Showing results by narrator "Collins" in All Categories

The desert has been left behind, but Sinner's troubles have not. He finds himself in an elaborate trap—him, and everyone else who failed to go north early. Now he has two options: accept his fate and die along with countless other losers or escape from the trap and pull his friends out. Except to do that, he will have to fight the most terrifying animal ever. Man.

"I’ve grown old– now my own name rings a bell." In each of the short poems in Billy Collins’s Musical Tables, the former United States Poet Laureate tempers his characteristically jocular voice with what he calls the “thrill of mortality” – flashes of profundity amongst the mundane...

E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human. A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth.

Sometimes the good guys win and the bad guys end up dead. But that isn't how it always goes down. In the ZOO, you are either fast and lucky or you are dead. Heavy Metal has a few videos that are out gaining attention in parts of the world, and that doesn't bode well for them. Some people are noticing that Sal and his team have someone extra-special working with them, and they want a piece of her...or all of her. This time, it's back to basics for Heavy Metal with just Sal, Madigan, and Courtney. Are they enough to save their friend?

In the early 1980s, Brian O'Dea was operating a $100 million a year, 120-man drug smuggling business, and had developed a terrifying cocaine addiction. Under increasing threat from the DEA in 1986 for importing seventy-five tons of marijuana into the United States, he quit the trade - and the drugs - and began working with recovering addicts in Santa Barbara. Despite his life change, the authorities caught up with him years later and O'Dea was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years at Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary in Los Angeles Harbor.

I have been many years training in the way of strategy, called Ni Ten Ichi Ryu, and now, I think I will explain it for the first time. It is now during the first 10 days of the 10th month in the 20th year of Kanei (1645). I have climbed mountain Iwato of Higo in Kyushu to pay homage to heaven, pray to Kwannon, and kneel before Buddha. I am a warrior of Harima province, Shinmen Musashi No Kami Fujiwara No Geshin, age 60 years. With the virtue of strategy, I practice many arts and abilities - all things with no teacher.

Winter finally has the answers to who she is, but everything else in her life is in question as she is thrown into the world of witches. How much of her past can control her future? Can Winter make the decisions she needs to save the future?

People work; folk play. That is how it has been in this country for as long as Sam can remember. He is happy, and he understands that this is the way it should be. People are bigger than folk. They are stronger. They do not need food or water. They do not need the warmth of a fire. All they need are jobs to do and a blacksmith to fix them when they break. The people work so the folk can drink their moonshine, fish a little, and throw horseshoes. But once Sam starts to wonder why the world is like this, his life will never be the same.

“To read their stories felt to me the way I suspect other people feel hearing jazz for the first time,” recalls Curtis Sittenfeld of her initial encounter with the Best American Short Stories series. “They were windows into emotions I had and hadn’t had, into other settings and...

Would you kill to save a life? In order to save those closest to him, Tristan has stepped closer to darkness. In order to save Tristan, Simon must do the impossible. When Monty uses blood magic, he enters a schism - which puts him, and everyone close to him, in mortal danger. His use of blood magic has alerted the Black Orchid, a mage sect tasked with apprehending and eliminating dark mages. Now, Simon, with help from Monty’s closest allies and family, must find a way to stop him from going over to the darkness.

There’s no place like home...but they’re not headed to Kansas. The Sanctuary is the hidden home of the Golden Circle-a sect of powerful mages. It’s a sacred place of learning, magic, and deep secrets. When Tristan discovers his father, Connor Montague is being held prisoner, he vows to return to the Sanctuary and release him. There’s only one problem. The Sanctuary has been taken over by Mage Oliver. An Elder who has unleashed the magistrates and promises to destroy Tristan the moment he steps foot on the mountain.

Hiram Taine is a handyman who can fix anything. When he isn't fiddling with his tools, he is roaming through the woods with his dog, Towser, as he has done for as long as he can remember. He likes things that he can understand. But when a new ceiling appears in his basement - a ceiling that appears to have the ability to repair television sets so they're better than before - he knows he has come up against a mystery that no man can solve.

Kage is missing. Alexander Kempthorne would prefer he stay that way. Life at the new-look Kempthorne & Co agency is difficult enough without adding a missing American to the mix. But John "Dom" Domenici won't abandon someone who was once their friend, even if Kage is "technically" an enemy. But as the team investigate Kage's disappearance, a traumatic, hidden past comes to light. And a missing person case soon turns into a fight for survival for Dom and Kempthorne, in a land not-so-free.

This provocative collection, edited by acclaimed media psychology writer Travis Langley and with a foreword by the legendary Stan Lee, examines the complex psychological and political choices made by Captain America and Iron Man throughout their careers, culminating in Marvel's superhero civil war which spreads far beyond the Avengers themselves. Why do Steve Rogers and Tony Stark see things so differently? What are their motivations? Is either one truly in the right? Captain America vs. Iron Man: Freedom, Security, Psychology analyzes the polar sides of this debate.

Lord Christmas Gale is a genius and a misanthrope, and, quite to his disgust, adored by all of society for his capacity to solve mysteries. When a man approaches him seeking help in locating a lost dog, Gale rebuffs him. But what begins with a missing dog ends in murder and intrigue—two of Gale’s favorite things, if it weren’t for the orphan that comes attached to them. Oh, and Benjamin Chant. The Honorable Mr. Benjamin Chant isn’t sure how he got swept up in Gale’s investigation, but there’s something intriguing about the man—a vulnerability the world doesn’t notice.

The Appalachians are an ancient and mysterious mountain range, whose peaks at one time rivaled the Himalayans. The mysteries of these mountains have been cataloged by Native American tribes and settlers alike. One of these mysteries is that Bigfoot inhabits these parts. Building off his book, Tracking the Stone Man: West Virginia's Bigfoot, Dr. Russell Jones, a certified master naturalist, lifelong outdoorsman, and longtime Bigfoot researcher, has put together one of the most complete examinations of these creatures in Appalachia with The Appalachian Bigfoot.

If you've ever picked up a hymn book, the chances are that you've sung a song written by a blind girl - and not just any blind girl. As a young child, Fanny Crosby knew nothing of the sighted world around her but that didn't stop her interacting with nature, experiencing the thrill of God's creation. She held her grandmother's hand, but she thought that was because Grandmother needed her help not the other way around.

The Dark Council threatens everything Simon holds dear. They want to erase Monty, kill Peaches, and remove Simon's immortality - permanently. When Ken, Michiko's brother asks the Montague & Strong Detective Agency to find her, they must act - before the Dark Council implodes in violence. Now, Monty and Simon must travel to Japan, find Michiko, and stop the Blood Hunters before they eliminate an ancient vampire, without becoming the next target! Will they find Michiko in time? Will they stop the Blood Hunters? Jump into the next Monty & Strong adventure to find out!

Partridge has escaped the safety of his father's empire and left the Dome, where his people - the Pures - have sheltered for so long. He has ventured into the destroyed world inhabited by the Wretches, who live crippled by their injuries. Pressia, a Wretch, is desperate to decode the secrets of the past and, together with Partridge, she must seek out the answers that will save all their futures.

Verity Jameson's day switches from mundane to disastrous when she runs down a stranger with her car. Fortunately for Vee, she can't kill Death. Death, who just happens to be one of the Four Horsemen, and he's looking for her. The Four Horsemen spend life preventing the end of the world, not bringing on an apocalypse. As gatekeepers of the portals that exist between the human world and other realms, the team fight to keep the portals closed and the supernatural forces under control. Without their fifth member, the Four Horsemen are losing the battle.