Showing results by narrator "Scott Merriman" in All Categories

For his whole life, the boy has lived underground, in a basement with his parents, grandmother, sister, and brother. Before he was born, his family was disfigured by a fire. His sister wears a white mask to cover her burns. He spends his hours with his cactus, reading his book on insects, or touching the one ray of sunlight that filters in through a crack in the ceiling. Ever since his sister had a baby, everyone's been acting very strangely.

As a human vessel for an ancient spirit, Sandis lives no ordinary life. At the command of her master, she can be transformed against her will into his weapon - a raging monster summoned to do his bidding. Unlike other vessels, Sandis can host extremely powerful spirits, but hosting such creatures can be fatal. To stay alive, she must run. And in a city fueled by smoke and corruption, she finds a surprising ally. A cunning thief for hire, Rone owns a rare device that grants him immortality for one minute every day - an advantage that will come in handy in Sandis’s fight for freedom.

In the wake of a disastrous firefight with a Mexican cartel, two El Paso police officers find themselves in a military hospital facing a debriefing about what went wrong. As their accounts unfold, Tony, a by-the-book cop, begins to believe that hotheaded Matt might have divided loyalties. Could he have intentionally led the team into a trap that saw the death of a beloved senior officer? Or is the truth even more terrifying than Tony dares to imagine?

By all accounts, Abby Holden has it all. She's the mother of a beautiful teenager and the wife of a beloved high school football coach. And all it took to achieve her charmed life was her greatest act of betrayal. Coach Ryan can coax his team to victory, but he can't seem to make his wife, Abby, happy. Her struggles with depression have marred their marriage and taken a toll on their daughter, Juliana. Although this isn't the life he's dreamed of, he's determined to heal the rifts in his family.

When a massive asteroid hurtles toward Earth, humanity braces for annihilation—but the end doesn’t come. In fact, it isn’t an asteroid but a three-mile-tall alien that drops down, seemingly dead, outside Little Springs, Nebraska. Dubbed “the giant,” its arrival transforms the red-state farm town into a top-secret government research site and major metropolitan area, flooded with soldiers, scientists, bureaucrats, spies, criminals, conspiracy theorists—and a murderer.

Bound to wheelchairs and dependent on prosthetic limbs, the physically disabled students living in the House are overlooked by the Outsides. Not that it matters to anyone living in the House, a hulking old structure that its residents know is alive. From the corridors and crawl spaces to the classrooms and dorms, the House is full of tribes, tinctures, scared teachers, and laws - all seen and understood through a prismatic array of teenagers' eyes.

It starts as a prank - a way to blow off steam after a long summer at Camp Horseshoe. Among the teen counselors, tensions and hormones are running high. No wonder the others agree when Jo-Beth Chancellor suggests they scare Monica O'Neal a little.... or a lot. Monica has it coming, and no one will really get hurt. What could go wrong? Everything.

Stepping out from the Dungeons of the Divine, Hui Yue found himself in a world unlike anything he had ever seen before. This was a dog-eat-dog world where he had to fight to prove his worth. With Lan Feng by his side, Hui Yue continues his adventure, soaring toward the heavens, towards the world where people will sing songs about his achievements and fear his overwhelming strength.

Haunted by a tragic decision he made twenty years ago, veterinarian Dr. Carver Livingston has not once returned to his Vermont hometown. Now his parents’ impending divorce and his mother’s plea for support lure Carver to a reluctant homecoming. His mission: sweep into Teterbury, save a marriage, and get out before anyone else from his past knows he was even there. Fate has other plans.

There are angels, and they are not beneficent or loving. But they do watch over us. They watch our lives unfold, analyzing us for repeating patterns and redundancies. When they find them, the angels simplify those patterns and remove the redundancies, and the problem that is "you" gets solved.

Known by his National Guard rescuers as "the Miracle Man," Eric recounts his rise to success and fame as a hockey player and Olympian, his long and painful fall due to crystal meth addiction, and his unbelievable ordeal in the wilderness. In the end, a man whose life had been based on athleticism would lose both his legs to frostbite and had to learn to walk - and snowboard - again with prosthetics. He realized that he couldn't come to terms with his drug addiction or learn to walk again by himself. He had to depend on God for his strength.

What chance does a young woman stand against the world’s supreme evil? Lorness Carol Rafel was prophesied to destroy the unfathomably dangerous Kragan. But as the magic wielder’s monstrous horde marches on Endar Pass, razing everything in its wake, Carol fears that Kragan is not only unstoppable but that he has risen from his tomb more powerful than ever.

Scott Hartley first heard the terms fuzzy and techie while studying political science at Stanford University. If you majored in the humanities or social sciences, you were a fuzzy. If you majored in the computer sciences, you were a techie. This informal division has quietly found its way into a default assumption that has misled the business world for decades: that it's the techies who drive innovation.

Why the best way to drive growth might be to focus rather than expand When Sanjay Khosla took charge of developing markets for Kraft Foods in 2007, the business was floundering. Six years later, annual sales had soared from $5 billion to $16 billion with significant improvement in profitability. The secret? Making fewer, bigger, and bolder bets and stopping a lot of small stuff. Kellogg School professor Mohanbir Sawhney discovered a similar formula for stellar results - focus and simplicity - in advising Fortune 500 companies.

Sandis has escaped Kazen’s grasp, but she finds herself unmoored, reeling from her thief friend Rone’s betrayal. Kazen has been hurt but not stopped, and he’ll do anything to summon the monster that could lay waste to the entire world. Sandis knows she must be the one to stop him, but with her own trusted numen now bound to another, and finding herself with no one she can trust, she is in desperate need of allies. Rone seems determined to help her, but Sandis has no intention of letting him get close to her again. What she doesn’t know is how much Rone gave up to protect her.

An undeciphered language in Crete. A rash of mysterious disappearances, from Bolivia to Japan. An ancient warning at the ruins of Babel. And a new spiritual leader, who claims that human history as we understand it is about to come to an end.

They’re coworkers, friends, and confidants, but Peter Marshal has always pined for a little something more with Noelle Walters. As a widow and a single mom, Noelle prefers to play it safe, and falling for Peter was never part of the plan. Then again, neither of their plans accounted for the well-meaning but meddling actions of Peter’s sister, who offers him up as their town’s most eligible bachelor in the local moms’ Facebook group. He’s none the wiser about the source of this sudden surge in attention, but he only has eyes for Noelle.

Since their father’s death summoned Lavinia Brinkman and her four sisters to Eden, Colorado, Lavinia has been content with her new life. Well, almost. Lavinia’s heart’s desire - creating the elaborate hats she loves - doesn’t belong in this small town. How can she choose between the life she has and the life she wants? Especially when she’s so utterly vexed by the handsome scoundrel who’s just arrived in Eden.

Summertime in Bleak Harbor means tourists, overpriced restaurants, and the Dragonfly Festival. One day before the much-awaited and equally chaotic celebration, Danny Peters, the youngest member of the family that founded the town five generations ago, disappears. When Danny’s mother, Carey, and stepfather, Pete, receive a photo of their brilliant, autistic, and socially withdrawn son tied to a chair, they fear the worst. But there’s also more to the story. Someone is sending them ominous texts and emails filled with information no one else should have.

Peace of mind is all Greg Cole has wanted since the murder of his twin sister, Scarlett. In his new sun-soaked Florida life, he thought he had found it. But when Scarlett's killer is released early from prison with a cast-iron alibi, Greg realizes that his past is about to explode into his present, with terrifying consequences. To expose the truth he must open up old wounds. Greg knows all about dark secrets, but when a childhood friendship comes to the fore, the police turn their spotlight on him.