sci-fi books with romance subplot Audiobooks

Prior to 1990, fewer than five percent of domestic infant adoptions were open. In 2012, ninety percent or more of adoption agencies are recommending open adoption. Yet these agencies do not often or adequately prepare either adopting parents or birth parents for the road ahead of them! The adult parties in open adoptions are left floundering. There are many resources on why to do open adoption, but what about how? Open adoption isn't just something parents do when they exchange photos, send emails, share a visit. It's a lifestyle that may feel intrusive at times, be difficult or inconvenient at other times. Tensions can arise even in the best of circumstances. But knowing how to handle these situations and how to continue to make arrangements work for the child involved is paramount. This book offers readers the tools and the insight to do just that. It covers common open-adoption situations and how real families have navigated typical issues successfully. Like all useful parenting books, it provides parents with the tools to come to answers on their own, and answers questions that might not yet have come up. Through their own stories and those of other families of open adoption, Lori and Crystal review the secrets to success, the pitfalls and challenges, the joys and triumphs. By putting the adopted child at the center, families can come to enjoy the benefits of open adoption and mitigate the challenges that may arise. More than a how-to, this book shares a mindset, a heartset, that can be learned and internalized, so parents can choose to act out of love and honesty throughout their child’s growing up years, helping that child to grow up whole.

You will be known by the company you keep! Successfully steer your own life instead of having it determined by others, advises Tobias Beck in this German bestseller narrated in his pithy, to-the-point style. Tobias provides the coaching needed to liberate ourselves from chronic complainers. Killjoys, energy vampires, and chronic complainers. Everyone knows a Debbie Downer, moaning the whole day long because nothing ever goes right. The weather is miserable, it’s Monday, and to top it all off, the doughnut has a hole! Tobias shows us a way out: simply not to bother with such acquaintances at all. Positive thinking for peak performance. Polarizing, provocative and exaggerated, the Liberated® philosophy urges readers to free themselves from negative people in order to live successfully and authentically. With success factors based on 15 years of personal experience in the field of personality development and behavioral psychology, you’ll learn how to: Think in terms of chances and opportunities rather than problems and risks Motivate yourself, forge your own path, and let yourself be guided by your dreams and vision Seek out people who support you and who let you grow and move forward Amusing stories, funny illustrations, and proven techniques. With success stories that are as entertaining as they are instructive, this book is as easy to read as it is unconventional. Part workbook and part self-help and nonfiction, this narrative book includes funny comics to illustrate proven-to-work strategies. If you enjoyed books like The Four Agreements, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, The Empath’s Survival Guide, and The 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life, then you’ll love Unbox Your Life.

She signed a contract with him to become the lady at his beck and call. He claimed, “This is for our mutual benefit. Once the contract expires, we will be nothing but strangers.” However, he broke his promise and refused to let her go. “Liam Ackman, when will you ever let me go?” His thin lips curled up into a smirk as he picked her up bridal style. “Anna Hamilton, you are mine for the rest of your life! Don’t even think about leaving!” Turned out, it had always been a trap, and she fell for it. There was no escaping his grasp! 

Ever since Yvonne Frey married Henry Lancaster, she alone stayed in an empty house for three years.Just when she was on the verge of giving up, this man suddenly came back and said that he wanted to live together with her!“Mr. Lancaster… Should I prepare a guest room for you?”“What? So I’m only a guest to you?!” Henry gritted his teeth. Now, who was the dismissive one here?

In a fusion of fact and fiction, nineteenth-century women institutionalized as hysterics reveal what history ignored “ City of Incurable Women is a brilliant exploration of the type of female bodily and psychic pain once commonly diagnosed as hysteria—and the curiously hysterical response to it commonly exhibited by medical men. It is a novel of powerful originality, riveting historical interest, and haunting lyrical beauty.” — Sigrid Nunez , author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through “Where are the hysterics, those magnificent women of former times?” wrote Jacques Lacan. Long history’s ghosts, marginalized and dispossessed due to their gender and class, they are reimagined by Maud Casey as complex, flesh-and-blood people with stories to tell. These linked, evocative prose portraits, accompanied by period photographs and medical documents both authentic and invented, poignantly restore the humanity to the nineteenth-century female psychiatric patients confined in Paris’s Salpêtrière hospital and reduced to specimens for study by the celebrated neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his male colleagues. Maud Casey is the author of five books of fiction, including The Man Who Walked Away , and a work of nonfiction, The Art of Mystery: The Search for Questions . A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the St. Francis College Literary Prize, she teaches at the University of Maryland.

