Showing results by narrator "Anna Crowe" in All Categories

It's easy to pray for others' needs. If God takes a long time in answering - or answers with a no - it's easier to take. Far more difficult is focusing on your own needs, when sometimes you don't get the answers you want. What do you pray when life gets hard or even unbearable? When you lose a spouse or a child? When your health deteriorates? When your spiritual life seems barren? Linda Evans Shepherd knows what it's like to pray in the most dire of circumstances.

A heart-pounding hunt begins when 18-year-old Monica goes missing from a dig site with an archaeologist whose shady past spills into the present. The frantic search takes her aunt Claudia to Egypt, Gibraltar, and the UK, where Claudia's skills as a forensic handwriting expert of international renown are needed to help foil a deadly terrorist plot in which Monica may become a casualty.

Upon the death of her husband of 23 years, American-born Lori found herself living alone on the edge of a volcanic crater lake in El Salvador in contact with the spirits of hundreds of Mayans trapped beneath the waters waiting to be set free by her. In the throes of a full-blown mental crisis, she went from hospital ER to locked ward, to a daring adventure in the jungles of Colombia, where a team of local brujos helped her complete her transition into the role she currently plays as a healer and spiritual counselor.

In the dead of winter, handwriting expert Claudia Rose journeys to Maine to retrieve a manuscript about convicted female serial killer, Roxanne Becker. The manuscript, written by Professor Madeleine Maynard, who was, herself, brutally murdered, exposes a shocking secret: explosive research about a group of mentally unstable grad students selected for a special project and dubbed “Maynard’s Maniacs”. Was Madeleine conducting research that was at best, unprofessional - and at worst, downright harmful and potentially dangerous? Could that unorthodox research have turned deadly?

Iris has spent her whole life trying to please someone more powerful than her: first her mother, then her riding instructor Timothy Walker, then the great scientist Laura Solomon, head of the Happiness-Program and would-be savior of the world. But now Laura is dead, her consciousness uploaded into the cyberspace Egg… and she doesn’t need Iris anymore.

In the early '70s, when America began to awaken to locally sourced food and wine, Gretchen Glasscock returned to Texas from the East with a degree from Columbia University and a penchant for research. Taking over management of the family's 20,000 acres of ranch land and seeking to diversify their interests, she upended a Texas A&M Study asserting that all Texas was a hot and humid climate suitable for growing only jug wines. She identified the region around Blue Mountain in Fort Davis, as cool and crisp, like Napa or parts of France.

She’s the smartest little girl in the world… and the most dangerous too. Owena is a genius – as well as a killer – but she’s still only six years old. After escaping the underground bunker where she lived with Nurse Saarinen, her main goal has been to find more candy. Now the Unchipped rebels have a mission for her, and if she agrees to perform it, they’ll let her visit the Egg, where you can eat all the candy you want without ever getting a stomachache. Owena’s definitely interested, but she’s also distracted.

Long ago, before the war that took her life, Maria served as the driver and bodyguard for a man named Sebastian King. Charming, manipulative, and ruthless, Sebastian had taken her on the strangest of road trips – visiting cult leaders from one end of the country to the other. She didn’t understand what he was doing at the time, but she needs to remember it now…

What should have been a routine afternoon on the witness stand for forensic handwriting expert Claudia Rose turns into a shocking assault that leaves her bruised and bloodied. Following on the heels of a series of other traumatic events, the attack sends Claudia to the brink of a breakdown. Her fiancé, LAPD Homicide Detective Joel Jovanic, learns of the attack while leading a homicide investigation into a mailbox bomb.

Chefs at top restaurants face competing pressures to deliver complex and creative dishes, and navigate market forces to run a profitable business in an industry with exceptionally high costs and low profit margins. Creating a distinctive and original culinary style allows them to stand out in the market, but making the familiar food that many customers want ensures that they can stay in business.

The Big Stretch delivers a four-tiered self-evaluation and empowerment program for jump-starting a new business, new career, or new idea - and maintaining high levels of success long-term. One of today's most effective coaches for entrepreneurs, Teneshia Jackson Warner walks you through a “career workout” routine designed to move you from idea to goal.

In this myth-busting book, best-selling author Sam Kerns, strips away the falsehoods surrounding entrepreneurship and challenges you to do a bare, in-your-face analysis of whether starting a business is the right move for you. The truth is, not everyone is cut out to be their own boss. Entrepreneurship is hard, and unless you approach your new business with a solid understanding of how you will react to the stresses and challenges, you can’t really know how you’ll do.

Niccolò Machiavelli famously wrote, "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." That's what this book is about - innovation far more audacious than a new way to find a restaurant or a smart phone you can wear on your wrist. Harvard professor Amy Edmondson and journalist Susan Salter Reynolds explore how to bring into being systems that transform human experience and make the world more livable and sustainable.

When thinking about writing this book, I read other books on the topic, and found myself walking away shaking my head in frustration. Many of the ideas presented were outright ridiculous and could never lead to legitimate passive income. So I decided to write a better book. The idea of structuring your life around passive income is real. I currently have four streams of passive (or semi-passive) income (I'm working on the fifth), and would never again consider trading my time for money. But it’s not as easy as some books suggest.

Golan is pillaging the galaxy, harvesting planets for their Synthnic, and destroying entire civilizations. The Renegade, a loose-knit band of thieves, warriors, and refugees, are the only force standing in his way. Lily is a commander in the Renegade and leads a small team that focuses on relocating civilizations before their planets are destroyed. During an ambush Lily comes face to face with Ulrick, one of Golan's strongest generals, and a fire ignites inside her that threatens to consume her.

Do you fear you'll never write a book because you don't have the time? Let me guess - you're a writer, but so far, the book you know will be a big hit is stuck inside your head because you simply don't have the time to sit down and write it. You've probably been told that it takes years to write a quality book, but I'm here to tell you that's just not true. It's possible to write a quality book in two months - writing only on the weekends - using my realistic step-by-step plan.

The widow of a rich older man, Paige Sorensen is younger than - and hated by - her stepchildren. And they’re dead set on proving that Paige forged their father’s signature on his will, which left his entire estate, including the Sorensen Academy, to her. Intrigued by this real-life soap opera, Claudia soon breaks one of the cardinal rules of business: Never get personally involved. But Claudia has grown attached to a troubled Sorensen student, and when disaster strikes, she’ll realize that reading between the lines can mean the difference between life and death.

Sheila Lowe’s mysteries “just keep getting better” (American Chronicle) thanks to feisty forensic handwriting expert Claudia Rose, who knows that when it comes to solving a murder, sometimes, the pen can be mightier than the sword. Claudia heads to the Big Apple at the behest of Grusha Olinetsky, the notorious founder of an elite dating service whose members are mysteriously dying. The assignment puts Claudia at odds with her boyfriend, LAPD detective Joel Jovanic, who suspects Grusha herself is trouble.

After recovering from amnesia five years ago, Jessica Mack never told anyone she had started hearing voices from the spirit world. Now, forced to use her “gift” to help find missing four-year-old Ethan Starkey, she can no longer ignore the voices. Time is running out for little Ethan as Jessica, and Sage Boles, a man with a mysterious past, are guided by the voices to a séance, where they hope to get clues to the child’s whereabouts.

Claudia’s friend Kelly learns that she’s an aunt when her estranged half-sister, Erin, shows up at her home in desperate need of help. Erin and her husband have been living quiet lives as members of the Temple of Brighter Light in an isolated compound. But now her husband and young child have disappeared, leaving behind a cryptic note with a terrifying message.