Showing results by author "A J F" in All Categories

After a terrible mass shooting at Cicero’s Circus, the evil presence responsible for the carnage is taken in by a doomsday cult lying in wait for such an opportunity. The village struggles to get back to normal in the aftermath of the shooting. The massacre was the final straw for many inhabitants, triggering a mass exodus. To those who know the truth - that a malevolent god unleashed its wrath upon the village - it’s only a matter of time before events repeat themselves. Venus McKenzie ventures deeper into the pit of secrets left in death’s wake....

As the invention of the automobile enabled quicker travel and enhanced the lives of the early motorists, it also gave new impetus to a generation of story writers. Automobiles were unusual, unfamiliar beasts. They combined speed and danger with an uncanny ability to break down at unexpected moments, catapulting the unhappy traveller into new adventures, or thusting mystery strangers onto the inhabitants of remote houses.

Cole Riker is a Slip Runner. A contractor tasked with finding alien salvage in exchange for credits. For an ex-smuggler like Cole, there’s a catch: Don’t break the terms of parole. That means doing things by the book. Find salvage, turn it in, get paid. But everything changes when a retrieval mission lands him in a previously unknown sector. There, he finds the material he’s been sent to recover, along with something more. A brand-new form of ancient alien life.

Cole Riker is a free man. Or close enough. He no longer has the weight of his past hanging over him, threatening to put him away for the rest of his days. All it took was finding an unknown alien lifeform and agreeing to escort it back to its homeworld. Except his newfound luck doesn’t want to last. Gray doesn’t remember how to get home, and all the evidence says his people abandoned him after an unknown threat came calling. And that’s only the beginning.

Now that August Walton is dead and new information has come to light, Cole Riker and his team of misfits are finally back on the cosmic highway to another unknown location. This time they might actually have a shot at completing the mission and getting back home in one piece. Victory isn’t all it seems, however.

Cole and his crew are no strangers to bad breaks. That's just life. With a war waging in Anypsian territory, it doesn't matter that their task is complete. Gray is family, and you don't turn your back on family. His memories remain elusive, and enemy forces continue to work behind the scenes in their quest for power. To stop them, Cole teams up with the shadowy organization known as Chaos.

Gray has been taken captive and become the host of a Controller. But not for long, not if Cole has anything to say about it. Determined to recover his hijacked crew member, he sets out to do what he does best: raise hell and kick ass.

For countless generations, the inhabitants of the village named Elnubrium have passed down one rule: Never enter the forest that surrounds them. Hidden deep beyond its borders is a world full of secrets and wonders to behold, but also death to those that don't belong. However, the village is slowly dying; blocked by impassable mountains and the ancient forest, there isn't enough room to provide for people of Elnubrium. If something isn't done soon, drastic measures will be taken to preserve the current way of life in the village.

The lives of the sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine are the stuff of legend. Her daughters, however, are less well known, and the fascinating personalities of her daughters-in-law have been almost entirely overlooked, as have those of the daughters she bore Louis VII of France. The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine redresses this balance and showcases the lives, travels, and careers of these ten very different women, who formed a great international network of political alliances that linked their parents, siblings, husbands, and children all across Europe and the Holy Land.

An online flirtation can have horrific consequences, as detective Louise Rick discovers when she is called to an idyllic Copenhagen neighborhood where a young woman has been left bound and gagged after a profoundly brutal rape attack. Susanne Hansson met her rapist on a popular dating website. But the man is hiding behind a labyrinth of false pseudonyms, and neither Susanne - nor the police - have been able to trace his true identity. With the Internet as his playground, the rapist will almost certainly strike again if Louise can't unmask him before it's too late.

After escaping from the colony ship in a faraway system, Cole has uncovered sinister evidence of August Walton's oppression: a castoff civilization living in the past and forced to comply with the Eternal leader's unjust edicts. It doesn't take long for Cole to realize that the planet has its own secrets. Navigating lies and half-truths leads to a brewing rebellion led by the one person who might hold all the answers he seeks. But, as any good Renegade knows, nothing's ever easy.

Phillipsport, Maine, is a quaint and peaceful seaside village. But when hundreds of creatures pour out of the ocean and attack, its residents must take up arms to drive the beasts back. They are the Clickers, giant, venomous, bloodthirsty crabs from the depths of the sea. The only warning to their rampage of dismemberment and death is the terrible clicking of their claws. But these monsters aren't merely here to ravage and pillage. They are being driven onto land by fear.

In this modern classic, Frank Sheed, renowned Catholic author and lecturer, shows us how to know Christ as he actually lived among his people. Through the lens of the Gospel, Sheed shines a light on his relationships and interrogates how and why he was seen as he was, deepening our knowledge and strengthening our faith along the way.

Despite a warning to return home, Cole isn't about to leave his allies before their little slug infestation has been dealt with. This time, he plans to take the fight to them. Of course, when humans make plans, the powers that be just sit back and laugh.

Join the last vestiges of Humanity and their alien allies (the reptilian Thrynn, the insectoid Velox, and the plant-based Elowan) as they attempt to carve out their own territory in a sector of space filled with wondrous opportunity and deadly threats. Brave explorers seek out new worlds to colonize while merchants cruise from starport to starport, their holds laden with exotic goods. Not all in this futuristic setting have noble intent. For every prospector and trader attempting to make a difference, a dozen pirates, smugglers, and mobsters engage in all manner of criminal enterprise.

Forty breathtaking short stories of gripping adventures, secrets and strange conspiracies. 'The Dust That Was Barren' by P. C. Wren. 'The Deserter' by Stacy Aumonier. 'The Lighthouse on Shivering Sand' by J. S. Fletcher. 'The Secret of the Smoked Spectacles' by William Le Queux. 'The 39 Steps' by John Buchan. 'Three Pennyworth of Luck' by Basil Murray. 'The Secret of Dr. Vaux’s Intrigue' by William Le Queux. 'A Thread of Scarlet' by J. J. Bell. 'How I Became a Secret Agent' by Dr. A. K. Graves.

A street cleaner walks into the middle of Trafalgar Square and blows himself up. No mere act of terrorism. The explosion rips open a crater to reveal the underground headquarters of ARKANE — the ultra-secret British agency tasked with investigating the supernatural. Within moments, armed commandos rappel into the breach, blow open ARKANE’s vault, and steal a single box containing an ancient relic linked to the Indian god Shiva.

In mid-2020, I was not okay—and I didn't know how to find my way out of that darkness. But I could put one foot in front of the other until I figured it out. So, after tackling my fears of what might happen, I walked the Pilgrims’ Way from Southwark Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, England. The following year, in October 2021, as I recovered from COVID-19, I walked the St Cuthbert’s Way from Melrose in Scotland to Lindisfarne, Holy Island, on the north-east coast of England.

When William the Conqueror died in 1087, he left the throne of England to William Rufus . . . his second son. The result was an immediate war as Rufus's elder brother Robert fought to gain the crown he saw as rightfully his; this conflict marked the start of 400 years of bloody disputes as the English monarchy's line of hereditary succession was bent, twisted, and finally broken when the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, fell at Bosworth in 1485.

Mortimer Moorecook, retired Wall Street raider, avid collector, is losing his fight against cancer. With weeks to live, a package arrives at the door of his hillside mansion—an artifact he paid millions for…a hominoid skull with elongated teeth, discovered in a farmer's field in the Romanian countryside. With Shanna, his beautiful research assistant looking on, he sinks the skull's razor sharp fangs into his neck, and immediately goes into convulsions.