Showing results by narrator "Rudy" in All Categories

Are contemporary soldiers exploited by the state and society that they defend? More specifically, have America's professional service members disproportionately carried the moral weight of America's war-fighting decisions since the inception of an all-volunteer force? In this volume, Michael J. Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser examine the question of whether and how American soldiers have been exploited in this way. Robillard and Strawser offer an original theory of "moral exploitation".

Janzen Robinson is no longer a man torn between two worlds, having decided to come off the bench and dive head first into Cleveland's magical underworld. With his new partner and perpetually exhausted friend Grove, he's just starting to get a handle on all the supernatural happenings when disaster shows up at their doorstep.

Five years removed from a life as an apprentice to a group of heroes who battled supernatural evils, the once-promising student Janzen Robinson has become a package courier. He now works the daily grind, passing time at a hole-in-the-wall bar and living in a tiny run-down apartment on the south side of Cleveland, Ohio. Then from the ancient recesses of unyielding darkness known as the Abyss, a creature has been summoned: a Stalker, a predator whose real name must never be spoken. It's a bastardization of the natural order, a formidable blend of dark magic and primal tenacity.

When the Blackout arrives, Dax Harper finds himself alone and fighting for survival on the chaotic streets of New Orleans. He is on the run, desperately searching for his estranged sister as the riots intensify. An unexpected encounter with his ex-girlfriend thrusts Dax into a leadership position—one he's not sure he can accept. As the hours pass, the city floods, pitting Dax in an epic battle against time and a mysterious new enemy threatening the future of humankind.

Told from the fresh and personal perspective of twenty-six-year-old Crimson Education CEO and Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford graduate Jamie Beaton, Accepted! is an honest and practical guide on beating the odds and getting into Ivy League and other elite schools-the smart way. Beaton takes you behind the doors of the world's top college admissions offices, revealing the highly strategic selection processes applied by institutions whose reputations depend on the number of students they admit, or more pointedly, the tens of thousands that they don't.

Many companies fall into the trap of spending too much time and money on low performers, while high performers aren't getting the necessary resources, development opportunities, or rewards. In The Differentiated Workforce, the authors expand on their previous books, The HR Scorecard and The Workforce Scorecard, and recommend that you manage your workforce like a portfolio - with disproportionate investments in the jobs that create the most wealth. 

By turns tender and punk-tough, Shine of the Ever is a literary mixtape of queer voices out of 1990s Portland. This collection of interconnected short stories explores what binds a community of queer and trans people as they negotiate love, screwing up, and learning to forgive themselves for being young and sometimes foolish.

On a warm night in September 1985, teenagers Kimberly Dowell and Ethan Dixon were brutally murdered in Westside Park in Muncie, Indiana. Their killer has never been charged. Early on, police focused on a family member of one of the teens as a primary suspect. The investigation even ruled out fantastic scenarios, including a theory that the perpetrator was a Dungeons & Dragons devotee. The case grew cold. 

Arc kept his end of our bargain and helped me with my family's problem. Now it was time to return the favor. He's been on the run ever since waking up next to his dead on again/off again girlfriend. He swears he didn't kill her. I believe him. He also says she wasn't in his bed when he went to sleep. That's a harder pill to swallow. Arc is a very powerful witch in his own right. And from what I've seen, when he sets a ward, it sticks. So how did the killer not only get through his wards, but plant poor Sonya's body right next to him without him knowing it?

Return to the world of Wicked Lovely! Listen to an all-new Dark Court short story. "Love Hurts" catches up with Irial, Niall, and Leslie—and offers clues about the Wicked Lovely prequel novel Cold Iron Heart. Tales of Folk & Fey also includes "Old Habits" and "Stopping Time" (previously...

