Showing results by narrator "BJ Harrison" in All Categories

In the twenty-fourth century, Earth is vastly changed. Ecological and biological catastrophe have raged across the planet, but for the survivors, it is a world of plenty. Even the poorest live in abundance, and the upper class—the ascendant—command technological marvels.

Sunday Wells comes from a long line of powerful witches, but that doesn’t explain why she’s plagued by dark shadows everywhere she looks. It’s not a great way to live, especially for a preschool teacher with young, impressionable minds to watch over. Desperate to get control of her questionable powers, she gets help from the only reliable source she can think of: her very powerful great-aunt Alice Bishop. But what Sunni finds out about herself will change everything. 

An exhilarating, immersive journey into the Exclusion Zone of Chornobyl by one of Ukraine's most exciting young authors. The 1,000-square-mile Chornobyl Exclusion Zone is, for many, a symbol of total disaster: a reminder of shattered ideals and lost lives, now a toxic, dangerous no-man's-land. For Markiyan Kamysh, it became a site of pilgrimage. He and dozens like him call themselves 'stalkers': wild adventurers who sneak past border patrols to spend days getting lost in this apocalyptic environment of dense swampland and desolate villages.

After taking a job on a quiet Montana dude ranch, ex-cop Rylan Frederickson finds herself surrounded by unbelievably sexy cowboys. Too bad the one she wants is her boss . . . and the single dad of a four-year-old. It doesn't matter anyway, because after a recent tragedy, there's simply no more room in her heart. Letting a new woman into their life is the last thing Cole Haywood wants for him and his daughter, Birdie. But as Rylan's presence at Paint River Ranch breathes new life into his family, he can't ignore his growing attraction.

Bertie’s friends are stepping it up. In order to de-sticky their wickets, they are asking him to impersonate themselves to country relatives, adopt a wayward infant, and even steal a marginally libelous manuscript. And to top it all off, Jeeves himself details his surreptitious plans for the young master to make an impromptu speech at a girl’s school. What’s a spirited cove to do?

Four centuries in the future, the world is rich—nanomachines watch the health of the wealthy and manufacture food and gadgets for everybody—but no utopia, as we see in the lives of five very different people: a singing teacher, a news researcher, a police investigator, a politician, and a ruthless businessman.

America is fat and prosperous. We’ve warred with the world and come out on top. We’ve gotten rid of the riff-raff. A new era is arising, change is in the air, and to top it all off, the first Government Lethal Chamber is now open and ready for its first occupant. The future looks bright in 1895.

An assassin is sent back in time to prevent the ravings of a religious zealot which, if left unchecked, will lead to absolute catastrophe. A master of the “Silver Age” of science fiction, Philip K. Dick won the Hugo Award in 1963, and the John W. Campbell Memorial award in 1975. Though he lived most of his life in near poverty, he is behind some of the most recognizable science fiction stories to date, penning the stories behind the films Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, and The Adjustment Bureau.

After a meteorite strikes near a farmhouse outside of Arkham, livestock and plants begin to die. While the scientifically minded speak of discovering a new element, locals sense something more sinister is in the air. A pioneer of cosmic horror, Lovecraft had the ability to sharpen the intellect while causing chills to run down your spine.

When an aged watchmaker pits his two protégés against each other, the result is magnificent imperfection. The Rival Mechanicians has been lauded as one of the finest science fiction tales from the first half of the nineteenth century. The Western Literary Messenger declared it to be “above praise” when it was first published in 1847.

A wife’s indiscretion is answered with cruel estrangement. Yet when the couple meets again six years later in a train car, as two strangers traveling together, the Baron discovers the magnitude of his loss. Guy de Maupassant was a master of the short story, using every literary device and turn of phrase with masterful effect. A Meeting is an elegant tale that explores the consequences of unbridled, and bridled, passion.

The night’s stillness is broken as Dr. Petrie rushes out to care for a dying patient, the subtle machinations of villainy begin their work, and the nefarious Dr. Fu-Manchu again rears his insidious head in London. Arthur Henry Ward (Sax Rohmer) is best known for creating the criminal mastermind Dr. Fu-Manchu. The Wire Jacket contains the first three chapters of the novel The Return of Fu-Manchu, and can be listened to as a stand-alone story.

Bryan Dalyrimple returns to his hometown as a war hero after World War I. But after the ticker tape parades and back-slapping handshakes, he finds himself stuck in a dead-end job with little room for advancement, and frustration begins to mount. He decides to turn to the only option left for him—crime. Originally published in the 1920 short story collection Flappers and Philosophers, Fitzgerald shines a light on the sentiment toward the returning doughboys of World War I, and the dwindling opportunities awaiting them upon their return.

A country doctor visits the spacious house of a Baron. But when he arrives, he draws up in shock. Everything inside and outside of the house, down to the clothing of the inhabitants, is all the same color—white. Why is everything about the house eerily bloodless? Mary Fortune was one of the earliest female writers of crime fiction, and likely the first to write from the point of view of the detective. She enjoyed a prolific career in Australia, where she also wrote under the pseudonyms Waif Wanderer and W.W.

The bombastic Professor Challenger is convinced that a sentient being lurks in the mantle of the Earth. Aided by Edward Malone and Peerless Jones, he must drill down through the Earth’s crust to alert the creature of humankind’s existence. After his debut in The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle went on to develop the grandiloquent Professor Challenger in four other works. When the World Screamed is the fourth in the series, and a satisfying addition to the canon.

What must Ruscha do to secure the magic word that kills when it’s uttered? Taken from a Danish folk tale, and spiced up with lively characters and murky atmosphere, this short tale delivers some wonderful chills. Elizabeth Ellet wrote for the magazines, or periodicals in the mid-1800s, and the name of Mrs. Ellet was recognized in literary circles. Today, Ellet is perhaps known best for the scandal she leaked about Edgar Allan Poe’s rumored affair with Frances Sargent Osgood when both were married to other people.

A Christmas ball sets the plans in motion for the wealthy Julian Mastakovich, for an immensely wealthy business man has just announced that his daughter has a dowry of 300,000 rubles. First published in 1848, and adapted into a motion picture in 2000, Dostoyevsky shines a light on the business end of well-moneyed marriage. It begins when an 11-year-old girl gets an extravagant doll at a Christmas ball.

Something seems off. Lupin sensed it before it happened. When a simple burglary goes terribly wrong, and two of Lupin’s accomplices are sentenced to the guillotine, Lupin’s quest to free them reveals itself to be more twisted and darker than he’d ever imagined. Inspired by the infamous Panama scandals of 1892 and 1893, and expanding on the main concept in Poe’s The Purloined Letter, Leblanc weaves a thrilling tale of twists and turns with Lupin’s characteristic panache.

Everett’s brother rocked the world with his incredible musical talent. And Everett is…fine. But he’s okay with that. He’s a member of “a certain lovable class of men who never accomplish anything in particular”. But when traveling in the West, Everett meets a remarkable woman who is dying, and discovers that she has a history her brother, he gives her the greatest gift of all during her final days—the gift of understanding.

A seasoned, award-winning professional money manager delivers an eye-opening and insightful take on a frequently overlooked - and critically important - investing strategy. The author walks listeners through a crash-course in how to take full advantage of the greatest opportunity for wealth accumulation: a bull market. Unloved Bull Markets is the perfect book for investors who seek to base their decisions on data and logic, rather than fears and intuition, and want to focus on the profitable climb instead of distressing worries.