Showing results by narrator "Kate Forbes" in All Categories

Ann Fay Honeycutt accepts the role of "man of the house" when her father leaves because she wants to do her part for the war. She's doing well with the extra responsibilities when a frightening polio epidemic strikes, crippling many children. Ann Fay reads each issue of the newspaper for the latest news of the epidemic. But soon she discovers for herself just how devastating polio can be. As her challenges grow, so does her resourcefulness. Ann Fay discovers her ability to move forward, experiences the healing qualities of friendship, and explores the depths of her own faithfulness.

Sarah Booth and Tinkie are shopping with little Maylin when they see Sandra and Janet outside a bookstore, fur flying, and when Sandra vanishes from her own gala later that night, suspicion turns to Janet. Janet accuses Sandra of attempting to manipulate the media by a fake disappearance, but is it a stunt, or is something more sinister at play? Sarah Booth and Tinkie will have to dive deep into the history of Bay St. Louis, and even Al Capone himself, to get to the bottom of this case.

It's Halloween season in Mississippi as Sarah Booth and the gang gather to decorate and gush over Tinkie's new baby, Maylin. Sarah Booth is just about to refresh the cocktails when she hears a knock on the door and opens it to find a woman named Frankie, distraught at the disappearance of her daughter, Christa, a young journalist. Christa had been investigating the disappearance of young women in New Orleans over a five-year period—one every year around Halloween. Now Christa herself is missing, and Frankie fears it may be connected to a cult based in the Garden District.

To escape a forced marriage, Cora Taylor travels from England to the Blue Ridge Mountains in search of her brother, who is working as a teacher in a mission school. She hopes to find a place where her nursing skills and independent ideas will be accepted and appreciated, but nothing prepares her for the wild mixture of isolation, community, brokenness, and hope within these mountains … or in the person of Jeb McAdams.

They call it Hell Day - a world war that lasted less than 24 hours. Nations unleashed weapons that destroyed more than a century’s worth of technology. Electrical grids cannot generate power. Communications and computers cannot run. And the remnants of the US government cannot be depended upon. Those who survived must live as their ancestors did, off a land ruled by the whims of nature. Onetime congressional representative Victoria Emerson has become the new leader of the small town of Ortho, West Virginia. 

As Sarah Booth sees it, Easter weekend is a time to celebrate life in all its many forms. So when the newly-pregnant Tinkie invites her and Cece on a girls’ trip to Lucedale, Missisippi to celebrate that spring has official sprung, Sarah Booth can’t resist. Plans include facials, food, and a trip to the incredible Garden of Bones - a miniature Holy Land with recreations of all parts of the Middle East - for their Sunrise Easter Services led by biblical scholar, gardener, and creator of the Gardens Daniel Reynolds.

At age 55, Meg's life is too filled with loss for her to remember what magic feels like. All she has left is a yard brimming with plants that are wilting in the scorching Iowa summer - and a bone-deep feeling that she's through with living. Meg has something else too: a bottle of mysterious pills, given to her years ago by an empathetic doctor. He promised that they would offer her dying mother a quick, painless end in exactly 20 days. Though her mother never needed them, Meg does. But a strange thing happens after Meg swallows the little green pearls....

Dr. Frank Hafner is an archaeologist working on excavating a new-found Native American temple site in the Mississippi Delta. He's also too handsome for his own good, and a bit of a flirt. Oddly enough, it's the first quality that gets him in trouble when he discovers the ritualistic murder of one of his archaeological crew. When Coleman Peters, Sheriff and Sarah Booth's boyfriend, takes Dr. Hafner in for questioning in the murder, the accused doctor hires Sarah Booth to clear his name.

With America's entrance into the Second World War, the town of Blackberry Springs, Alabama, has exploded virtually overnight. Workers from all over are coming south for jobs in Uncle Sam's munitions plants - and they're bringing their pasts with them, right into Dolly Chandler's grand but fading family home turned boardinghouse. An estranged young couple from the Midwest, unemployed professors from Chicago, a widower from Mississippi, a shattered young veteran - they're all hoping Dolly's house will help them find their way back to the lives they left behind.

Former Fish and Wildlife officer Charlotte "Charlee" Tanner still carries the guilt of a tragic drowning accident that occurred on her watch. She hoped moving back home to the wilds of Central Florida would provide a safe haven - until she learns the death was no accident, and she's the intended target.  

