Showing results by narrator "Stephen R. Thorne" in All Categories

Billy Ed and Dory Barnes left the honky-tonk in Tombley's Walk on a warm Texas night. They were looking for a little privacy. They never returned. Billy Ed's body was found soon after, ripped to pieces by a savage, wolf-like creature that walked on two legs. Dory survived the brutal attack. But she has been changed into something horribly, inexplicably... different.

In this Very Short Introduction, Warwick Vincent outlines the essential features of lake environments and their biology, offering an up-to-date view of lake ecosystems. Vincent traces the origins of lake science (limnology) from the seminal work of Francois Forel on Lake Geneva at the edge of the Swiss Alps, to modern approaches such as environmental sensors, satellite observations, stable isotope analysis, and DNA-based technologies which are used to probe the microbial life support systems that lead from sunlight to fish.

A vivid and enlightening oral history of homelessness in the Las Vegas storm drains and the hard work of reentering mainstream society. Dark Days, Bright Nights is the follow-up to the best-selling Beneath the Neon and shares the harrowing stories of Sin City's most marginalized people, from bottoming out in homelessness to mending relationships with family and adjusting to jobs, housing, and sobriety.

The Singers, an all-American family in the California style, are about to lose everything. Anne is a bureaucrat in the Los Angeles Office of Sustainability whose ideals are compromised by a proposal from a venture capitalist seeking to privatize the city's wastewater. Her brother, Ben, a former Navy SEAL, returns from Afghanistan disillusioned and struggling with PTSD, and starts down a path toward a radical act of violence. And Anne's teenage son, Aaron, can't decide if he should go to college or pitch it all and hit the road.

This compelling book takes you inside a teacher's journey to explore the question of gender in education. Jason Ablin uses his background in math teaching, school leadership, and neuroscience to present expert interviews, research, and anecdotes about gender bias in schools and how it impacts our best efforts to educate children.

In this provocative book, Jonathan Rothwell draws on the latest empirical evidence from across the social sciences to demonstrate how rich democracies have allowed racial politics and the interests of those at the top to subordinate justice. He looks at the rise of nationalism in Europe and the United States, revealing how this trend overlaps with racial prejudice and is related to mounting frustration with a political status quo that thrives on income inequality and inefficient markets. But economic differences are by no means inevitable.

With all the technological and economic shifts leading to significant change in the world of retailing, it's important to understand what really works - as well as what really doesn't - in the current retail selling environment. Surviving and thriving in this market means not just meeting, but exceeding, customer expectations. In this book, you learn what makes that possible: a nurturing relationship...combined with a tested, repeatable, zero-pressure sales process.

In Shadow People, national best-selling author James Swain’s brilliant follow-up to Dark Magic, magician Peter Warlock has a dark secret. He’s a psychic who peers into the future, using the information to alert the authorities to pending trouble. During a séance, Peter is confronted by a group of evil spirits called shadow people, beings who have the power to kidnap a person’s soul. Peter is taken to another plane, where he confronts a serial killer about to claim his next victim. It’s a harrowing encounter that Peter only barely manages to survive.

In Black Reconstruction W. E. B. Du Bois wrote, "The slave went free; stood for a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery." His words echo across the decades as the civil rights revolution, marked by the passage of landmark civil rights laws in the '60s, has seen those gains steadily and systematically whittled away.

Casidhe followed her conscience. It cost her everything and she now faces Herrick’s wrath for deceiving him. After a disastrous trip to the Caucasus Mountains, Daegan has no mercy for another enemy, then discovers important information about his past from an unlikely source. He’s running out of days, and now the Tribunal is making Beladors pay until he finds Sen. Reese has to choose between saving millions, including Quinn, from a demon invasion and giving up her baby. Adrianna sees an opening to escape, but nothing is ever as it appears when dealing with monsters.

