Showing results by narrator "Todd Menesses" in All Categories

Harry White grew up in blue-collar Brooklyn, but the young man's charm, smarts, and good looks have helped him earn a place as an uptown junior executive. White's gifts have also made his love life easy, and he takes special pleasure in seducing married women. But when "Harry the Lover" is ready to grow up and leave his womanizing behind, White finds that suppressing his libido has dangerous consequences. His attempts at restraint awaken something sinister, causing White to seek excitement in a new form of violence and depravity.

Though Laric's grandmother has returned, he fears an ancient power has come with her. Searching for the means to help her leads Laric back to his home—where he finds mages targeting dragons, only now to drain away their potential. Laric must uncover the reason behind this attack to stop the Grand Mage and to save his grandmother. The key lies in the once potent protections that Laric had a hand in destroying. If he can't rebuild them, a greater danger than the Grand Mage will escape—and all the dragon potential Laric has bonded won't be enough to stop it.

Marvel Comics in the 1970s explores a forgotten chapter in the story of the rise of comics as an art form. Bridging Marvel's dizzying innovations and the birth of the underground comics scene in the 1960s and the rise of the prestige graphic novel and postmodern superheroics in the 1980s, Eliot Borenstein reveals a generation of comic book writers whose work at Marvel in the 1970s established their own authorial voice within the strictures of corporate comics.

Big Game Sniper follows Jared Moore, a sniper who finds himself transported to a strange world. He must navigate unfamiliar terrain, dangerous creatures, and a video game-like system that offers "enhancement and ascension" as he tries to survive and make his way in this magical new world, and gather some allies along the way. But is everything as it seems?

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was the worst environmental disaster in American history, a time when "black blizzards" of dust, some hundreds of miles wide, swept across the southern plains. Hundreds of people were killed. Thousands of farms were buried. Millions of refugees fled starvation and sickness in the plains only to face hatred and prejudice in California. In her 25th I Survived audiobook, Lauren Tarshis brings this desperate time of poverty and fear to life through the thrilling story of an eleven-year-old boy.

SNAFU: Contagion, featuring action-filled tales of viral, fungal and bacterial horror, from some of your favorite authors including New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry.

The Grand Mage's plan has been thwarted, but he and his allies still search for power, but Laric still doesn't know what he intends—only that he must be stopped. As Laric searches for answers, and his friends struggle to understand the nature of the newly formed dragon bond, he finds the link to the dragon Sashaak has begun to change. The dragons share memories, but there are parts of their shared memories they have lost—and that might be the key to what the Grand Mage intends. Power builds, and the dragons feel the rising influence. Soon all will feel that influence.

Why globalization failed so many Americans and how it still can be saved despite burgeoning economic nationalism. The triumphant globalization that began in the 1990s has given way to a world riven by conflict, populism, and economic nationalism. In The World’s Worst Bet, David J. Lynch offers...

Not everyone is happy with what Benjy and Marty are building. Rather, they're unhappy that they're not the ones in charge. The birth pangs of a new community are hard enough to navigate, but what happens when jealousy leads to a rivalry that could strangle this newborn wonder?

It seems like lifetimes have passed since Benjy and Marty watched the old world die. Not everyone's caught up with the changes. For the moment it seems they might be the only ones who truly understand that nothing will ever be the same again. They both know that won't last long. Dragons have emerged from their eons-long slumber and the world must come to terms with it or perish in fire. Panic and chaos spring up in the wake of these living natural disasters and people are looking for a safe place to hide from their winged overlords.

A chance meeting between Benjamin Draig and Martin "Marty" Ambrose suggests the potential for a great friendship. Both were with different groups of friends just outside of Moab, both on their way to hike through the mountains. But then things went horribly wrong. It's all Benjamin and Marty can do to stay alive when the earth opens beneath their feet, and they're swallowed by the mountain. As a fire-spewing monster emerges and spreads its wings to blot out the sky, Benjamin and Marty learn that the comfortable illusion of the world they knew is gone.

