Showing results by narrator "Jay Ben Markson" in All Categories

Ana da Silva always assumed she’d die young - she just never expected it to be at the hands of Famine, the haunting immortal who once spared her life so many years ago. But if the horseman remembers her at all, he must not care, for when she comes face to face with him for the second time in her life, she’s stabbed and left for dead. Only, she doesn’t quite die. If there’s one thing Famine is good at, it’s cruelty. In spite of themselves, Ana and Famine are drawn to each other. But enemies or reluctant lovers, if they don’t stop themselves soon, heaven will....

The day Death comes to Lazarus Gaumond’s town and kills everyone in one fell swoop, the last thing he expects to see is a woman left alive and standing. But Lazarus has her own extraordinary gift: She cannot be killed—not by humans, not by the elements, not by Death himself. She is the one soul Death doesn’t recognize. The one soul he cannot pry free from her flesh.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience, behavioral economic, and social psychology research, acclaimed author, former Harvard professor, and think tank founder Todd Rose reveals how so much of our thinking about each other is informed by false assumptions that drive bad decisions that make us dangerously mistrustful as a society and hopelessly unhappy as individuals.

Grayson Hawthorne was raised as the heir apparent to his billionaire grandfather, taught from the cradle to put family first. Now the great Tobias Hawthorne is dead and his family disinherited, but some lessons linger. When Grayson’s half-sisters find themselves in trouble, he swoops in to do what he does best: take care of the problem—efficiently, effectively, mercilessly. And without getting bogged down in emotional entanglements.

Imagine everyone’s surprise when Carter von Oehson, a sophomore in Dr. Dylan Reinhart’s Abnormal Psychology class, posts on Instagram that he plans to kill himself. 24 hours later and still no one has seen him. Release the hounds. A massive search ensues. But when Carter’s sailboat rolls in with the tide without him or anyone else on it, the worst seems to be confirmed. He really did it . . . Or did he? The one person convinced he’s still alive is his father, Mathias von Oehson, founder and CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund.

War doesn’t scare Jerusalem. She’s a Saint. Thanks to powerful demigod-style reflexes, endurance, and strength, she’s fearless. And she has one goal—revenge. But she never expects to team up with the handsome, arrogant Alexei to accomplish it. He’s one of those Ancient Vampires. And ever since her family was enslaved and murdered by one, Jerusalem hates vampires. But in the year they've been fighting alongside one another against the Confederate Army and the vampires who benefitted off slavery, Alexei’s never done anything but prove he’s on the Union’s side and hers.

On a fateful flight, a balloonist makes a discovery that changes her life forever. A telegraph operator finds an unexpected companion in the middle of the Amazon. A doctor is beset by seizures, in which he is possessed by a second, perhaps better, version of himself. And in Regency London, a bare-knuckle fighter prepares to face his most fearsome opponent, while a young mother seeks a miraculous cure for her ailing son. At times funny and irreverent, always moving and deeply urgent, these stories cap a 15-year project.

The 330s, BCE, Greece: Alexander, a handsome young warrior of Macedon, begins his quest to conquer the ancient world. But he cannot ascend to power, and keep it, without the women who help to shape his destiny. His spirited younger half-sister, Thessalonike, yearns to join her brother and see the world. Instead, it is Alexander’s boyhood companion who rides with him into war while Thessalonike remains behind. Far away, crafty Princess Drypetis will not stand idly by as Alexander topples her father from Persia’s throne.

Thanks to shifts in our culture America is in the midst of an epidemic of sleeplessness, and unfortunately, sleep deprivation has bigger consequences than one might think, ranging from irritability, brain fog, and weight gain to serious conditions like hormone dysregulation, heart disease, memory impairment, diabetes, and Alzheimer's. In Better Sleep, Better You, functional medicine pioneer and sleep expert Frank Lipman, MD, and Casper co-founder Neil Parikh team up to offer a one-stop resource to help you reap the benefits of sleeping well every night.

