Showing results by narrator "Travis" in All Categories

In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor. Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, Adam will go to Aspen. In the Hotel Jerome, where he was conceived, Adam will meet some ghosts; they aren’t the first or the last ghosts he sees.

After setting the game's difficulty to Hard Mode, Ethan learns his wife is in terrible danger. The game has labeled Melody an "unregistered personality" and turned her into a quest objective. Now, a ruthless band of raiders are after her for their own reasons. Some want experience, others are looking for a new challenge. One of them - Lord Beast - pursues a darker objective. If he succeeds, Melody's personality will be destroyed forever. Nothing in Mythian is what it seems, nowhere is safe, and every bargain has an expiration date. Even Ethan’s promise to himself.

Why has successful school reform been so difficult to achieve, despite decades of well-intentioned efforts, endless rhetoric, and billions of dollars of investment? Why do most U.S. schools continue to produce disappointing results? Why is there such a disconnect between the schools we need and the schools we have? In this thoughtful and insightful book, Ronald A. Wolk tackles these questions head-on, identifying key assumptions that have shaped the debate on school reform for the past several decades.

When the Huctans conscript Timothy into a secret army - and when a girl with a strange set of skills sets him free - an awkward young man gets the chance to become a hero. Throwing himself into the rebel cause, Timothy ignites years of pent-up frustration and futility in an obsessive drive to fight, spy, and deceive better than anyone else. Losing himself in the exhaustion of training and the danger of missions, he finds friendship with a Thane as fanatical as he is and wraps his new identity completely in service to the rebel Band.

Amidst the alluring scent of freshly baked pastries and the cozy ambiance of the local bakery coffee shop, destiny weaved its intricate threads, drawing two souls together in an unforeseen waltz. A whimsical collision over the last muffin sparked laughter and an electric connection, as if the universe conspired to unite them. Their shared amusement turned the line of strangers into an audience, witnessing a charming interlude that left them on the brink of an enthralling journey.

Cassie Jordan has a sweet dream to open a bakery specializing in wedding cakes. The problem is, the Airstream trailer where she lives has a kitchen the size of a postage stamp, and her job as housekeeper for a vacation rental agency doesn’t pay enough for her to find other arrangements. When the renters at one of the houses in her care cancel their stay, leaving the house empty and its top-of-the-line kitchen unused, who could blame her for seeing it as an opportunity?

Miami homicide detective Nicole Stone’s first case is as dangerous and threatening as it is terrifying. An up-and-coming actress has been violently snatched from her bed. If the taker's MO holds true, she will be killed within the next few days. She’s the most recent victim to be abducted in this manner but certainly not the first. There have been at least eight others before her, with no survivors. At first it might seem that murder is the endgame. As Nicole is about to find out, however, it is all just the start of something much more personal.

Based on John Ball's novel which inspired the Oscar-winning film and the Emmy-winning television series, In the Heat of the Night pits a visiting black detective from California against a small Alabama town simmering with anger over desegregation. A fitting reflection of America in the 1960s, this Off-Broadway hit is provocative, timely, and uncomfortably relevant.

All things come to an end...The world is at war. Morena and her alien species ravage the United States, destroying metropolis after metropolis. Yet, even as this happens, a man-made disease kills off Morena's children, rapidly mutilating her dreams of a new planet for her people. Morena's war started in Grayson. Now it ends there as well. Will chases one last chance to make amends by killing Morena. Kenneth Marks wants to ascend, to become one with the alien species. The teenagers who still live only want to remain alive.

In a desperate attempt to throw off the United States military, Morena's alien forces struck back ferociously. Now, the United States government hides beneath the ground, trying to fight a war they barely understand. Kenneth Marks plots a dark and treacherous path, with the end resulting only in consolidating power in his hands. Will and Knox desperately oppose him, and his unstoppable greed, but with aliens devastating cities, they sink deeper into the fog of war.

The alien crashed into Earth without anyone knowing. She escaped her ship without being caught. Escape isn't enough, though. Morena wants to conquer Earth. It's the only chance for the survival of her entire species. Now, Morena is taking over a small town in Georgia, possessing those she comes in contact with and readying the birth of her alien kind.

Falling from the sky, a creature arrived more powerful than anything imagined on Earth: Morena, an alien Queen banished from her home world. Now, she's ready to start again, repopulating the world with her species. The government's first defense failed to stop the alien. Turning to one of the smartest men to ever live, they ask Kenneth Marks to save the world. Except as Marks assesses the situation, he understands he can gain more by helping the alien...even if it means damning humanity.

Morena's power grows in the small town of Grayson, Georgia. The man tasked with destroying her lies underneath her control, and a madman now controls the armies attacking her. And yet, bent on Earth's domination, Morena fails to notice the teenagers moving around inside her town. She doesn't see the powers - powers even greater than her - making plans. As she pushes forward, the world - and even the universe - changes beneath her feet, with forces she can't imagine now heading for Earth.

Felix used to be a traveling salesman, drifting through the galaxy and hawking his wares. Used to be, that is, until a freak accident in an out-of-the-way system. One rough landing later, Felix finds himself stranded on a wild, alien planet - front and center - in a deadly role he never auditioned for to entertain a secret audience. The upside? A fellow passenger made it to the escape pod with Felix. With this reptilian stranger at his side, he’s not totally alone. The downside? They don’t share a language.

Growing up on his father's ship was an adventure for young John. His world crumbled the day the Barbary Pirates took him away in chains, along with his mother and sister. Five years later, after a daring escape to America, John is eager to join the USS Philadelphia and meet the corsairs with steel. Then, one stormy night, a stranger brings word: His sister, Kaitlin, is alive. John must risk everything on a bold plan to sail to the Barbary Coast.

Ben Carter, pet care specialist, is hired to walk a Shiba Inu named Toby. Unbeknownst to Ben, Toby is no ordinary dog but an inugami - an immortal demon born in feudal Japan and bred for only one purpose...murder. A mysterious cult seeks to capture the inugami and harness its power for evil. With the help of an elderly luchador and a cop with a heart of gold, Ben must protect Toby and uncover the secret of the Tengu.

We've all seen them - the stubborn tail-gater who follows too close, for too long...the wild driver who weaves through lanes on a crowded highway...the driver who causes accidents but is never a victim of one. These are the jackals, hunters who follow the nation's highways and byways, preying on the weak and unsuspecting. Jim Scott's been hunting jackals for some time now. They took someone he loved, once, and he's never forgiven them. And Jim doesn't fight alone.

Anna Ziegler's Boy is a powerful statement about sexual identity and the mystery of what makes us who we are. After a baby boy is seriously injured in an accident, a doctor persuades his parents to raise the child as a girl. As the child grows up, the child - known as Samantha and Adam at different times - faces an extraordinary challenge to carve out a place in the world.

Seventeen years after it began, the interstellar war has taken its toll: the inhabitants of Earth are desperate to find a way to defeat the Argoni, a merciless and horrifying alien race. Light-years away from the fighting, mechanic Landry Stanton lives a peaceful, mundane life on the desolate planet Procyon One, and that's just the way he likes it. But when an unauthorized trip to the other side of the planet leaves him shipwrecked and stranded alongside a hostile alien that wants him dead, Landry discovers a terrifying secret.

In 1887, near the tiny Texas town of Comanche, a posse finally ends the murderous career of The Piney Woods Kid in a hail of bullets. The year is now 2016. Comanche police are stymied by a double murder at the train depot. Witnesses swear the killer was dressed like an old-time gunslinger. Rumors fly that it’s the ghost of The Piney Woods Kid, back to wreak revenge on the descendants of the vigilantes who killed him.