The orcs are thirsty. And so are Captain Frank Gerber's swords, but apparently, you can't murder your customers. Stuck with a nightclub after a job gone wrong, Frank has to figure out how to rebuild something he never even wanted. That's just the first of his problems. Frank's blades will have a taste of blood again, but first, he has to party with orcs, barter with gnomes, drink with dwarves, and make shady deals with the scum of Sankta Varath, the greatest city in all of Steelheart Kingdom. And that's just the first week.

Frank and his team have their work cut out for them. The club needs new guests, drinks, trophies, and employees, not to mention a good mopping of blood after every shift. Guests love him, but the bounty hunters aren't pleased at all with Frank's success. Hector, their leader, knows just what it takes to knock his former friend down a peg or two. Just when Frank thinks things can't get any crazier, he gets invited to a bizarre nightclub owner meeting. New alliances will have to be forged, and dangerous waters will threaten to swallow him.

You know the drill, right? Die in an unfortunate accident and then get sent before a sultry looking goddess who sets you up for reincarnation. Todd was all set to return to earth and give his soul another ride through the roller coaster called life when something extremely unfortunate happened: the Earth was destroyed by a giant meteor. Already primed for Reincarnation, he was given only one other option, but it involved him rising again in an unknown land where magic wasn’t just in the stories.

Clint Rogan and his team did it. They survived the initial hardships of Terraria One and came out much stronger than anyone would have imagined. The human starting capital of Grimford had been rebuilt, new contestants had been trained to participate in the blood sport that entertained the Galaxy, and team Dread grew to legend status. A new threat emerged and overshadowed everything they had worked for. It was larger than anything they could anticipate, a threat from the very ring surrounding Hadran.

In the swirling sewers beneath Arkham, excavators uncover a crystalline formation that hints at dark events from the city's past. As the discovery makes headlines, so too does a series of bizarre murders. With no leads, the Arkham police are always one step behind. Acting on a hunch, down-on-his-luck former journalist Andy Van Nortwick reunites with adventurer Jake Williams and struggling filmmaker Maude Brion to unearth the truth. The trio know of the supernatural horrors that lurk beyond this world, and the reality haunts them.

Mace and his allies set off on numerous perilous adventures to discover the location of the legendary Five Sisters. Their journeys lead them into the heart of the Spitrotz, the home of the black dragons, and high to the craggy peaks where the ice goddess dwells. With his allies finally gathered and the army assembled, Mace is ready to face the demon lord Altirax once and for all. But not all is as it appears. Someone has been tampering with the coding of the game since Mace first joined and the final battle will finally reveal the culprit and their intention.

After Peter's explosive battle against the head of the Bo clan, he, his cadre of lovers, and his loyal allies are on the move as the dark forces from the ancient past rise up throughout the Empire. While things seem bleak, Peter has one thing that no one else in this strange land has . . . He knows the truth. The truth of the Empire's hidden past, a thread of knowledge that leads him on the trail of the ancient evil that threatens his new family and his new home.

Through financial smarts, the internal power gained from cultivating wealth, and a heaping of raw cunning, Peter has found his way from lowly Gold clan slave to master of the Bo clan's fiscal empire and a beautiful collection of lovers and wives. But his true purpose in this strange realm of magic and martial arts remains unknown. Until now. As the tendrils of darkness begin to strangle the country, Peter will find out the truth. To survive the dangers ahead, he will need to break through to the next level of cultivation, all while weaving through the minefield of Imperial politics.

Exploring the diverse landscape of American life, the stories in Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories capture the lives of people caught between circumstance and their own natures or on the run from fate. Tom Piazza’s debut short story collection, originally published in 1996, heralded the arrival of a startlingly original and vital presence in American fiction and letters. Set in Memphis, New Orleans, Florida, Texas, New York City, and elsewhere, the stories echo voices from Ernest Hemingway to Robert Johnson in their sharp eye for detail and their emotional impact.