One moment everything is perfectly normal, and in the next the power grid across the entire United States goes down and sends the country back to the Stone Age. With the cities completely overwhelmed with death and destruction, the forests of the Pacific Northwest seem to be the only place of possible safety or refuge. That's what brothers Randall and Thomas think as they fight their way to their family's secluded cabin to locate their grandparents, parents, and cousins, only to instead find themselves proven completely wrong as a new deadly threat from the woods emerges.

Ceasefires have one big downside: They eventually come to an end. And when they do, once again game nodes are set ablaze, and platoons of Dark Faction soldiers threaten our customary world with destruction. The enemy has grown stronger and more numerous. To make matters worse, they also got their hands on even deadlier weaponry. They have learned painful lessons from previous encounters and adjusted their tactics accordingly.

Thalia Lyndhoven, until recently, was a Pack Princess. Not exactly spoiled, she was barely tolerated by anyone in her family, until an Elder came along and told her fathers, the leaders of the North American Pack, that she was at the center of a prophecy. Along the way, she's found her three mates, learned of the existence of three new races, and has discovered that the Devil is real, and his name isn't Lucifer, but Vulcun, and he doesn't have a tail or horns.

Thea Glenheim's new next-door neighbor turns her small town upside down. Trace Della's handsome, successful, and committed to helping high-risk boys. And he's changing things in ways a lot of people don't like. One in particular. Bad things begin happening on Trace's property, and troublemakers compete with each other to stop him in his mission to provide a place for kids who need help. All the while Thea is caught in the middle, between the people she's known all her life and this new man in town. He's a mover and shaker. She's a quiet piano teacher. Yet opposites attract, don't they?

Newly crowned as Queen of the Fae, and mother to a newborn hybrid, Thalia is about to take on her most daunting role yet: she's been ordained, by the Gods themselves, to bring down the Devil. Morningstar needs to be taken down, and she's the bada$$ to do it. If she can get her hands on him. But when certain situations come to light in the face of Armageddon, Morningstar suddenly doesn't look like the biggest, baddest SOB out there. That title belongs to someone else. Only trouble is, Thalia and her mates can't take out the Earth's true foe on their lonesome.

Some shadows are hard to shake. And someone has a mean sense of humor. And that person is springing nasty pranks around town. Who and why? And, more importantly, how can Keely Turner and Burke Sloan, the newest sheriff's deputy, stop the malicious prankster before someone gets hurt badly? 

Thalia Lyndhoven has the cojones to do what needs to be done to make things right in her pack. Nor is she afraid to dirty her hands or push her nose in where angels would fear to tread. With two of her three mates at her side, Thalia's life has never been brighter. For the first time, she's hopeful for tomorrow. She's freer than she's ever been, even if she does have the burden of a prophecy riding on her coattails. But then in walks mate number three. Not only does he have wings, a beautiful face, and an attitude, he has news. A second prophecy. 

"Hi Monty. Wanna see my python?" That's how I ended up in the bathroom of some dive bar with a stranger. Me, Monty Andrews, the quintessential virgin girl next door. I was so out of my element, but there was no denying our explosive attraction, even via text. Commence Operation Bang Each Other Out of Our Systems, because that was all it was - unfinished business. I had no intention of falling back into the sheets with the tattooed, muscly, dirty-in-the-best-kind-of-way single dad over and over... but I did. Everything was going great - until we discovered I was his son's teacher.

Small-town Steadfast, Wisconsin, has spent the last six years raising funds to help a medical student stay in med school. In return, the student contracted to practice medicine in the local clinic for the next six years. Kirsi Royston is that doctor, and now, she must tell the town she is leaving at summer's end. In the midst of their conflict over Kirsi wanting to break the contract comes the unthinkable. Meth is creeping into the county, poisoning students at the local high school. And the local eccentric, a woman who has bullied the town for years, finds herself needing help.

With these captivating initial glimpses into her storytelling psyche, Jo Walton shines through subtle myths and reinvented realities. Through eclectic stories, subtle vignettes, inspired poetry, and more, Walton soars with humans, machines, and magic-rising from the every day into the universe itself.