Showing results by narrator "Neil Hellegers" in All Categories

During the pandemic, our homes and apartments have transported us to new places, different experiences, and changed our understanding of ourselves and others. This collection of 12 tales explores those journeys through the lens of fantasy and science fiction, accentuating the strange and unexpected to reveal the relatable, human dimensions of our continuing migration from what’s normal to a new normal...or even paranormal.

For teenagers Chris and Miles, working at the city zoo in the summer is a pretty sweet gig. They chase girls, smoke a little dope, and avoid thinking about their rapidly approaching futures. One is headed to college, and one to…who knows? But then the Zombie Apocalypse hits, and things get weird. Deadly animals, psychotic house painters, and a face-humping lemur named Sexy Rexy all get thrown into the mix, with plenty of laughs and chills to go around.

Jacobo's Rainbow is a historical literary novel set primarily in the 1960s during the convulsive period of the student protest movements and the Vietnam War. It focuses on the issue of being an outsider - the "other" - an altogether common circumstance that resonates with listeners in today's America. Written from a Jewish perspective, it speaks to universal truths that affect us all.

Adam and Thomas is the story of two nine-year-old Jewish boys who survive World War II by banding together in the forest. They are alone, visited only furtively every few days by Mina, a mercurial girl who herself has found refuge from the war by living with a peasant family. She makes secret journeys and brings the boys parcels of food at her own risk.

Angie is awakened by a midnight call from an officer with the Boise Police Department and thinks there must be a misunderstanding. The officer tells her that her husband was involved in a shooting at a local bar, but how can that be when her husband is sleeping right next to her? But when she turns to wake him, he isn’t there. Tessa is the 23-year-old bartender who escapes to a backroom storage closet during the shooting. When it comes to light that five people were killed, she is burdened with the question of why she survived.

Every year when families gather for the Passover holiday, the youngest child poses that question as part of the poetic Four Questions near the start of the Seder. The answers are no less than the story of a people bound in slavery, their suffering in a foreign land, and their ultimate liberation - the story of Passover. Here the Four Questions are presented with refreshing clarity, providing insight into the symbols and rituals of the holiday.

Isolated in the aftermath of tragedy, Erin Fullarton has felt barely alive since the loss of her young daughter, Korrie. Her estranged husband, Zac, a brilliant astrophysicist, seems to be coping better. Lost in his work, he's perfecting his model of a stunning cosmological phenomenon, one he predicts will occur today. But when Erin receives a phone call from her daughter's school, the same call she received 500 days earlier when Korrie was still alive, Erin realizes something is happening. Or happening again.

Explosions rock London, Paris, and Washington. Casualties number in the thousands. The president orders his covert agencies to retaliate with full force. It's time to launch Operation Blowback. The Defense Intelligence Agency's Bridget Davenport was in the strike zone when the terrorists attacked. Claiming responsibility is Al-Souri, a jihadist who has consolidated multiple extremist cells in Syria. He plans to establish his own rule and wage all-out war against the West. For Blowback to succeed, Bridget needs a covert operative to infiltrate Al-Souri's forces.

Although news of Christians being killed overseas hits major media outlets from time to time, the news quickly fades away while our fellow believers continue to suffer. Johnnie Moore, as he has done before, wants to awaken the church and American politicians to the daily horrors happening to Christians, focusing this time on Africa. While the world has been fixated on jihadist threats in the Middle East, terrorists from Nigeria to Kenya have had free reign to massacre on a scale far beyond that of the terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

In the feverish, money-making age of railroad barons, political machines, and gold rushes, corruption was the rule, not the exception. Yet the Republican mogul "Big Alex" McKenzie defied even the era's standard for avarice. Charismatic and shameless, he arrived in the new Alaskan territory intent on controlling gold mines and draining them of their ore. Miners who had rushed to the frozen tundra to strike gold were appalled at his unabashed deviousness. A Most Wicked Conspiracy recounts McKenzie's plot to rob the gold fields.

