Showing results by narrator "Gabriel Vaughan" in All Categories

Olivia Martin's afterlife was more dangerous and confusing than her life ever was. She thought she was ready to come back, to forget about Holden and to let go of the rage consuming her. Fulfilling her destiny as a guardian was all that mattered - the past could stay hidden in the crevices of her mind. However, when guardians are murdered and the evidence points toward jinn, she has to do something. To save anyone's future, Olivia will have to confront the one person from her past she is terrified to see.

There are no holidays in the Abyss. Despite her friends' less-than-enthusiastic reception, Olivia is determined to have a wonderful Christmas - and if she has anything to say about it, Holden will, too. A brilliant idea for the perfect present to remind him of what is important at this time of year opens up more than she bargained for.

Sorry I vanished like I did. I'm not sure I can even explain things. I don't know when I'll be back. If I'll be back. I'm not sure of anything, except that I love you, Ever. You're my twin, my best friend, and leaving you was the hardest thing I've ever done. I know you don't understand. Maybe you never will. I hope you don't, honestly. It would be easier that way. That's cowardly, I'm sure. Cade, take care of her. Love her, the way she deserves. The way you always have, for forever and always.

At a top secret research laboratory in Nevada, DARPA's most advanced artificial intelligence can read your darkest secrets and hidden intentions right off your face. The technology's manipulative inventor, however, fears no future big brother surveillance state. He built it for his own secret reasons - and now there is no untruth he won't tell, no subterfuge he won't pull, to help his estranged young daughter.

Is it worth losing your soul to save the world? In the sweeping conclusion of the Wrath trilogy, what is left of civilization after The Fall finds itself at war again. New America gathers its defense against the tsar's forces while four heroes embark on a journey more perilous than they ever imagined. Will mankind find a way to end the cycle of violence at last? To do so may cost William, Crystal, and Ryder everything...because evil never surrenders.

After the bombs rain down, the entire world is an open wound; it is in those bleeding years that William Fox becomes a man. William flees with his family to Magnolia, a farm in Tennessee, while America descends into madness, anarchy, and death. With the aid of elite Special Forces units, Magnolia emerges as beacon of hope and stability. But evil is hungry and relentless. A new threat stalks the Earth. To save his people, and perhaps all of humanity, William must be more than a lethal soldier; he must become a hero.

While Olivia Martin observed life through her camera, the Abyss gazed back at her. She discovers mysterious men follow her around, people close to her are dying, and her dreams are no longer her own as she falls head over heels for a perfect stranger. A chance encounter leads to an obsession that could destroy everything she has ever known or loved. Olivia is about to find out there is a lot she doesn't know and sometimes what you don't know can kill you.

Forced to face the wrath of either heaven or hell, Olivia and Holden must choose a side before a war begins and tears their lives apart forever. They always felt an unseen force brought them together, but was it to prevent the end of their world or to ensure it? Their secrets threatened to destroy them. Their choices led them to this moment. The consequences cannot be avoided.

The Fall brought mankind to its knees. After the world war, anarchy reigned across what was once the United States of America. For nine years, William has lived a quiet life in the West. Lamar Valley in Yellowstone is wild and beautiful, home to wolves, bison, and bears. In a log cabin on the shore of the Lamar River, William has raised his children. When Tarantula spreads further north, the tenuous peace between territories is threatened.

Conceived in the Gilded Age, the Ferry Building opened in 1898 as San Francisco's portal to the world—the terminus of the transcontinental railway and a showcase of civic ambition. In silent films and World's Fair postcards, nothing said "San Francisco" more than its soaring clock tower. But as acclaimed architectural critic John King recounts, the rise of the automobile and double-deck freeways severed the city from its beloved structure. King's narrative spans the rise and fall and rebirth of the Ferry Building, introducing colorful figures who fought to preserve its character.

