky pictured the many colored life of Russia, with almost as wonderful a touch of genius, with a more concentrated and daring skill." This coveted 1921 collection is an example of what a book of stories can be when a writer of vision deals with the materials of American life.

Aimee Styles vanished in the tiny mountain town of Wolfe Creek two years ago. She's supposed to be dead. The only problem is, she's not. What the locals don't know is that she lurks there as a werewolf to this day - a symbol of strength and tragedy, but mostly a protector to those who need her most. When Doctor Jake Blackstock is called in to treat a sick woman, he has no idea the beauty he's nursing back to health is Aimee. By the time he realizes what he's gotten himself into, it's too late - he's already falling in love. But Jake doesn't trust easily.

In a time when many women feel lonely and isolated, Girls' Club calls us to embrace the delight and comfort that can be found in life-giving friendships with women - and to cultivate relationships that not only offer emotional affirmation and acceptance, but also inspire, educate, and stretch us to live out our God-given potential.