Showing results by narrator "David Desantos" in All Categories

In the spirit of the popular Marvel comic book, this exciting new anthology has over a dozen original tales that span the career of the amazing Spider-Man. Stan Lee, Spidey's co-creator, and Kurt Busiek, the award-winning writer of the Untold Tales of Spider-Man comic book, present these new stories from his earliest days as a costumed hero and beyond.

An eminent scholar finds a new American history in the Hispanic past of our diverse nation. The United States is still typically conceived of as an offshoot of England, with our history unfolding east to west beginning with the first English settlers in Jamestown. This view overlooks the significance of America's Hispanic past. With the profile of the United States increasingly Hispanic, the importance of recovering the Hispanic dimension to our national story has never been greater. This absorbing narrative begins with the explorers and conquistadores who planted Spain's first colonies in Puerto Rico, Florida, and the Southwest.

Defying their Black King in order to rally an attack on the peaceful Blue Isle, warrior-prince Rugar and his fearless daughter, Jewel, do not suspect that the islanders, under young prince Nicholas, have prepared to defend themselves.

Step up to the gates. After years in the wilds, Lenk and his companions have come to the city that serves as the world's beating heart. The great charnel house where men die surer than any wilderness. They've come to claim payment for creatures slain, blood spilled at the behest of a powerful holy man. And Lenk has come to lay down his sword for good. But this is no place to escape demons.

The year is 1973. As a freak winter storm bears down on an exclusive, affluent suburb in Connecticut, cars skid out of control, men and women swap partners, and their children experiment with sex, drugs, and even suicide. Here two families, the Hoods and the Williamses, com face-to-face with the seething emotions behind the well-clipped lawns of their lives-in a novel widely hailed as a funny, acerbic, and moving hymn to a dazed and confused era of American life.

San Francisco is about to receive the biggest delivery of MDMA to hit the West Coast in years. Raymond Gaspar, just out of prison, is sent to the city to check in on the increasingly erratic dealer expected to take care of distribution. In Miami, the man responsible for getting the drugs across the Pacific has just met the girl of his dreams - a woman who can't seem to keep her story straight. And thousands of miles away in Bangkok, someone farther up the supply chain is about to make a phone call that will put all their lives at risk.

The story of a poor boy from Brazil who became the greatest soccer player of all time and one of the most important athletes of the 20th century! His parents may have named him Edson Arantes do Nascimento, but to the rest of the world, he is known as Pelé. The now-retired professional soccer forward stunned Brazil when he began playing for the Santos soccer club at age 15. He then went on to captivate the world when he joined his country's national soccer team and helped them win three World Cup championships.

Shifting seamlessly from the past to the present and following the routes of escape across countries and continents, Muoz Molina evokes people real and imagined who come together in a richly allusive pattern - from Eugenia Ginsburg to Grete Buber-Neumann, the one on a train to the gulag, the other heading toward - a Nazi concentration camp; from a shoemaker and a nun who become lovers in a small Spanish town to Primo Levi bound for Auschwitz.

Migration. Betrayal. Family secrets. Doomed love. Uncertain futures. In Daniel Alarcón's hands, these are transformed into deeply human stories with high-stakes. In "The Thousands", people are on the move and forging new paths; hope and heartbreak abound. A man deals with the fallout of his blind relatives' mysterious deaths and his father's mental breakdown and incarceration in "The Bridge". A gang member discovers a way to forgiveness and redemption through the haze of violence and trauma in "The Ballad of Rocky Rontal".

In this gripping memoir, a former marine returns to Vietnam to try to make sense of the war. Previously published as Brothers in Arms, this edition includes a new preface by the author. When William Broyles Jr. was drafted, he was a twenty-four-year-old student at Oxford University in England, hoping to avoid military service. During his physical exam, however, he realized that he couldn't let social class or education give him special privileges. He joined the marines, and soon commanded an infantry platoon in the foothills near Da Nang.

The Groln invasion is accelerating. Cities are blasted into smoking, bloody rubble. In the midst of carnage, consumed by guilt and temptation, Lirak struggles to learn the limits of his powers and the secrets of his past.

In the years following the invasion of the Fey, Blue Isle has maintained an uneasy peace. But the marriage between the Islander prince, Nicholas, and the Fey king's granddaughter, Jewel, has not brought their peoples together in true unity, as they had hoped. And worse, the firstborn son that Nicholas and Jewel had hoped would bring the Fey and the Islanders alike to accept their union has proven to be an empty husk of a child, seen by both races as an ill omen.

The weekend getaway at the gorgeous manor hotel should have been perfect. But Becca is freshly smarting from her husband Blake’s betrayal and knows this is just an expensive attempt at an apology. She may not be ready to forgive him, but the drinks are strong, the estate is stunning, and the weekend has an elaborate 1920s murder mystery theme. She decides to get into the spirit of things and enjoy their stay. What could go wrong?

Heroes & Villains, the seventh volume in Jon Scieszka's Guys Read Library of Great Reading, is chock-full of adventure featuring an array of characters - with and without capes. Featuring 10 all-new, original stories that run the gamut from fantasy to contemporary adventure to nonfiction, and featuring 11 of the most acclaimed, exciting writers for kids working today, this collection is the perfect book for you, whether you use your powers for good - or evil.

It's the late 60s, the last dark years of Franco's dictatorship: Minaya, a university student in Madrid, is caught up in the student protests, and the police are after him. He moves to his uncle Manuel's country estate in the small town of Mgina to write his thesis on an old friend of Manuel's, an obscure republican poet named Jacinto Solana. Minaya soon discovers that, 30 years earlier both his uncle and Solana were in love with the same woman, the beautiful, unsettling Mariana.

Demon spawn, they call him. Evil seed of the UnNamed One. Lirak wonders if they might be right. Sent on a holy quest to test his prophetic dreams, he returns to find his people scattered or slaughtered. Ruthless invaders and their dread warlocks spread death and destruction across the land. Before he can lead the remnants of his people in vengeance, Lirak must win their trust. But blades and arrows alone will not defeat this enemy.

After years of stultifying office work, Joseph Wiley will try anything to get rich in a hurry. He's hustled all kinds of products, but each venture has left him deeper in debt, chained tighter to his office desk. When his latest moneymaker goes up in smoke, Wiley doesn't even bother to quit his job. He takes every cent he has to the airport and flies south, landing in Colombia, where he will make his millions - or lose his life.

The conflict on Blue Isle is rapidly reaching a head when one unexpected event suddenly gives the Islanders a fighting chance. Adrian's son Luke, chafing under Fey rule, leads a group of his fellow farmers in a secret strike against a Fey outpost.

For a conquered people, a long-forgotten magic holds their only hope. Blue Isle's capital lies in ruins, leveled by the new invasion force of Fey. But to hold his conquest, Black King Rugad must capture his two half-Islander, half-Fey great-grandchildren: the fiery Arianna and the gentle Gift. For one of them will inherit the Black Throne, and Rugad will not rest until he owns them both, body and soul. Yet, in the wily and courageous Arianna, this legendary warrior may have met his match.

Blue Isle, scene of a violent clash between its human native and the magical Fey, has now become the center of attention of the Fey king, Rugad. He is returning to finish the Fey invasion begun years ago but thwarted by the discovery that Blue Islander holy water was fatal to the aggressors. That stalemate has produced a wary coexistence, even intermarriage between royal families of the two races, but Rugad wants only one thing: total domination--and he will stop at nothing to get it