An Affinity. Most humans never get one, but the Goddess gives everyone the opportunity when they turn sixteen. When Terrence receives his Affinity, he is shocked to discover it has never been seen before within the Kingdom. Worse yet, his Affinity reinforces the thing he was made fun of for his entire life. His weight. Follow Terrence as he uses his Affinity to progress with the hopes of becoming a Dungeoneer—someone who explores and conquers Dungeons.

1462: an alien who feasts on the suffering of sentient beings dines off the agonies of Vlad the Impaler's twenty-thousand victims near Targoviste, Romania. 1688: a woman is framed for witchcraft and hanged by the neck in Boston. 1965: a toy store that never seems to run out of special toys is suspected of being the location of a temporal portal. 2022: a grandfather, showing his young grandchildren what remains of the Boston of his youth, is shown that portal by his granddaughters. And they're off! Off through the gate that grants wishes, off to deal with time travel.

A war is on the horizon for the kingdom of Prost. But for those from Krader, their lives were already turned upside down amidst the Collapse. Reeling from his loss and unsure what to do next, Terrence will need to refocus to earn his first Rank as a Dungeoneer. For everyone else, recruitment for the war is bringing the kingdom to its knees. Trying his best to stay out of the conflict, Tom is eager to reunite with his friends and family in the Capital. Storylines converge as everyone's Affinities progress further every day.

The tournament finals are starting, and the group's hard work has finally paid off. Fierce fights await, but they've proven time and again that they have what it takes to push through the pressure. They've trained, they've Ranked up, and they're ready. But when a catastrophe hits, no amount of hard work could have ever prepared them.

Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths of time—fun and fantastical, but no longer believed by anyone. Yet, as Philip Ball shows, we are still writing them—and still living them—today. From Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein to Batman, many stories written in the past few centuries are commonly, perhaps glibly, called "modern myths." But Ball argues that we should take that idea seriously. Our stories of Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes are doing the kind of cultural work that the ancient myths once did.

Hood’s Defeat Near Fox’s Gap is an exceptional analysis of Confederate Brigadier General John Bell Hood’s troop movements during the battle of South Mountain. For the past 160 years, all other authors misplaced Hood’s troop positions on the Fox’s Gap battlefield by approximately a half-mile. The actual location of Hood's attack reconfigures the entire placement of the competing forces in the battle and, thus, the conclusions one makes about the struggle.

Bad Things addresses various philosophical questions about the nature and moral relevance of harm. The most basic question is this: under what conditions does an event harm a given individual? Neil Feit focuses primarily on the metaphysics of harm, and he both defends and extends the counterfactual comparative account of harm. On this account, in its most basic form, an act or event harms an individual provided that she would have been better off if it had not occurred.

Despite their phenomenal decades-long success, the Harry Potter novels have attracted relatively little attention from literary critics and scholars. This book challenges that oversight, assembling and foregrounding some of the best literary critical work by scholars trying to move the needle on these novels to reflect their importance to twenty-first-century literary culture. In Open at the Close, contributors consciously address Harry Potter primarily as a literary phenomenon rather than a cultural one.

In this ultimately deadly chess game stands Fiona, a striking redhead poised to kill Cleopatra Gallier. Cleo, the impossibly beautiful, clever, and wealthy former talk show host is as completely unaware of Fiona's existence as she is of Fiona's vengeful plan to kill her for taking out Fiona's love. The story unfolds in the deserts of Dubai and the beaches and gardens of Honolulu's paradise. Amidst CIA agents and a family that could explode if Cleopatra's deepest secret comes out, Cleo and Fiona finally face each other. But who is Fiona?

At the height of the roaring 1920s, the ex-frontier town of Denver, Colorado, emerged from the postwar boom as the future of the American city. Rookie district attorney Phillip Van Cise was already making national headlines for a new brand of law enforcement. Employing military intelligence tools he'd developed during the Great War, Van Cise crippled the criminal empire of Lou Blonger, an ex-lawman who had risen from petty scam artist to master of the Big Con. But Van Cise had even darker, more malevolent forces on his radar.