Showing results by narrator "Lee Smith" in All Categories

The Wiccan has been plotting an attack against the Society for hundreds of years and has finally discovered the secret location of their home, the Sanctuary. Tom, Zoe, Charlie, Stephen, and Alexander are torn from their ordinary lives and thrown into their predestined roles as the new generation of Emissaries within the Order of the Society, guardians who protect the world from dark supernatural forces. These young heroes rally to survive with the help of the old generation, their Custodians, and the Great Cats to save humanity from the malevolence of the Wiccan.

The title poem, a series of sonnet-sized Zoom meetings - a classroom, a memorial service, an encounter with a new baby in the family - finds humor and pathos in our age of social distancing and technology-induced proximity. Salter shows too how imagination collapses time and space: In “Island Diaries”, the pragmatist Robinson Crusoe meets on the beach a shipwrecked dreamer from an earlier century, Shakespeare’s Prospero.

Ian Hart is the most notorious criminal in the country. Like the thief he is, he came in the dark and stole a night of my life. He left me with souvenirs. Disaster and fear are my new realities. I’ll forever look over my shoulder, terrified he’d return, because when he took me, he stole more than just a few hours of my time. His crime has consequences neither of us could’ve imagined. If I’m to escape the nightmare of my life, I have to outsmart him.

Once upon a time, a thief stole me in the middle of the night. He took what he wanted, gave me an illusion, and ripped it all away to claim his ultimate trophy. My heart may be physically weak, but fighting to live made me stronger. I won’t perish as easily as that. I’m turning the tables on him. After all, I learned from the best. I’m robbing him of what he stole from me.

In this anthology, we see from the point of view of patients, caregivers, and family members. Physician and writer Sarah Sasson has curated a collection that is international and unforgettable. This is not a book about death and dying. This is a book about life and how we live it. These stories reveal what is truly valued in this world and speak to the ferocity with which we love.

My love is wasted like gemstones in the dust, walked over by an oblivious shoe. It takes many suffering years and layers of mountains to squeeze carbon into a precious stone. Now that I’m polished and hard like a diamond, he doesn’t get to kick me back into the dirt. Men like him don’t love women like me. They don’t love. Period. But he made me. He’ll live with me. Because diamonds are forever.

Men like us, we see things. We do things, things that make us unfeeling. That’s the price of power and money, of living la belle vie and running the French mafia. Then she came along like a pretty wildflower pushing through the cracks on a dirty pavement - fragile yet resilient, a breath of beauty among the filth. She was supposed to be just another job, a nameless person I was to pluck from her life and hand to my brother, nothing but a pawn in the gamble of our diamond business.

Girls like me, we know how to survive. We each have our own little ways, but we acquire those skills at the same tender age. If you ask me how many times a person can die, I’ll tell you many times. As many times as a man stabs you in the stomach with betrayal and wrings out your heart with lies. Girls like me, we live. We don’t get a choice. We step over the cliff and fall. Eat, sleep, die, and repeat.

It's an all-too-common tale, told across just about every sales department around the world: The newest salesperson on the team has strong credentials and crushed it during the interview. But now that they're hired, they can't sell a thing! The top responsibility of a sales manager is not to make numbers. It’s to build, develop, and retain a high-performing sales team (so they can make the numbers). The biggest detriment to this objective is adding toxicity to the team. Part of this book discusses why sales managers should avoid hiring toxic salespeople and how.

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies with Sidney Noir. This collection comprises of all new stories set in Sidney, Australia, by 14 authors of crime fiction.... 

Rudyard Kipling’s best loved book, full of timeless and beloved tales of adventure. The story of Mowgli, the abandoned "man-cub" who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of Central India, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. As he embarks on a series of thrilling escapades, Mowgli encounters such unforgettable creatures as the bear Baloo, the graceful black panther Bagheera, and Shere Khan, the tiger with the blazing eyes.

Although this messenger was raised in the Christian tradition, A Message from God is deliberately written to sit outside of any particular religious doctrine. It stresses "relationship over religion," and consequently respects all religious traditions for their core purpose: developing a meaningful relationship with The Infinite.

On a bright June day in 1965, a dozen girls - classmates at a Blue Ridge women's college - launch a ramshackle raft on a trip down the Mississippi. Their journey, inspired by Huckleberry Finn, is duly reported in the Paducah, Kentucky newspaper. 35 years later, four of the "girls" reunite to cruise the river again. This time, it's on the luxury steamboat The Belle of Natchez. This time, when they reach New Orleans, they'll give the River the ashes of a fifth rafter: Margaret ("Baby") Ballou.

This collection of 10 explicit first anal sex stories is all about going through the backdoor. Sexy women experience anal sex in various ways, and you get to enjoy the stories. With rough anal sex at the office, anal sex with a nurse, anal sex in public with a stranger, wedding day anal sex, hot first time anal sex, anal sex with a delivery guy, and more. Click to download today!

‘Look.’ She tilted the marionette’s body to the inquisitive flame. ‘It’s as if the Thames did the painting for me. And anyway, when people watch our shows, the dragon changes colour in their hearts. I think they mind-paint the dragon in the colours of their dreams.' Always on guard for Big Ben’s call that announces the dangerous Pea Soup fog is on its way, Wren spends her days searching the Thames foreshore for little treasures while her dad tries to earn a feeble living by performing in the Piazza of Covent Garden.

Dora Wentworth is born out of wedlock in one of the poorest parts of Liverpool. Abandoned by her family, she is brought by God into the arms of a childless fisherman and his wife. But life is cruel, and when an accident prevents the fisherman from working, they are forced to give her up to the orphanage. As Dora grows, neglected and alone, she almost gives up on her dreams of one day having a home and a love she can call her own. Then, through the kindness of a stranger, Dora discovers that there is always hope and embarks on a path that might finally lead her to the family she has dreamed of.

On 28th September 1985, Lee Lawrence's mother, Cherry Groce, was wrongly shot by police during a raid on her Brixton home. The bullet shattered her spine, and she never walked again. In the chaos that followed, 11-year-old Lee watched in horror as the news falsely pronounced his mother dead. In Brixton, already a powder keg because of the deep racism that the community was experiencing, it was the spark needed to trigger two days of rioting that saw buildings brought down by petrol bombs, cars torched and shops looted.

Hobart Hucklebuck looked out the window. There was his 103-year-old grandfather, hanging upside down from a Tallyho tree reading a comic book. And that was just the beginning. Colonel Screevy Scuttlebutt thinks giant gophers are invading the town, Pernacious Prattfall thinks pirates left treasure in the Pennywhistle Park pond, and—hold on to your garters—is that Quoquandriak the halfling wearing a tutu? Someone is at it again, and things look bleak for the citizens of Pennywhistle! But here come Hobart Hucklebuck and his friends. Can they save the village one more time?

The order of the society has suffered a premature and devastating attack by the Wiccan. A mausoleum is found dedicated to the demise of the first five of the new generation of emissaries—Tom, Zoe, Charlie, Stephen, and Alexander. The last three—Elizabeth, Jia Li, and Ajani—are brought together with their predecessors, custodians, great cats, and friends to continue the battle against the Wiccan and her evil forces.

The eight new Emissaries have finally been united under the guardianship of Madame Vauqelin. The Wiccan and her armies continue their attacks as the Wretched move closer to crossing over. Past discoveries reveal that the Society has a traitor in its midst. Nonetheless, the young Emissaries must focus their attention on the map and unlocking the secrets it conceals.