On the outskirts of a town too tired for its own happenings, the boys were found dead inside a tent. Three years later, their fathers have disappeared too. Ruth Fenn's son was the boy they blamed. For three years, Ruth has accepted her lot as pariah, focusing on her ailing mother and the children left in her care by the struggling single parents of North Falls, Vermont. But now the additional loss of her husband is too much to bear. As she edges closer to the truth, she begins to uncover some secrets that are better left buried.

What exactly is the difference between a love letter and a suicide note? Is there really any difference at all? These might be the questions posed by Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caitlin R. Kiernan’s 14th collection of short fiction, comprising 28 uncollected and impossible-to-find stories. Here are 28 tales of apocalypse and rebirth, of miraculous transformation and utter annihilation. Here is the place where professing your undying devotion might be precisely the same thing as signing your own death warrant or worse.

Telling the inspiring human story behind the creation of the Paralympics, this young listener's biography showcases a riveting narrative to honor the life of Ludwig Guttmann, whose work profoundly changed so many lives. Dedicating his life to helping patients labeled incurables, Ludwig Guttmann fought for the rights of paraplegics to live a full life. The young doctor believed - and eventually proved - that physical movement is key to healing, a discovery that led him to create the first Paralympic Games.

For centuries, a mysterious syndicate known as the Thirteen has staged a silent coup, infiltrating governments and manipulating the course of world events. It’s more powerful than any nation, deadlier than any army. The time has come for it to emerge from the shadows and claim the entire world as its own. And only FBI Special Agent James Mason and his longtime friends stand in its way. After narrowly preventing a global pandemic, Mason and his team discover an even deadlier threat has already been set into motion.

Locked in his dark cell, Greg lay awake in bed, fidgeting with the small cassette recorder; he knew well enough no one was going to come looking for him - not while he was in between jobs, and had traveled to an undisclosed location without telling anyone. What brought him here were rumors of an abandoned building there that was said to be part of a black site. Questionable as the lead was, the story seemed too good for an amateur journalist like Greg to pass up. And that, thanks to a case of mistaken identity, he was now incarcerated there as an inmate.

The infamous 11th-century warrior Hexen Sabbath is plucked from death and certain damnation by a being claiming to be an angel of the Lord, and finds himself dropped into contemporary Manhattan with no clothes, no weapons, no resources, and one mission - to track down and kill the living personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins before they bring about Armageddon. With time running out and his only ally a destitute art gallery owner, Sabbath must fight his way through New York's elite and challenge the world's most powerful man.

Liberty and justice for all is the bedrock of American democracy, but has America betrayed our founders’ vision for the nation? In When They Come For You, New York Times best-selling author David Kirby exposes federal, state, and local violations of basic constitutional rights that should trouble every American, whether liberal, conservative, or libertarian. Free speech, privacy, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, due process, and equal protection under the law are rights that belong to every American citizen but are being shredded at an alarming rate.

Years before his marriage to Olga Knipper and his self-imposed medical exile to Yalta, years before he even began writing the seminal works of dramatic literature for which he is renowned, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, to support his financially and physically struggling family, wrote stories...many, many stories. Starting in his early 20s, living in Moscow, he made a name for himself by capturing the peculiarities of Russian life through satire, humor, pathos, and passion. Myriad influences inspired his eventual words for the stage.

For too long, victims have been told to be quiet, to keep a secret, to be ashamed, to be blamed, and we now say, "No more." It is time to speak. It is time to form a chorus of voices that demand change. This anthology is a way to channel those experiences into something inspiring, moving, and encourages others to action.

Ted Finley is back on Earth, but humanity has lost control of the place he called home. With a world rendered unrecognizable by the power-hungry General, Ted and Erica have no choice but to look for reinforcements. But will the other conquered civilizations left in the dark souls' wake be enough to fight back? As the General continues to spread his evil across the Earth, there may only be one person who can keep him from taking over. Powerless and inexplicably alive, Dhiraj Patel remains unharmed behind enemy lines. Can he use his surprising influence to gain the upper hand?