Around 250,000 people have had their genomes sequenced, and scientists expect that number to rise to one billion by 2025. Professor Steven J. Heine argues that the first thing we will do on receiving our DNA test results is to misinterpret them completely. Despite breathless (often lightly researched) media coverage about newly discovered "cancer" or "divorce" or "IQ" genes, the prospect of a DNA test forecasting how your life is going to turn out is vanishingly small.

In the summer of 1916, a big twister brings destruction to the land around Boynton, Oklahoma. Alafair Tucker's family and neighbors are not spared the ruin and grief spread by the storm. But no one is going to mourn for Jubal Beldon, who made it his business to know the ugly secrets of everyonei n town. It doesn't matter if Jubal's insinuations are true or not. In a small town like Boynton, rumor is as damaging as fact.

Daegan and Casidhe are tested at every turn by angry immortals when they appear uninvited in a place with no exits. An expected change of events devastates Daegan’s hope of gaining the second grimoire volume and shatters Casidhe’s trust. Faced with becoming a monster, Adrianna gambles with the ancient Witchlock power capable of cataclysmic results and becomes collateral damage. Possessed by an Imortik, Reese runs to keep Quinn safe and finds a way to save others even though she can’t save herself.

Despite the rapid advances in medical science, the majority of people who visit a doctor have medically unexplained symptoms (MUS), symptoms that remain a mystery despite extensive diagnostic studies. The most common MUS are back pain, abdominal pain, headache, fatigue, and dizziness. This book addresses the obstacles of managing people with MUS in our modern-day society from both a historical and contemporary perspective.

Tess Janver and Cole Cavanaugh fell deeply in love in college. Then, he disappeared without a word. She feared the worst, or thought she did. After seven years, he returns as a beefed-up version of his former self. That's not the only thing different. As someone working in a preternatural criminal investigation unit and the daughter of a senator determined to rid the world of dangerous shifters, Tess is caught between performing her duty to humans by protecting the only family she has left and risking her heart to a man who, once, destroyed it.

Trapped waist-deep in a flooded tunnel, Casidhe faces a new threat when Cathbad finds her, forcing her to gamble with her unpredictable sword. After Skarde attacked the gryphon village, a furious Daegan is no longer willing to show mercy to ice dragon shifters. Quinn, Reese, and the Beladors go after the demon-maker flooding Atlanta with predators, which backfires when Reese is faced with an unimaginable choice. Adrianna tries to work with Sen to escape their imprisonment, but he snubs her offer a moment before he shouldn’t have.

Daegan is given an unconscionable task to execute before he’ll be told how to find the last grimoire volume. Casidhe jumps at learning the truth of her bloodline, only to discover a deadly surprise. While running solo, Reese angers the Imortik master who sends two possessed Beladors to drag her to him. Human military lock on Evalle and her Belador team racing to stop preternatural threats. With one last hope of surviving, Cathbad goes all-in and encounters a battle he never planned for. The Imortik master escalates his plans sooner than anyone expected.

Casidhe discovers she doesn’t know Daegan at all. While Daegan battles to survive a satyr attack, a preternatural being offers him a chance to live, but at a price only a dying man would take. Reese is blindsided by the one person she thought she could depend upon at her worst moment. Atlanta is overrun by demons being created by an unknown supernatural with a hidden agenda, and Daegan’s time to save three Beladors facing execution by a VIPER Tribunal runs out.

In this friends-to-lovers romance, Justin is an elite black ops warrior on a unique shifter team. He turns into a monster grizzly and rushes into danger without hesitation. But he's having second thoughts on playing bodyguard for a Russian bear shifter princess. How'd he get stuck guarding a prima donna who will look down her nose at him like the snobs in the bear clan where he grew up? But Elianna turns out to be nothing like he expected. She's strong, pretty, and feels special, like she could be the one.

You don't need more money, or time, or even another election cycle to bring transformational change to your community. What you need is to believe that daily microdoses of good over years and years can create a great return. Stop waiting for the big change moment and seize the good that you can do today.