Showing results by narrator "Esther Wane" in All Categories

The brain is the basis of everything we do: how we behave, communicate, feel, remember, pay attention, create, influence, and decide. Why We Do What We Do combines scientific research with concrete examples and illustrative stories to clarify the complex mechanisms of the human brain. It offers valuable insights into how our brain works every day, at home and at work, and provides practical ideas and tips to help us lead happy, healthy, and productive lives. 

Event organizer Megan Fallon is gearing up for a concert in honor of the oldest tree in the county: the ancient village oak on Bliss Bay's village green. What she's not gearing up for, though, is stumbling over the dead body of Bliss Bay's most unpopular villager, under the oak tree's sprawling boughs. With a murder investigation underway, a mystery that has everyone looking like a suspect, and a cat that needs a new home, there's also the small matter of the theft of forty-eight garden gnomes to get to the bottom of.

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare’s colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R. M. Holland’s most famous story, “The Stranger”, left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the story lines of her favorite literature. 

When two families organise a house swap, it seems like the perfect holiday arrangement. The Browns will exchange their London townhouse for a stunning chateau in the south of France, the perfect place to relax and rekindle their flagging marriage. And the Lesters are looking forward to showing their son, Rafael, around their old haunts in the British capital. Sounds wonderful. Except for one thing—both families are hiding dark secrets, and secrets have a way of coming out…

Sister Veronica is back at the Convent; a changed woman as a result of her experiences with the corrupt clergy and the murder she lived through. Now - more than ever - she has a thirst for righting wrongs, even if it means getting herself into danger. So, when a two-month-old baby girl is left on the Convent doorstep one night, wrapped up in dirty blankets and placed in an open cardboard box, Sister Veronica steps in to help solve the mystery. And when she discovers a tarot card left with the baby, she is drawn deeper into the search for the mother.

She wants a business partner. He wants forever. When Victorian shipping tycoon Jem Brigg is killed in a robbery, his family and the business world are shocked to discover the actual owner of the company is a woman, and a young one at that. Eleanora Pembroke's first action as owner is to hire the...

Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their father and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war. Greta has a secret – the witch’s grimoire, secreted away and whispering in Greta’s ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you’ve ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.

If they cannot free themselves from the bindings of an ancient curse, then all is lost... Lorelei has seen the best and worst of this kingdom. She has fought through armies of the dead, fallen in love with a dragon, and discovered there may be more to her origin than she originally thought. Now...

Thirty-nine-year-old empty-nester, Megan Fallon is putting the fiance who left her well and truly out of her mind, and focusing on settling back into village life, and her new job. Meanwhile, her childhood friend, American, Jack Windsor, is renovating the old village school, and is looking for a four-legged friend to share his new home with. All is well in Bliss Bay until obituaries start appearing on the church noticeboard for villagers who are still very much alive, and the village is thrown into turmoil.

Mairead's world is falling apart. Recently separated, she has returned to her beautiful childhood home in Ireland to nurse her dying mother. But as Brigid sits pale and papery thin, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean, she has one last request for her only daughter. Brigid hands Mairead a stunning turquoise necklace and a small black-and-white photograph of her mother, Ellen, a woman she never met. She begs Mairead to go to New York, the last place Ellen was seen alive, and find out what became of her. Mairead cannot ignore her mother's dying wish.

Uncover the methods of megastars like Oprah Winfrey, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, and Sir Richard Branson, who make the world a better place through purposeful - and highly successful - business strategies. The stellar authorial team shares in candid detail the setbacks and achievements they experienced building successful enterprises and charities - with purpose.

On a dark and stormy December night, my family are gathered at an isolated hotel in the English countryside. We're reuniting for the first time since the accident that shattered our lives ten years ago. It's a time for love and forgiveness. But more than one guest has an ulterior motive. As the clock strikes midnight, one member of our party is found dead at the foot of the grand marble staircase. Everyone is a suspect. But which one of us is a killer?

Event organizer Megan Fallon needs to find a killer before the biggest night of the year in Bliss Bay village: a charity dinner and auction to raise funds for local children's charities. After all, there's nothing like a murderer on the loose to put a dampener on the party spirit. With her Uncle Des in tow, the two intrepid amateur sleuths set out to identify the perpetrator. They could be onto something after a mysterious rocking horse offers up a clue to the identity of the murderer.

Twenty-six-year-old single mum Brianna Lewis (a.k.a. Bree) doesn't believe in fairy tales - not after being abandoned by the father of daughter, Isabelle. Suddenly finding herself in dire straits, she converts her garden shed into a rental suite in hopes of climbing out of the financial hole she's in. But when the only person interested in renting the suite turns out to be to Leopold Davenport, the ridiculously good-looking co-worker she loves to hate, she knows she must choose between being happy and being broke.

How did human minds become so different from those of other animals? What accounts for our capacity to understand the way the physical world works, to think ourselves into the minds of others, to gossip, read, tell stories about the past, and imagine the future? These questions are not new: they have been debated by philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, evolutionists, and neurobiologists over the course of centuries. One explanation widely accepted today is that humans have special cognitive instincts.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has long captured the public imagination. Newspaper column inches have been devoted to murderers with psychopathic features, and we also encounter psychopaths in films and books. Individuals with psychopathy are characterized in particular by lack of empathy and guilt, manipulation of other people and, in the case of criminal psychopathy, premeditated violent behavior. They are dangerous and can incur immeasurable emotional, psychological, physical, and financial costs to their victims and their families.

December, 1989, and Ashley Smith - a bright-eyed American studying in London - has unexpectedly been invited by her classmate Emma Chapman to spend Christmas at her family's Cotswolds manor house, Starvewood Hall. The holiday is a true English fantasy: woodland walks, charming pubs and elaborate dinners at the manor, with the added romantic potential of Emma's twin brother, Adam, who feels like Ashley's wildest dreams come true. But is there something strange about the old house, both stately and rundown.

Paige Chadwick is having the worst day of her life. Her tyrant boss has made her three days late for her sister's destination wedding trip, and now she's stuck on the wrong Caribbean island with the wedding just hours away. Enter Mac Gamble, a brooding yet irresistibly attractive pilot, who reluctantly agrees to get her to the church on time. When a fast-moving storm leaves them stranded on a deserted island, they're forced to rely on each other to survive. As they navigate their new surroundings, tempers flare and an undeniable attraction grows. 

Charlotte has always longed to be accepted by her older sisters. She would gladly exchange her vaunted beauty for their friendship. But they ask a far higher price. Pushed into marriage with a stranger, Charlotte is left betrayed and alone. All she knows of her new husband is that he has secrets—and that her heart beats a little faster whenever he calls her Lottie.

How does an immortal deal with death? What kind of person makes the best companion? Why does the Doctor say he and Freud "got on very well"? How do the Daleks and Cybermen reflect concerns about losing our humanity? And what can looking at an ancient Time Lord teach us about real human nature? Doctor Who Psychology: A Madman with a Box explores these questions and many more.