Showing results by narrator "Olivia Darnley" in All Categories

As much as we might try to resist, endings happen in every moment—the end of a breath, the end of a day, the end of a relationship, and ultimately the end of life. And accompanying each ending is a beginning, though it may be unclear what the beginning holds. In How We Live Is How We Die, Pema Chödrön shares her wisdom for working with this flow of life—learning to live with ease, joy, and compassion through uncertainty, embracing new beginnings, and ultimately preparing for death with curiosity and openness rather than fear.

Eleanor Lyndon was minding her own business when a lord of the realm fell–quite literally–into her life. When Charles Wycombe, the dashing and incorrigible Earl of Billington, toppled out of a tree and landed at Ellie's feet, neither suspected that such an inauspicious meeting would lead to marriage. But Charles must find a bride before his thirtieth birthday or he'll lose his fortune. And Ellie needs a husband or her father's odious fiancée will choose one for her. And so they agree to wed.

Illumen Hall is an elite boarding school. Tragedy strikes when the body of a student is discovered at their exclusive summer party - on her back is an elaborate tattoo of a magpie. When new girl Audrey arrives the following term, running from her own secrets back home in America, she is thrown into solving the case. Despite her best efforts to avoid any drama, her new roommate Ivy was close to the murdered girl, and the two of them can't help but get pulled in.

When struggling influencer couple Adele and Jack post a crowdfunding video online, they're amazed by a mysterious benefactor's offer: to buy them an idyllic 17th century French château. It’s the lifeline they need to leave all their troubles behind – and patch up their relationship after a rocky period. For Adele, it’s a dream come true. She will post videos from the fairytale setting, renovating the grand building as thousands of online subscribers follow their journey. But the château is not all it seems, and the local community is far from welcoming.

Though Christians affirm that the Old Testament bears witness to Christ, how the Old Testament writers did this is a matter of extensive debate. Furthermore, Christian biblical scholars also debate the degree to which contemporary interpreters of the Bible can follow the hermeneutics of the New Testament authors in using the Old Testament to point to the person and work of Jesus Christ. Five Views on Christ in the Old Testament is the first book to bring together in conversation the major views on how the Old Testament points to Christ.

Nancy's mother and stepfather have been brutally killed. After a trial that gripped the nation, her stepbrother has been convicted of the double murder. But the end of the trial is just the beginning of a new nightmare for Nancy: the press is rabid, certain that she is hiding something. Certain that she knows more that she's telling about that night at the farmhouse . . . Determined to disappear, Nancy flees to the seaside in Devon, to Tall Chimneys, her grandmother's secluded inn--a place that holds many dark wartime secrets.

Laura has returned to work at Morris and Wood after her maternity leave, only to discover that the woman she brought in to cover for her isn’t going anywhere. Despite her close relationship with the agency’s powerful CEO, she feels sidelined - and outmaneuvered - as she struggles to balance the demands of work and motherhood.

At a glittering society party in St Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon's army marches on Russia and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical Andrey and impetuous Natasha interweave with a huge cast, from aristocrats and peasants, to soldiers and Napoleon himself.

Just as the archetypal hero possesses the heart to face trials and tribulations for the sake of helping others, the bodhisattva has a remarkable resolve to free others from suffering so that all may achieve true happiness and awakening. Through each challenge, the Buddhist hero of compassion develops rich inner qualities that empower them to be of true benefit to others.

Leah and her three best friends get changed into their pyjamas, eat pizza, and argue about what film to watch. They laugh together, until the early hours. But the next morning, Leah blinks open her eyes and sees three empty sleeping bags. The other girls are gone. Twenty years later. In her small hometown, still-haunted Leah has never been able to shake off the rumours and whispers. How could she have slept through it all? She must know what happened.

By all appearances, Frank and Maggie share a happy, loving marriage. But for the past six months, they have not spoken. Not a sentence, not a single word. Maggie isn’t sure what, exactly, provoked Frank’s silence, though she has a few ideas. Day after day, they have eaten meals together and slept in the same bed in an increasingly uncomfortable silence that has become, for Maggie, deafening.