Losing her innocence in a twist of fate, Maeve Hawkins is forced to marry a comatose man in the name of treating her sick mother while pregnant. She never imagined that her husband would wake up on the very night of their wedding. Everyone anticipates the day she gets chased out of the family, utterly shamed. However, Raymond Dale, who has always been cold and cruel, loves and defends her. As her husband, he pampers her and treats her like a queen. Those who want to incite trouble between them try to upset him. They say, “Mr. Dale, congratulations. You’re now the father to a bastard child.” Nevertheless, when he looks at the miniature him in Maeve’s arms, he only raises an eyebrow. “I’m sorry. Maeve is my wife, and the child is mine as well.”

Many of us share a shameful little secret: deep down we feel like complete frauds and are convinced that our accomplishments are the result of luck rather than skill. This is a psychological phenomenon known as 'Imposter Syndrome'. This book examines the reasons why up to 70% of us are developing this syndrome-and what we can do about it. All of us, at one point or another, have questioned our capabilities and competence. Maybe you've wondered how you got hired and, handed big job responsibilities? One recent article suggested that 70% of people "will experience at least one episode" of IS in their lives. Imposter Syndrome (also known as imposter phenomenon, fraud syndrome, or the imposter experience) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a 'fraud'. The term was coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes. Despite external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. This book presents an accessible and engaging examination of IS and how it effects us, not just at work, but as teenagers, parents and beyond. Using interactive quizzes to help you identify if you suffer and offering tips and tools to overcome your insecurities, psychologist Dr Sandi Mann will draw on her experience not only as an academic, but also as a practitioner, to present a comprehensive guide to understanding and overcoming IS.

Inspiration for Brave Girls Who Love STEM AZ is a young girl who finds herself in a robot building competition. Can she use girl power to overcome crashes, explosions, and hackers to beat school bully and three-time champ? Smart and strong is the new pretty. In this funny, action-packed story about STEM for kids, the talented AZ fights gender stereotypes and learns tough lessons on leadership. With the help of her quirky friends, Li and 10, the team builds a feisty robot named Ada. Together, they work hard, solve puzzles, grow in confidence, and learn the importance of friendship and collaboration. Calling all girls who code, techgirls, Grace Hopper fans, and stemettes. Written to raise awareness about the challenges faced by women in science and engineering, She’s Building a Robot celebrates voices from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. More importantly, it gives girls in science the opportunity to relate to strong, brave, smart characters. If your child enjoyed books like Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls , The Fourteenth Goldfish , Women in Science , or Hidden Figures Young Reader’ Edition , then She’s Building a Robot is your next read!

She’s a runner, but the campus star quaterback runs faster than she does! Rocky has had a chaotic life from which she concluded three fundamental things: life is a succession of problems to be solved, men are assholes to be avoided and promises are only binding on fools who want to believe in them. So, unlike the other girls on campus, boys are not a priority for her. Worse, she sees them as an obstacle to her success! But during a student party, she meets Jude. Freshly transferred from Harvard to play on Brown’s soccer team, Jude is the new star on campus. Handsome and inaccessible, he is the type not to get attached: the perfect candidate for a one-night stand. But the chemistry is too strong. And though Rocky is determined to run away from him, he is determined to conquer her heart.

Adina Daugherty became pregnant after being framed and gave birth to quadruplets. Her younger sister stole two of those children to tie herself to the Winters family, while Adina faced death to escape with the other two children. Five years later, Adina returned triumphantly. Since her sister loved pretending to be pure despite her rotten heart, she would torment her. As for her other two children? She would snatch them back! Duke Winters pinned her against the bed and said, “Why don’t you steal me as well?”Adina sneered. “Dream on!”But right after saying it, she puked. “So… how many children this time?” Duke asked.