Showing results by narrator "Chris Patton" in All Categories

Gay bookseller and reluctant amateur sleuth Adrien English's writing career is suddenly taking off. His first novel, Murder Will Out, has been optioned by notorious Hollywood actor Paul Kane. But when murder makes an appearance at a dinner party, who should be called in but Adrien's former lover, handsome closeted detective Jake Riordan, now a Lieutenant with LAPD - which may just drive Adrien's new boyfriend, sexy UCLA professor Guy Snowden, to commit a murder of his own!

In Great Leaders Grow, a woman named Debbie Brewster becomes a mentor to a young man named Blake, as he embarks on his own career. Together, they explore four ways that leaders must keep growing, both on the job and off. Within their story are valuable lessons for anyone who desires both professional success and personal fulfillment.

The Stoker Award-winning editor of the acclaimed, eclectic anthology The New Dead returns with 21st Century Dead and an all-new lineup of authors from every corner of the fiction world, shining a dark light on our fascination with tales of death and resurrection - and with zombies!

Can humanity survive what it never saw coming? On October 15 at 2:15 a.m. Earth vanished. A scattered few woke alone in a world with no rules, other than survival at any cost. These survivors aren't truly alone... Someone or something is watching them. And waiting... Strangers unite. Sides are chosen.

Sagara Sousuke isn't your typical high school student. He reads military enthusiast magazines; he responds to questions with "affirmative;" he brings grenades to school in his bag. Though everyone at school takes him for a hopeless military geek, Chidori Kaname thinks there might be something more to him. When their plane is hijacked in the middle of a field trip, Kaname's instincts will prove correct: Sousuke is an elite, mech-piloting mercenary... and he's here to protect her!

Dark Ride is a collection of short fiction by one of the brightest writers in the genres of horror and dark fantasy. These stories range from the horrific to the surreal, and prove Michael Laimo to be a compelling stylist and relentless storyteller. None have been collected previously, and some are original to this volume.

Kaname is in the doldrums: There's just one week until the end of summer vacation, and she hasn't done anything interesting! Fortunately, Sousuke is here to provide a little adventure by offering her a trip to Merida Island. But what starts for Kaname as a simple trip to learn more about the mystery surrounding her quickly snowballs into a firefight in a chemical weapons facility, a reunion with a mortal enemy, and a battle for control of a runaway submarine! However things turn out, at least she can't claim that her summer was uneventful.

Listeners know that few authors are able to create an atmosphere of unease and terror as well as Oates, a fact confirmed by the four novellas presented here. All the novellas in this collection revolve around the theme of love gone wrong - horribly, shockingly wrong.

Dane Gareis is a wealthy, reclusive young man with a traumatic past, but a spine of steel. When his father is killed in a mysterious plane crash, Dane carries on the family business and continues his passion for the very antiquity that got his father murdered - a golden sarcophagus belonging to an ancient cult known as the Ydrath. Soon, the Ydrath threaten him as well, and Dane seeks to hire a bodyguard he can trust. Someone who can protect him, and someone who will respect his boundaries.

Seventeen-year-old Cardinal has escaped the virus that ravaged his town, leaving its victims alive but without their memories. Choosing to remain in the quarantined zone, he cares for a group of orphaned kids in a mountain camp with the help of the former brutal school bully, now transformed by the virus into his best friend. But then a strong-willed and mysterious young woman appears, and the closed-off world Cardinal has created begins to crumble.

In the title story, a white aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic - she has a handgun stowed away in her purse, just in case. But when she turns to confront her black male shadow, the situation isn't what she expects. In "The Rescuer" a promising graduate student detours to inner-city Trenton, New Jersey, to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers.

Liam Rush has never ventured too far outside the fences of his family farm, so college is a pretty big deal for him. Now he can finally claim his own identity - one that doesn't involve football, hunting, farm work, or four overbearing brothers. But when he finds himself falling for the androgynous dancer at Trybe, where he works as a bouncer, things get confusing. He's never been attracted to guys before. Not really. And what would the folks back home say if they knew?

With the defeat of Gauron, Sousuke's life has entered a comfortable rhythm. He's adjusting to school—the occasional car bomb false alarm notwithstanding—and balancing his newly-found normalcy with the needs of his mercenary life. He's even started to turn his thoughts toward the future—a future that might involve Kaname. But that future will soon face a threat, not from North Korean soldiers, Italian mobsters, or Russian Spetsnaz... but from the hierarchy of Mithril itself!

On orders from Mithril, Sousuke has been forced to abandon Kaname to focus on learning the secrets of the Arbalest and the lambda driver.

Peren LaMascares has been trapped in the mansion on the hill for too many years to count. He needs a LaMascares’ heir to free him and bring about the family’s - and world’s - dark destiny. He finds that heir in the innocent, unsuspecting Justin. Peren leads Justin into a world of sex, magic, and old gods. Will Justin abandon all the morals he’s ever had so that he can have the lust-filled passion that Peren offers forever?

When words of love do not come to you on their own, then listen to these letters. Complete, actual love letters of great men like Lord Byron, John Keats, and Voltaire. Leaders like Henry VIII, George Washington, and Napoléon, who wrote to his beloved Joséphine, "I awake consumed with thoughts of you...." Artists like van Gogh, Mozart, and Beethoven, who famously penned, "Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved...."

On his first day of college, all Jeremy Miller can think about is getting away from his hellish home life, making the wrestling team, and finally getting a real boyfriend. He's sick to death of being used by closeted football players who are too afraid to admit they like guys. What he doesn't count on is losing his mind over the gorgeous, golden-eyed wrestling captain who needs to keep their attraction a secret at all costs.

Latino linebacker Emilio Madero has a huge crush on the new backup quarterback. He's perfection in motion with his lean, muscled body and rich-boy good looks. But there's no way in hell Emilio is going to do anything about it. He'll just have to be content with fantasizing about the guy of his dreams and watching him from afar, because hitting on another player is out of the question. That is until Andrew turns the tables and makes the first move. Then all bets are off as the two of them drift into uncharted territory.

Dan Fisher is a fun-loving slacker from SSU with a passion for partying and dancing. When rich girl Avery Wakefield offers him a brand-new designer wardrobe in exchange for posing as her boyfriend, he reluctantly agrees. He hates lying, but it's hard to turn down nice clothes and a chance to live in a historic mansion in Savannah for two weeks. What he doesn't count on is falling hard for her mysterious, straight brother.

Can humanity survive what it never saw coming? On October 15 at 2:15 a.m. Earth vanished. A scattered few woke alone in a world with no rules, other than survival at any cost. These survivors aren't truly alone... Someone or something is watching them. And waiting... Strangers unite. Sides are chosen.