Showing results by narrator "John Pirhalla" in All Categories

Beneath the light of three moons, the world of Aster Fall lies shattered. Classes are broken, Outsiders are invading, and the future is unknown. The ancient guardians have left and no one knows where they have gone. The fate of the world lies with one young man. Sam Hastern. His family has been cursed by a broken class for the last fifty years. No one has ever managed to level it, condemning them to the lowest paying jobs and life in a barren village. It’s called Battlefield Reclaimer.

Having passed his first test at the Academy, most believe Tolan has proved he belongs. Only Tolan knows the truth: that his shaping required power from the borrowed bondar — and possibly from the elementals themselves. If he can’t find a way to shape without one, he’ll be expelled from the Academy. When he intervenes to stop another attack on the city, he once again finds himself in the middle of the battle between Terndahl and the Draasin Lord. Worse, because of his continued reliance on the bondars, he begins to fear he might be responsible for releasing elementals.

Gloria Burtzlaff feared for her life one day back in April of 1991 when her abusive husband, Larry, drunk and violent, slapped her, hit her, and began pelting her with glasses. After he tried to drown her in a tub, she got the family shotgun and confronted him in his underwear. “Larry, I’m going to kill you,” she declared. Defense lawyers would later claim he lifted a glass as if to say, “Have at it, sister.” Have at It, Sister is a true-crime tale about Gloria, a South Dakota woman who shot her abusive husband and was put on trial in a precedent-setting case.

Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonise the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there's a mission that's too dangerous - even suicidal - the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. Mickey signed on to escape from both bad debts and boredom on Midgard. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal...and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.

Gavin has left the only friends he’d ever made to study his El’aras magic. Though he may share their heritage, he quickly learns that he’s not El’aras. When an attack targets them, and has the ability to counter any El’aras ability, Gavin is all that prevents certain devastation. Understanding the attack and who is behind it leads Gavin to uncover the truth about his mentor - and there is much Tristan never shared. There has been another Champion, and he’ll stop at nothing to claim a destructive power he believes he’s fated to control. Only Gavin stands in his way.

Frank Szatowski hasn't seen his daughter Maggie in years, and it breaks his heart every day. So when she calls him out of the blue, to tell him that she's getting married and he's invited, Frank is overjoyed. But as the wedding weekend gets underway, it becomes clear to Frank that although they have spared no expense, there's something strange about Maggie's fiancé.

Round one of the Eternia Beta run ends with the Task Manager getting disabled by the Administrator. Without the Task Manager’s nefarious influences, Eternia comes to life as warm hugs and sweet sunshine beat back The Pale.

The buried contents of a Nazi train. An aging SS mass-murderer - with one last unexpected sting in his tail. And the war secrets of a US presidential hopeful’s Jewish family, hidden in London for 70 years. Joe Johnson is more than intrigued when he learns of a link between the financing for the presidential candidate’s campaign, the Nazi train, and a ruthless British blackmail plot. But the investigation becomes bigger and more deeply personal than Johnson expects when it turns out the SS Holocaust killer escaped his net years earlier.

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she's not only North Carolina's richest woman, she's also its most notorious. In the aftermath of her death, that estate - along with a ten-figure fortune and the demands of being a McTavish - pass to her adopted son, Camden. But to everyone's surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money - and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Ten years later, a summons in the wake of his uncle's death brings him back into the family fold at Ashby House.

As executioner within Verendal, Finn takes on more responsibility, especially now that he’s saved the kingdom from repeated attack. When protests erupt within Verendal, those from the poorer sections clashing with Archers, Finn finds himself investigating a very different kind of crime than he’s ever pursued, one that might involve witchcraft that he doesn’t understand. This time, his usual tactics might not be enough. Finn must find those responsible before the city falls into chaos, but it might be too late to keep the violence from spreading throughout the kingdom.

The arrival of a dangerous sorcerer forces Gavin to confront his past. As Gavin works with the El’aras to master his connection to the ring, he learns of an El’aras prophecy that speaks of the Shard and a Champion. One must destroy the other. Though Gavin doesn’t believe in prophecy, he can’t deny that he’s caught up in something greater than he understands - and begins to suspect he’s been guided toward his fate. The arrival of a powerful sorcerer tests Gavin’s belief.

Chicago, sometime. Two people meet in the armory of the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. After their meeting, those things do not change. Everything else, however, is slightly different.

American History lecturer Paul Mahan was looking for a little peace and quiet. A place to recover from his personal demons and pursue his academic career. But when he moves into the newly refurbished Rookwood Apartments, he soon finds himself trapped in a living nightmare. Deep beneath the old apartment building, the stones of its foundation have been infused with decades of pain and bloodshed. A dark legacy hangs over Rookwood...a curse Paul cannot escape, no matter how hard he tries.

Charlie Travers didn’t ask to be the leader of a rebellion…but no one else wanted the job. Now that he’s gathered an army and armed them with the deadliest starfighter ever made, the legendary Vanguards, he just needs one more thing: someone who knows how to fly the things. Unfortunately, no one has been behind the stick of a Vanguard in hundreds of years, since the end of the war that threw the galaxy into chaos. Their only hope lays in the legends of a crashed ship, a fighter crew frozen in stasis for centuries.

A British police chief joins the list of high-profile Northern Ireland sniper victims. Tension rises as the US president prepares to visit. And the 29-year mystery around an IRA killer's gruesome death deepens. Ex-CIA war crimes investigator Joe Johnson is called in as the sniper's body count rises. But with the motive unknown, the clock is ticking down as the president and UK prime minister prepare for a G8 world summit near Belfast.

Finn has served the king as journeyman executioner, but the time has come for a testing with the executioner court. Regardless of the outcome, he will no longer serve in Verendal.

War crimes investigator and ex-CIA officer Joe Johnson is more than intrigued when he learns of a link between the financing for the presidential candidate's 2012 campaign, the Nazi train, and a ruthless blackmail plot. But the investigation becomes bigger and more deeply personal than Johnson expects when it turns out the SS Holocaust killer escaped his net years earlier. Soon, there are high-level intelligence agencies and criminal networks combining across three continents against Johnson and his two female colleagues.

In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.

A ragtag posse must hunt down a witch through a wild west beset by demons and ghosts--where death is always just around the bend--in this new supernatural horror by bestselling author Alex Grecian.

Surviving isn't living, even for an Expendable. Mickey7's antimatter gambit paid off. He's out of the Expendable game and doing whatever else he can to help support the threatened colony on the ice world Niflheim. But the colony now desperately needs the one thing he doesn't want to give them: the antimatter in the bomb he claimed the alien creepers have. Without it, the colony won't survive the coming years. With it, the colony leader can finally get rid of Mickey7 for good.