Showing results by narrator "Michael Kirby" in All Categories

Kris Kringle isn't just the jolly old elf of legend. He's a lethal operative, defending the North Pole from threats both seen and unseen. When a devastating cyber attack nearly destroys his operations, Kris must trade his sleigh for high-tech gear. His mission: track down the shadowy figures behind the assault and neutralize them before they can strike again.

Anastasia Romanov and her younger brother Alexei escape their family’s execution when a bullet strikes Anastasia’s garnet necklace, transporting them to a parallel universe. This alternate Russia is a second chance. Anastasia wants to save her family, Alexei wants the throne, and they plan to travel the infinite multiverse to find a world in which both are possible. When Alexi is mistaken for the tsarevich of this dimension, he is brought to the Winter Palace, where he eagerly starts impersonating his doppelganger, playing the role that was stolen from him in his own world.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”

Kris Kringle isn't your average Santa. By day, he spreads Christmas cheer. By night, he's a skilled operative, battling sinister forces that threaten the innocent. When the Syndicate of Shadows threatens philanthropist Madeline Hart and businesswoman Emily Hawthorne, Kris springs into action. Armed with high-tech gear and centuries of experience, he goes after the criminal organization. But the Syndicate's reach extends further than Kris imagined.

My name is Isobel Drake. And I have a dangerous secret. I'm a half-human, half-dragon hybrid hiding in plain sight in the humans-only city of Yerba Buena. There are others like me, pretending to be fully human, in a world where dragons are exiled to reservations and face the death penalty if caught in a human settlement. When a half-dragon warrior demands my help to find a stolen dragon's egg, I realize I can't hide anymore. Now, the fate of a helpless dragon hatchling lies in my hands. I have to save her...even if it means confronting dangerous enemies and risking my secret.

After serving as a US Marine during World War II and attending college on the GI Bill, Sam Keith decided to seek adventure in Alaska as a laborer on the Adak Navy base. There he befriended Dick Proenneke, whose shared love of the outdoors, hard work, and self-reliance quickly bonded an alliance between the two. Together they explored the wilds of South Central Alaska, while working on the Navy base, hunting and fishing with friends and breathing in the great outdoors.

Meet Kris Kringle. Behind the cheerful facade lies a skilled warrior with a mission: to protect the joy and spirit of Christmas from those who seek to destroy it. When a sinister organization known as The Shadow Collective threatens to manipulate the stock market and bring global chaos, Kris must step out of the workshop and into the fray. The Collective's schemes threaten to unravel the very fabric of the holiday season. He must infiltrate the shadows, outsmart his enemies, and stop the Collective before they can execute their final, devastating attack.

[Contains explicit content] Get ready for a completely improvised and unscripted Audible Original that invites you to listen in on the funniest phone calls from the world’s weirdest town. Bad Reception is an entirely improvised comedy, set entirely on the phone. A cast of over 40 top comedians and improvisers brings to life (and completely makes up) the story of South Grampers, Northern California - the Movie Theater Butter Capital of the World.

It is the dawn of the twentieth century when the beautiful, budding feminist Katherine Dexter falls in love with Stanley McCormick, son of a millionaire inventor. The two wed, but before the marriage is consummated, Stanley experiences a nervous breakdown and is diagnosed as a schizophrenic sex maniac. Locked up for the rest of his life at Riven Rock, the family's California mansion, Stanley is treated by a series of confident doctors determined to cure him.

For decades, performance management has been seen as an annual chore by managers and HR alike. But this process is changing, and there are ways to make it more effective for your organization and more useful for employees. If you read (or listen to) nothing else on performance management in your organization, listen to these ten articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you assess performance more accurately, have more effective feedback conversations, and encourage the growth of your employees.

With his father’s mysterious disappearance and his brother Ronnie enlisting in the Vietnam War, 13-year-old TJ Crowley is left alone with his racist, unstable mother, Kate. The newly enforced Fair Housing Act results in the unthinkable for the Crowleys when a Black family, headed by the eminent Dr. Washington, crosses the racial red line and moves in next door. Kate is quick to warn TJ that their new neighbors are strictly off-limits and makes a panicked call to beg Ray, her old flame, to travel to their home in Wichita Kansas to help deal with “the problem next door.”

There are two sides to every story. The surface reality that’s presented to the world. And then, there’s the other side. The real one. The one that matters. Seventeen-year-old self-proclaimed asshole Toby Page is alone. No friends. No family. He trades maintenance work in exchange for room and board. Every day, he fights demons no one else can see. Every day, he wants to give up. But he can’t. Not yet. When Alice Eliot moves in downstairs, she offers Toby some light in his dark world.

In the newly revised third edition of Inside the Black Box: A Simple Guide to Systematic Investing, veteran practitioner and investor Rishi K Narang delivers another insightful discussion of how quantitative and algorithmic trading strategies work in non-mathematical terms. As with prior editions, this third edition is full of timeless concepts and timely updates. Supplemented by compelling anecdotes and real-world stories, the book explains the most relevant developments in the discipline since the publication of the second edition in 2013.

Big-band frontman Johnny Favorite was singing for the troops when a Luftwaffe fighter squadron strafed the bandstand, killing the crowd and leaving the singer near death. The army returned him to a private hospital in upstate New York, leaving him to live out his days as a vegetable while the world forgot him. But Louis Cyphre never forgets. Cyphre had a contract with the singer, stipulating payment upon Johnny's death—payment that will be denied as long as Johnny clings to life. When Cyphre hires Harry Angel to find Johnny at the hospital, Angel learns that the singer has disappeared.

It only takes an instant for Grim—monster hunter and emotionally scarred hero—to lose everything. Grim is having a bad year. A hunter by trade, his world is ripped apart when he is cursed with a sickness that is slowly changing him into one of the very creatures he hunts. Worse, Grim is forced to abandon the woman he loves for fear that he'll destroy her. So he must find a cure. Otherwise, they'll never be together.

In The Pricing Model Revolution: How Pricing Will Change the Way We Sell and Buy On and Offline, world renowned pricing expert Danilo Zattais delivers an essential and engaging blueprint to building an enduring competitive advantage with insightful pricing models. In the book, you'll learn to identify the best monetization approaches for your products and how to execute the one that makes the most sense for your business. From freemium to subscription, pay-per-use, and even neuropricing, the author discusses every available option and shows you how to choose.

In the summer of 1938, Layla Beck's father, a United States senator, cuts off her allowance and demands that she find employment on the Federal Writers' Project, a New Deal jobs program. Within days Layla finds herself far from her accustomed social whirl, assigned to cover the history of the remote mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia, and destined, in her opinion, to go completely mad with boredom.

From his fortified Workshop at the North Pole, special forces veteran turned magical warrior Kris Kringle should be focusing on Christmas preparations. Instead, he's haunted by his failure to eliminate Krampus—a demon-masked killer with advanced tactical gear who matches him blow for blow.

Kris Kringle isn't your typical Santa. As guardian of the North Pole and its magical Workshop, he's traded milk and cookies for tactical gear and armor-piercing rounds. When his greatest nemesis unleashes a new batch of demonic Krampus soldiers, Kris must race against time to prevent an attack that could devastate an EU summit and ruin Christmas.

Waking in the hospital after a car accident, Lovina Yoder doesn’t remember the Amish family who claim her as their own - or the man who says he’s her fiancé. Thoughtful and handsome, Johannes Miller clearly cares for her, and Lovina longs to recall the walks and buggy rides he describes, and the plans they once made. Life in the Amish community seems full of joy, faith, and warmth. And yet, Lovina senses there is something more in her past, just beyond her grasp….