Showing results by narrator "Brenda McGinnis" in All Categories

Gifted adventurers across time and space often travel with an animal familiar—usually a cat, but possibly other fuzzy, scaly, or prickly creatures. These magical companions lead their humans into mischief, help them out of sticky situations, or offer opinionated commentary along the way. We're familiar with familiars ... or are we?

Lem’s world is ending. That’s not just her personal world, even though she’s still reeling a year after burying one of her best friends at the bottom of a desert ravine—and she’s got family enslaved by actual mind control on a distant planet under military blockade. It’s not just her political world, either, even though the freedom fighters she served since childhood seem pretty happy believing she died after they exiled her. No, the actual Universe is under attack as interdimensional forces siphon its energy into another plane, eager to speed along its final heat death.

Written from the trenches of ministering to young women, young adult minister Ashley Chesnut explores why sexual sin is “sin” in the first place, what sex really is, and how Scripture speaks into topics like masturbation, oral sex, and sex robots - even when those words aren’t found in the Bible.

Amara’s life didn’t start out easy. As a child, she hid from the slavers. Then, she hid from her own government, until a chance meeting on the side of the road changed the course of her life for the better. Now an adult with a secure and prosperous life, a chance meeting with a traveling bard and ensuing street fight leaves Amara with a difficult decision.

As Amara prepares for a supply run that will see her father restored and the Silver Rose reinforced she finds herself conflicted. She has discovered both strength and weakness in herself and must work to improve both. Further more, a new relationship tugs at her heart as she tries to navigate her feelings for a certain guitar-playing bard that has made no secret of his feelings for her. At the same time, friends from the past and present war with each other for Amara's attention even as new family grows around her. And even now a great danger is waiting in the dark to draw blood.

From Japanese legends to mafia mermen, from carnival freaks to flying aces, from bayou legends to kraken-like behemoths, these tales explore the darker side of merfolk: desire, envy, love unfulfilled, grace ungranted, and loneliness turned to rage....

Sometimes you go to the movies. And sometimes, the movies—and their monsters—come to you. At any moment, without notice, monsters once relegated to the screen become a reality. Aliens and demons, dragons and ghosts, werewolves, vampires, zombies, and seemingly ordinary people who are just plain evil.

Almost 3,000 years after an extinction level event on Earth, mankind seeks to regain its former glory, in a new world where magic and technology collide. Verna had always dreamed of becoming a knight and protector ever since she was a child, and a stranger gave his life to save her family from marauders.

Baya is not sure whether she wants the life her mother has planned for her. She has been prepared her entire life for three trials. That’s all…only three ancient tests in three days. A lifetime worth of work over in a matter of days. Easy right? Then, she will officially be a woman and in line to become the ruler of the world, or she’ll be dead. But, what if she doesn’t want either of those options? If she can survive the trials, that’s when the real challenges will begin.

The universe is barreling toward heat death. Interdimensional energy beings see matter-based life forms as an energy-consuming plague—and to support their case, sentients do have a habit of destroying every world we touch. Either matter-beings will be forced to give back the energy we’ve co-opted, or we need someone else to fill that deficit.

Sparo Rising is a spin-off series from the Techromancy Scrolls. Each book features a stand-alone story of a different side character from the Techromancy Scrolls that readers wished to hear more about. This second book centers around Genevieve Mason of York, and her rise to Knighthood.

Almost 3000 years after an extinction level event on Earth, mankind seeks to regain its former glory in a new world where magic and technology collide.

Laura and her family, the most skilled blacksmiths in Flatlash, have had a better life than some of the other commoners in the Keep, seeing few winters where food and heat were scarce. But she dreams of more, thinking to reach beyond her station. Daring to change her stars and write her own destiny, she petitions the Crown to grant her, a mere serf, lands in which to start a mine that would raise her to the rank of nobility, and start a revolution in mining in all the lands of Sparo, taking her place in this new age of heroes.

Almost 3,000 years after an extinction level event on Earth, mankind seeks to regain its former glory, in a new world where magic and technology collide. There are few people in the history who have contributed more to the technological rise of Sparo toward parity with the Great Wizards of the Before, than the founder of House Bexington and his twins, Bryony and Bowyn. In this new age of heroes, they have reawakened many of the wonders from before the Great Impact.

It began when they were in the army. It was nearly lost on a battlefield. Now it soars through the heavens. Ryan and Donna Yavone's dream of owning their own business has waited long enough, and now it is coming true. After years of work and the trust of a young businesswoman, their private airship Pillar of Faith is taking to the skies. Money to fix the ship is no longer a problem, but finding shipping contracts is a challenge neither husband or wife has ever tackled before.

Lem’s a mace-wielding teen space-ninja in a universe of sentient insectoids, purple jungles, and insane electromagnetic fields. She solves most problems by hitting harder, and never plays by her enemy's rules - until Jared Diebol captures her. Diebol is the rising leader of an army uniting the galaxy by force. He believes that the violent energy being Njande has “contaminated” Lem and her friends from another dimension to conquer the matter-based universe. Diebol’s army usually kills contaminated people - but he vows to cure Lem.

Amara has seen her wealth increase as a new family grows around her, but at the center of her world the pain of horrid loss threatens to consume everything she has gained. One old friend is gone, and another teeters on the edge of despair even as new arrivals bring answers to old mysteries and divine riddles. Can light shine at midnight? Can steel replace flesh? Can one walk through fire without being burned?

History may be written by the victors, but it is not always written in stone. It comes down to a bit of luck. What if the histories of Billy the Kid, Vlad Dracula, and Jack the Ripper had a new twist, an alternate history? What if the fictional world of The Great Gadsby had a hidden tale?

When your secret identity is revealed.... When the monster is unleashed.... When the superhero’s child has no power.... When Death himself is caught unawares.... Pull back the mask to reveal 21 tales from seasoned and award-winning authors, of magical masks, gas masks, death masks, superheroes, secret identities, disguised robots, alien symbionts, a Napoleonic thief, a swindling demon - even a hidden clown.

Almost three thousand years after an extinction level event on Earth, mankind seeks to regain its former glory in a new world where magic and technology collide.