Nationally bestselling author of Daughters of Sparta Claire Heywood returns with an imaginative and female-centered reinterpretation of the myth of the great hero Perseus, told through the voices of three women who are sidelined in the traditional version—his mother, Danae; his trophy, Medusa; and his wife, Andromeda—but whose viewpoints reveal a man who is not, in fact, a hero at all.

The fire is on, sherry poured, presents wrapped, and claws are being sharpened. In a seaside cottage perched on a cliff, one family reunites for Christmas. While snow falls, a tyrannical widowed matriarch presides over her unruly brood. Her niece tends to her whims, but fantasises about eloping; and as more guests arrive, each bringing their secret truths and dreams, the Christmas tree explodes, a brawl erupts, an escape occurs - and their 'midwinter madness' climaxes.

Darkness descends over Sotenäs...When the daughter of an American ambassador is found lifeless in the famous marble pool on the small island of Hållö, the case lands on Sandra Haraldsson and Dennis Wilhelmson's desks. Garnering enormous attention from the public, not least from the White House, the duo is soon led to an old lighthouse on Hållö: a lighthouse with plentiful of secrets... "The Lighthouse Keeper" is the fourth book in "The Smögen Murders" series.Anna Ihrén grew up in Stockholm and Gothenburg but spent her childhood summers on the island of Smögen.

What is enough? Time enjoyed slowly. Choices made intentionally. Life lived gracefully. With minimalist and slow living writer Jessica Rose Williams as your guide, build a curated, simpler, more intuitive life founded on your personal values and desires. At 25, Jessica was diagnosed with cervical cancer. The shock compelled her to question her fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle, one designed around pleasing others. Enough is her heartfelt story of turning away from a life of regret, and it is also an invitation for you to begin your own transformation.

When twenty-three-year-old Meggie meets her distant and enigmatic new coworker Sabine, she recognizes in her the person she would like to be. Meggie is immediately drawn to worldly, beautiful, and uninhibited Sabine; and when Sabine announces she’s switching to the nightshift, Meggie impulsively decides to follow her. Giving up her daytime existence, her reliable boyfriend, and the trappings of a normal life, Meggie finds a liberating sense of freedom as she indulges her growing preoccupation with Sabine and plunges into another existence.

It was indisputably love at first sight. But Victoria Lyndon was merely the teenaged daughter of a vicar...while Robert Kemble was the dashing young earl of Macclesfield. Surely what their meddlesome fathers insisted must have been true—that he was a reckless seducer determined to destroy her innocence...and she was a shameless fortune hunter. So it most certainly was for the best when their plans to elope went hopelessly awry.

Oriane is the skylark, and the sun only rises if she wills it. Every morning, she transforms from woman to bird, calling the dawn with her song. Seclusion has kept her safe her whole life – but it has also left her lonely, and craving freedom. When Oriane finally succumbs to the lure of the wild unknown, she is discovered in the gardens of the royal palace, where she is taken in by the king and treated like a goddess – and a prisoner.

Since they were kids, Edie, Jake and Ryan have been the closest of friends. It's been the three of them against the world. Edie thought the bonds between them were unbreakable. So when Jake is brutally murdered and Ryan accused of the crime, her world is shattered. Edie is alone for the first time in years, living in the remote house that she and Jake shared. She is grief-stricken and afraid—with good reason. Because someone is watching.

Glamorous Margot Jones is the fashion editor at glossy magazine Haute. Pregnant with her first child, Margot's carefully curated life is the object of other women's envy - who wouldn't want her successful career, loving husband, beautiful house, and stylish wardrobe? Maggie, a freelance journalist, certainly knows she doesn't measure up. But when she gets the temp job covering Margot's maternity leave, Maggie seizes the chance to live a flashier life - even if it's only for a few months.