Bøger af Ellen Richardson

When billionaire Houston socialite Richard Fairchild is found dead under suspicious circumstances, his wife Mariah refuses to accept the police verdict of suicide. Desperate for answers, she recruits small-town radio owners Delilah Morgan and Norma Davis to investigate. She offers the struggling entrepreneurs compensation they can't refuse - $20,000 each, a bailout for their failing station, and an all-expenses paid trip to Mariah's Hill Country resort.At first reluctant, Delilah and Norma soon find themselves embroiled in the glitzy Houston elite circles the Fairchilds inhabited. With a list of suspects who had motive to kill Richard, the duo follow a trail of lies, affairs, and shady business deals. The stakes grow ever higher as it becomes clear the Fairchild legacy - and their own lives - are in danger. From Texas hill country horse ranches to slick Houston high-rises, Delilah and Norma uncover adultery, blackmail, rivalry... and murder. But will the radio sleuths solve the mystery before the killer silences them too?

Losing My Virginity is the unusual, frequently outrageous autobiography of one of the great business geniuses of our time. When Richard Branson started his first business, he and his friends decided that "since we're complete virgins at business, let's call it just that: Virgin." Since then, Branson has written his own "rules" for success, creating a group of companies with a global presence, but no central headquarters, no management hierarchy, and minimal bureaucracy.Many of Richard Branson's companies--airlines, retailing, and cola are good examples--were started in the face of entrenched competition. The experts said, "Don't do it." But Branson found golden opportunities in markets in which customers have been ripped off or underserved, where confusion reigns, and the competition is complacent. And in this stressed-out, overworked age, Richard Branson gives us a new model: a dynamic, hardworking, successful entrepreneur who lives life to the fullest. Family, friends, fun, and adventure are equally important as business in Branson's life. Losing My Virginity is a portrait of a productive, sane, balanced life, filled with rich and colorful stories:

Delilah Morgan and her co-worker Norma Davis's lives are turned upside down when their employer, an infamous radio show host and gossip columnist Cassandra Clark (CC), is involved in a near-fatal car accident. As a result of the accident, Delilah is forced to take over CC's show and becomes a target for a mysterious caller who repeatedly calls CC on the air to talk about her personal problems. Before Delilah can learn the truth about the caller, who apparently played a big role in CC's life, CC dies under mysterious circumstances. The police rule CC's death a suicide, but neither Delilah nor Norma believe it and are determined to find out what really happened to the talk show diva. The search for CC's killer plunges them into a world of secrets, lies, and unanswered questions. They realize the killer could be closer than they think and they could be the next targets.

Human beings do not want to die; we spend infinite resources to sustain life, without regard to cost or quality. And yet we do die. Facing terminal illness and unprepared for death, we can feel abandoned by both secular and faith based institutions, whose focus on restoration can fall short of the wisdom and grace needed to embrace a holy death as a part of life. Ellen Richardson hopes to change things by offering stories from her work in hospice and palliative care, and the rich resources of the church¿s Scripture and tradition, to create safe space for exploring questions we carry about dying. Her book is intended for individual readers, and to be used in group, workshop, or retreat settings within the church, so that practices of prayer and healing can become once more a source of comfort and strength, not simply tools of defiance against illness and weakness. No amount of faith will buy immortality for earthly bodies, but death need not be a time of failure and isolation. Holy Dying helps us lay claim to our scriptural stories as hard teachers of our mortal heritage.