Corporate litigator Mia Shaw suffers the shock of her life when she finds her colleague and friend brutally murdered. Grief-stricken and furious, Mia vows that she will do anything to seek justice and make the killer pay. The man accused of the murder is a friend of security tech guru Noah Ramirez, but the evidence just doesn't add up. To save his former ATF partner, Noah needs to convince Mia that the real killer is still on the loose. Mia soon has more than the criminal prosecution to worry about, however. 

When Neil, Leah's warm and loving step-father, reveals that his cancer is no longer in remission, Leah finds comfort in a visit to Amish country to see her true love, Ethan. When Ethan chooses to leave his life on the farm, he moves in with Leah and her family. But once Ethan arrives, they realize that his Amish values are quite different from those of Leah's complex "English" world. Will their love help, or hurt, Leah as she faces the complex hurdles that await her?

Leah is not happy about being stuck in the hospital for the holidays while her mother is thousands of miles away on a honeymoon with husband number five. Until she meets her hospital roommate, Rebekah, and her big family. Cynical 16-year-old Leah has never known people like this before. From Rebekah’s handsome brother, Ethan, who can barely look Leah in the eye, to her kind older sister, Charity, the Amish family captivates Leah with its simple, loving ways. When Leah receives frightening information about her condition, her new friends show her that miracles can happen. And that sometimes angels appear in the most unexpected places.

Professor Olive Twist has come to Zinnia, Mississippi, to study a mysterious grave wherein lies the Lady in Red, a perfectly preserved and stunningly beautiful but unnamed and unclaimed body. Olive claims she can not only identify the corpse, she can also prove the woman’s scandalous role in the nation’s history. Olive takes it a step too far, though, when she starts connecting elite Zinnia families with the same scandal. Dander up, Zinnia’s society ladies know only one way to handle Olive: They call on the private investigative services of Sarah Booth Delaney.

Christmas is just around the corner, and Sarah Booth and Tinkie are preparing for a festive holiday season. After a turbulent season of solving cases, they're ready for some holiday cheer. Sarah Booth and Sheriff Coleman Peters have finally gotten together, and this is the first holiday they're celebrating as a couple. Sarah Booth busies herself with decking the halls and daydreaming about romantic Christmas nights with Coleman. Then her friend Cece Dee Falcon shows up needing Sarah Booth's help.

Detective Nate Quinn has just been cleared for active duty after a bombing killed 18 people, including his partner, and left him dealing with PTSD. His first case back on the job involves the murder of Stephen Shaw, and his only lead turns out to be an old friend, Grace Callahan - and her life is in grave danger. Someone believes Shaw gave his psychologist information before he died. Information for which they are willing to kill. 

It is just two weeks before Christmas, and 16-year-old Leah Lewis-Hall is stuck in a hospital room. Leah is lonely and worried, but she doesn’t want to trouble her honeymooning mother. When her new roommate Rebekah needs a friend, Leah forgets her own problems as she comforts the scared little Amish girl. Leah doesn’t understand the Amish customs and beliefs, but she still looks forward to Rebekah’s teenaged sister and brother’s visits. Romantic sparks fly between Leah and brother Ethan.

Lee Smith, one of today's finest writers in the Southern literary tradition, has been compared to Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. This collection of nine stories, ranging from poignant ballads to delightfully inventive forms, showcases Smith's celebrated talent. The stories will make you chuckle and leave you with a satisfying sense that no matter how unruly or warped life may seem, equilibrium can be found after all.

Orphaned in the cholera epidemic of 1833, Adria Starr was cared for by a slave named Louis, a man who stayed in Springfield, Kentucky, when anyone with means had fled. A man who passed up the opportunity to escape his bondage and instead tended to the sick and buried the dead. A man who, 12 years later, is being sold by his owners despite his heroic actions. Now 19, Adria has never forgotten what Louis did for her. She's determined to find a way to buy Louis's freedom. But in 1840s Kentucky, she'll face an uphill battle.

Sarah Booth Delaney knows the perfect way to begin recovering from both the recent attack on Scott Hampton's blues club and her broken heart. She's going to host a Thanksgiving feast for all of her friends at her ancestral home in Zinnia, Mississippi. But one bitterly cold night, with the holiday just around the corner, Sarah Booth awakens to the insistent ring of her doorbell. She opens the door to find a newborn baby in a basket sitting on her front porch - and a pool of blood slowly seeping out from the basket.