Showing results by narrator "James Cronin" in All Categories

Swordsman Caltus Talienson, sorceress Bith, Hathor the troll, and the elf Endril band together to battle the forces of the Dark Lord of Mistwall, an evil force that has so far decimated the defenders of the Westwoods.

His abductors forced him to a lying position in the box, placed a lid on top, jammed in four lengths of 3/4-inch plastic pipe for breathing tubes, and started shoveling in dirt to fill the hole. To cover their handiwork, they scattered some worn-out tires over the burial site. Then they drove away.

There was no distress call, no warning. The airliner and its 115 passengers and crew simply vanished. Get the story behind the detective work that solved the mystery.

Presenting the best real-life military stories from its recently digitized archives, Reader's Digest continues its nearly century-long commitment to publishing gripping content and begins another great tradition here: supporting our troops.

In the sequel to The Phoenix in Flight, Brandon vlith-Arkad, who fled the Mandalic Palace and his old life only hours ahead of assassination, is now heir to the Panarchy. He wants only to rescue his father, the Panarch. But everyone wants a piece of him. The Dol'jharians, who smashed the Panarchy and took his father prisoner. A Rifter pirate and her crew, who helped him escape a doomed planet - twice - and now wonder what to do about a royal prisoner with the price of ten planets on his head.

Smith and Trowbridge describe the flavor of their five-book space opera Exordium as a cross between Star Wars and Dangerous Liaisons with a touch of the Three Stooges. With its fast-moving blend of humor and horror, of high-tech skiffy and the deep places of the human heart, The Phoenix in Flight launches the reader into a complex, multi-layered universe of Brandon nyr-Arkad, dissolute youngest son of the ruler of the Thousand Suns.

Alfred of St. Ruan's Abbey is a monk and a scholar, a religious man whose vocation is beyond question. But Alfred is also, without a doubt, one of the fair folk, for though he is more than seventy years old by the Abbey's records, he seems to be only a youth. But Alfred is drawn from the haven of his monastery into his dangerous currents of politics when an ambassador from the kingdom of Rhiyana to Richard Coeur de Leon is wounded and Alfred himself is sent to complete the mission.

On the planet Nuala, the scam that beguiling free-trader Silver has come to join has just been blown to the skies, along with the throne lines of three sovereign nations. The last male heir of one throne line, Sheel Atare, is unprepared to rule, but he's quick to seize allies wherever he can - like the beautiful and dangerous Silver.

In Modern Families, Joshua Gamson brings us extraordinary family creation tales - his own included - that illuminate this changing world of contemporary kinship. Combining personal memoir and ethnographic storytelling, Modern Families tells a variety of unconventional family-creation tales - adoption and assisted reproduction, gay and straight parents, coupled and single, and multi-parent families - set against the social, legal, and economic contexts in which they were made.

In the crypt-like depths of Ochre Mountain, an evil vampire rises from a slumber of centuries. Eager to pay homage to the Dark Lord, he unleashes a legion of zombies to conquer the land of the living, and to at least breach the boundary of the Dark Divide.

The defense of Castle Elfwood, hidden in an enchanted forest in Albion, from barbarians and the unearthly Orcs depends on four young people - a lord, a magician, a druidess, and an orphan - in the first book of the series.

After a year of grieving her divorce and living a life permanently stuck on pause, Laila Richardson is finally ready to have her own happy ending. Then a listing for a quaint cottage in another town answers her prayers for a fresh beginning - one that will bring her closer to her new boyfriend, Ben. Unfortunately, in her small town of Fairfield, Georgia, letting go of the past is virtually impossible. No one wants to see her move on, including the man who destroyed her heart to begin with.

In Polar City - the capital of Hagar, one of the planets in the forlorn Star Republic - a human-dominated entity is caught in the power politics between the enormous Interstellar Confederation and the Coreward Alliance. The leaders of these entities keep their alien eyes on the Republic in the hopes of one day adding its territory to theirs. When an alien member of the Confederation is found murdered in Hagar's public square, the situation turns dangerous fast.

Nick Moulin is a rational, thinking man, who one day acquires a fascinating old book that brings him a dream of a beautiful woman and an adventure of long ago.

THE PRINCE: Spoiled, reckless, heedless of any wants or needs but his own, sentenced to a terrible fate for his sins against man, woman, and God. THE STALLION: Equally spoiled, equally reckless, and bound until death to a bitter servitude. THE TURK'S HEIR: Fiercest of rivals, most devoted of enemies, whose armor hides a secret. Come into the world of the Arabian Nights, where magic and mystery meet; where justice lays a sinner low, and the magic of the heart turns hate to love.

Seattle, 2078. The future hasn't been kind to the spirit of humanity; commercial obsession and technological fetishism rules the day, religion and belief has died screaming in the fires of war, and what remains is moral decrepitude. Life in the future is hard on the soul. As an agent of the Industrial Security Bureau, Thomas Walken knows that better than anyone. His job is to keep the worst kind of black-market technology out of the hands of citizens, technology born out of the shadowy nation nicknamed Wonderland.

For Erik Reece, life, at last, was good: He was newly married, gainfully employed, living in a creekside cabin in his beloved Kentucky woods. It sounded, as he describes it, "like a country song with a happy ending". And yet he was still haunted by a sense that the world - or, more specifically, his country - could be better. He couldn't ignore his conviction that in fact the good ol' USA was in the midst of great social, environmental, and political crises.

To salvage his broken-down ranch, near-bankrupt Ben Pearce devises a hunting scheme, the consequences of which he cannot begin to imagine. The prey: three rare, fierce cats - a leopard and two mountain lions caught in the wild. The predators: an arrogant Texas millionaire, his beautiful but disturbed wife, and their near-psychopathic teenage son. Each of them will hunt one of the animals with only Ben as guide: first the wife, then the son, and finally the Texan.

Nathaniel Carter was stunned by the verdict: guilty - with 25 years to life in prison. To the police, it was an open-and-shut case. To Carter's family and a few concerned friends, it would become a crusade for justice.

This heartfelt story is about the lengths one man will go to and the risks he will take to save his family. But Dan doesn’t just want to save his failing bookstore and his family’s finances--he wants to become someone. Dan is also an obsessive list maker, and his story unfolds entirely in his lists, which are brimming with Dan’s hilarious sense of humor, unique world-view, and deeply personal thoughts. When heard in full, his lists paint a picture of a man struggling to be a man, a man who has reached a point where he’s willing to do anything for the love of his life.