For weeks, Rachel has been noticing the same golden-haired young man sitting at her Brooklyn bus stop, staring off with a melancholy air. When, one day, she finally musters the courage to introduce herself, the chemistry between them is undeniable: Thomas is wise, witty, handsome, mysterious, clearly a kindred spirit. There's just one tiny problem: He's dead. Stuck in a surreal limbo governed by bureaucracy, Thomas is unable to "cross over" to the afterlife until he completes a 90-day stint on earth, during which time he is forbidden to get involved with a member of the living.

John Sullivan didn’t ask to be born, and he certainly didn’t ask to be crazy. But that’s what happens when somebody else gets to pick out your DNA. Under the Genetic Equity Act of 2141, all artificial modifications granting "unfair advantage" belong to society. As the genetically engineered son of a famous mobster, Sullivan’s physical gifts and illegal provenance condemn him to a life of government service hunting and apprehending others like himself. Is John Sullivan a hero? A psychopath?...finding out means running a dangerous gauntlet of ruthless enemies.

A killer stalks the streets of Dockside, and he has a bone to pick with Roland Tankowicz. Old friends, former clients, and even rivals find themselves in the sights of a murderer who loves his work a little too much and seems custom-built to take on New Boston’s most famous Army-surplus cyborg. Roland and his team will have to play detective to piece together the identity of this strange assassin before all his associates end up face down in the street.

Roland Tankowicz is fed up. He's really trying to be a better person. Killing fewer people, talking out his issues more, and not immediately resorting to violence whenever a problem arises. But let's face it, when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It's not like he has any shortage of nails kicking around, either. The list of people willing to pay hard creds for his head is even longer than usual.

Dockside is burning, and it's up to everybody's least favorite Army-surplus cyborg to fix it. It starts when somebody takes a hit out on The Chairman, and quickly spirals into a mystery that takes Roland and his hyper-kinetic partner Lucia far from New Boston and into the depths of unregulated star systems. To save his home, Roland will need to figure out who would risk upsetting the delicate truce in Dockside before the peace crumbles and the streets run red with blood.

Finding himself alone in a posh New York City hotel room for the night, Aidan does what any red-blooded 17-year-old would do - tries to hook up with someone new. But that lapse in judgement leads him to a room with a dead guy and a mysterious flash drive...two things that spark an epic case of mistaken identity that puts Aidan on the run - from the authorities, his friends, his family, the people who are out to kill him - and especially from his own troubled past.

Roland Tankowicz is not a complex man. After securing victory over The Brokerage, all he wants is to get back to work maintaining the balance of power in Dockside. He’s perfectly happy with an honest day’s work of busting heads followed by a quick jaunt over to his favorite bar for a beer. Too bad the universe has other plans.

At first he tried to run. Then he made a stand. But no matter how many genetically-engineered monsters John Sullivan puts down, there always seems to be more where they came from. John Sullivan is used to impossible odds, and his pugnacious nature leaves him no choice but to fight until the very end. Can one man hope to defeat such odds? Perhaps not. But what about a uniquely gifted fighter, a terrible goddess, a giant, and a nine-year-old genius?

Twenty-four tales of madmen, monsters, and misery. A tantalizing blend of horror, suspense, and crime stories; each unique but all dark, disturbing, and violent. In the audiobook lurk: A tarot card reader who makes house calls; a disabled man in a miserable marriage who is regaining the use of his arms; an ex-con who can’t resist carrying out one last home invasion, and much more!

John Sullivan is all done running. A hunted, haunted man, the genetically modified fighter takes to the streets in search of his mobster father and answers to some very tough questions. The answers he gets take Sullivan and his allies to the far corners of the continent where he must confront the terrifying consequences of genetic engineering practices unencumbered by morality. For some people, the last war never ended, and for others the next one has already begun.

Wild Monsters Dance About is a collection of 21 short stories that will take into author M.J. Sewall’s unruly mind. These finely tuned tales jump through genres, concepts and characters, predicaments, adventures, and conundrums. Whether about everyday-science going terribly wrong in "Unintended Science" to animal evolution suddenly speeding up in "It Finally happened" or the prickly family politics of road trips in "Sibling Warfare", these stories will thrill, delight, and discombobulate your imagination.