Showing results by narrator "Michael Troy" in All Categories

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success.

At the edge of a grave, one man lies dead. Another flees, leaving behind a trail of destruction and heartbreak. In the middle, I’m left with a sister I didn’t know I had and three men I’m falling hopelessly in love with. But new threats endanger our happiness at every turn. Secrets hide in corners and evil lurks in the darkness. Caleb won’t stop until one of us is dead. Until my rebel heart beats for the final time. Or until I rip his out.

"You may now kiss your bride". They were the last words my mother heard before she collapsed on the church steps, poison ending her pitifully short life. When her new husband dies minutes later, all eyes turn to me. There are whispers. Accusations. The verdict is split. I murdered them both. Or I'm the next to die.

Beaten, drugged, and tied, I sink beneath the surface. Water invades my mouth. It seeps down my throat and fills my lungs until breathing becomes a desperate memory. My only hope are the three men who know the evil of my attacker. If I make it through this, we can’t fail again. A murderer needs to be found. Caleb needs to pay for what he did to me. He has another woman held hostage, bound, and gagged. But she’s not the only one. There are others who will befall the same fate as me if Caleb and his friends aren’t stopped.

"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow fall into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of Pallas, the raven seems to further distress the protagonist with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore".

The Odradek is an imaginary creature that appears in the short story "The Concerns of a Family Man" by Franz Kafka . The physical description of the Odradek shows it as a flat, star-shaped spool of thread, with the addition of a few other appendages. Later in the story, Kafka gives the Odradek more human characteristics, being able to stand on two legs and speak. The narrator even gets to have a few conversations with the Odradek, during which the creature's nomadic and possibly immortal nature is emphasized.

"The Call of Cthulhu" is a short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, in February 1928. The story's narrator, Francis Wayland Thurston, recounts his discovery of various notes left behind by his great uncle, George Gammell Angell, a prominent Professor of Semitic languages at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who died during the winter of 1926 after being "jostled by a nautical-looking negro".

Abandoned by her allies, the Republic of Venice holds out as the last beacon of resistance against the hobgoblin armies. Armed with new weapons the Southern Horde drives upon the floating city by land and sea. The Northern Horde drives deep into the heart of Europa and all fall before it. The Horde is vast beyond measure. Assassin daggers lurk in every shadow. Necrotic evil seeps and infects.

The Story of the Last Trump is a humorous, symbolic tale with a theological theme, albeit somewhat esoteric. It was first published in 1915 and is the final chapter in a satirical literary work, titled “Boon”. Upon publication the author of the book was given as Reginald Bliss and initially Wells denied being the writer of the work, officially only having written the introduction. However Reginald Bliss was but a Nom de Plume. The book received mixed reviews and did not sell well.

When Dr. Watson returns to London from a weekend seminar, he finds hat Sherlock Holmes has been arrested. Inspector Lestrade refers Watson to a questionable psychiatric hospital where Holmes is jailed for mental incapacity.

"The Lord of the Dynamos" is a British short story by H.G. Wells. It was originally published in the Pall Mall Budget (6 September 1894), and then included in the collection The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents, published by Methuen & Co. in 1895, and subsequently in his Complete Short Stories.

"Hypnos" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, penned in March 1922 and first published in the May 1923 issue of National Amateur. "Hypnos" is a first-person narrative, written from the perspective of an unnamed character living in Kent and later London, England. The narrator writes that he fears sleep, and is resolved to write his story down lest it drive him further mad, regardless of what people think after reading it. - The narrator, a sculptor, recounts meeting a mysterious man in a railway station.

"The Christmas Tree and the Wedding Christmas Story" is a short Christmas-Story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The other day I saw a wedding... But no! I would rather tell you about a Christmas tree. The wedding was superb. I liked it immensely. But the other incident was still finer. I don't know why it is that the sight of the wedding reminded me of the Christmas tree. This is the way it happened.

When Dr. Watson returns to London from a weekend seminar, he finds hat Sherlock Holmes has been arrested. Inspector Lestrade refers Watson to a questionable psychiatric hospital where Holmes is jailed for mental incapacity.

When Dr. Watson returns to London from a weekend seminar, he finds hat Sherlock Holmes has been arrested. Inspector Lestrade refers Watson to a questionable psychiatric hospital where Holmes is jailed for mental incapacity.

"What Christmas is as We Grow Older" is a short Christmas-Story by Charles Dickens: Time was, with most of us, when Christmas Day encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped everything and every one around the Christmas fire; and made the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete.

"The Fir-Tree" is a literary fairy tale by the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875). The tale is about a fir tree so anxious to grow up, so anxious for greater things, that he cannot appreciate living in the moment. The tale was first published 21 December 1844 with "The Snow Queen", in Copenhagen, Denmark, by C.A. Reitzel. One scholar (Andersen biographer Jackie Wullschlager) indicates that "The Fir-Tree" was the first of Andersen's fairy tales to express a deep pessimism.

Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, was very enamored with his daughter, Susi, and remained so up to her untimely death at age 24 in 1896. In 1875, at the age of 3, she had written her first letter to Santa Claus. As a writer and loving father, Twain, couldn't stand for his young daughter to feel like her work went unheard, so he penned the following letter to "My Dear Susie Clemens" from "The Man in the Moon" himself.

"A Visit from St. Nicholas", more commonly known as "The Night Before Christmas" and "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously in 1823 and later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, who claimed authorship in 1837.

"The Business Man" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe about a businessman boasting of his accomplishments. It was published in February 1840 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. The story questions the concept of a self-made man. The narrator of the story is Peter Proffit, a "methodical" businessman by his own admission. He says a nurse swung him around when he was a young boy, and he bumped his head against a bedpost.