Showing results by narrator "Richard Poe" in All Categories

Back then Tommy had been separated from his sisters after he stood up to their abusive father. Jim was by Tommy's side through it all. But one winter night, a chance event on a frozen lake forever changed the balance of their friendship. Now Jim fishes alone on a bridge as Tommy drives by in a new Mercedes, and it's clear their fortunes have reversed. Over the course of the day, the life of each man will be irrevocably altered.

George Washington as he's rarely seen. Besides being a general and the first president of the United States, George Washington was also a farmer. His efforts to create a self-sufficient farm at Mount Vernon, Virginia, mirrored his struggle to form a new nation. Excerpts from Washington's writings are featured throughout the book, which also includes a timeline, resource section, as well as essays on Washington at Mount Vernon and his thoughts on slavery.

Pushcart Prize nominee Dave King delivers a moving novel that explores the nature of family. Wounded in Vietnam, Howard Kapostash is unable to speak, read, or write, although his intelligence is normal. Now middle-aged, he lives a lonely existence. But then his former high school sweetheart entrusts her nine-year-old son to Howard when she enters drug rehab. Suddenly a father figure, Howard begins to open up, and the emotional wounds of his past start to heal.

"The First Kill" is a bit of backstory for the universe of The Shadow Campaigns. The Shadow Throne implies a connection between Andreas, Duke Orlanko's brutally efficient go-to killer, and Sothe, the Gray Rose, his best agent turned bitter enemy. In this story, we get to see these two at an earlier point in their careers, and take a look at how that relationship got started.

In this masterful debut, an award-winning writer and first-rate storyteller explores the tenuous bonds of family - fathers and sons, husbands and wives - as they are tested by the sometimes brutal power of love. In each of the stories in this remarkable collection, David James Poissant delivers a moving portrayal of a relationship in turmoil. His strikingly true-to-life characters have reached a precipice, chased there by troubles of their own making. Some stand frightened, some ready to fight. Some seek atonement, others the atonement that is owed them.

What do you do when the dead come back and your loved ones disappear? All Gabe McKenna wanted was a new floor for his barn. What he got was seven corpses, all long dead. Seven rich men missing from New York. One of his closest childhood friends is gunned down in an Albuquerque casino. After escaping two attempts on his own life and with time running out, McKenna must uncover the connection and prevent his loved ones from joining the growing ranks of the dead.

On July 1, 1776, battling bad weather and physical handicaps, the great patriot Caesar Rodney embarked on his historical ride to Philadelphia, where he would cast his vote for independence and help ensure the birth of the United States.

The cowboys, gold miners, outlaws, gunmen, prostitutes, and marshals who populate the Wild West never see much big-city entertainment. Those Western towns are too wild and rowdy for entertainers to enter, let alone perform in. All that is about change.

Many dogs have human owners. Not this dog. He fetches his own slippers, curls up at his own feet and gives himself a good scratch. But there is one spot, in the middle of his back, that he just can't reach. So one day, he lets a human scratch it. And the poor little chap follows him home. What can the dog do but get a lead, so he can take the chap around? Dog lovers of all ages will revel in the humorous role-reversal as this dog teaches his human all the skills he needs to be a faithful companion.

This collection of short poems from Newbery Award-winning author Paul Fleischman delightfully celebrates the essence of birds. The companion to Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, its poems feature two voices speaking sometimes together and sometimes in turn. Experience the magic and magnificence of the immortal phoenix. Enjoy the fluttering elation of finches at dawn and the swiftness of swallows at dusk. And empathize with the loneliness of the pigeon in the Cincinnati Zoo.

The fiction and reportage included in The Last Carousel, one of the final collections published during Nelson Algren’s lifetime, was written on ships and in ports of call around the world, and includes accounts of brothels in Vietnam and Mexico, stories of the boxing ring, and reminiscences of Algren’s beloved Chicago White Sox, among other subjects. In this collection, not just Algren’s intensity but his diversity are revealed and celebrated.

As a local biker war rages - seven shrink-wrapped corpses have been found buried on a farm just outside of Dundurn - an ambitious waterfront project meant to revive the dying industrial city is underway. Dredging is nearly complete when six more bodies turn up at the bottom of the lake. With the body count rising, the situation in Dundurn escalates as a serial killer begins targeting the city's successful young women of colour.

Richard is a modern day everyman; a middle-aged divorcee trading stocks out of his home. He has done such a good job getting his life under control that he needs no one. His life has slowed almost to a standstill until two incidents conspire to hurl him back into the world. One day he wakes up with a knotty cramp in his back, which rapidly develops into an all-consuming pain. At the same time a wide hole appears outside his living room window, threatening the foundations of his house.

Halifax had been in French Africa for five years, doing whatever foolhardy, dangerous thing Serailler ordered him to do. It was some time before he finally snapped, but when he did, he opened the throttle, eased back the stick, and lifted straight and high into a dream.

From the author of the John J. Malone Mysteries: An estranged relative becomes heir to a Chesapeake Bay fortune - and his family’s ghostly history. If it hadn’t been for his great-uncle Philip, David Telefair would’ve grown up unwanted, forlorn, and poverty stricken in a New England parsonage. But for 20 years, David’s generous benefactor paid for his education, yearly summer camps, living expenses as he grew older, and any amenities he ever needed.

A young bear, watching a woman read one summer day, wonders how words in a book make her laugh. As his curiosity draws him closer, she offers to read aloud for him. He listens intently while she reads book after book. O how he loves the soothing sound of her voice! But one fall day, she is gone. And how will he ever bear her absence?

New York, August 1974: a man is walking in the sky. Between the newly built Twin Towers, the man twirls through the air. Far below, the lives of complete strangers spin towards each other: Corrigan, a radical Irish monk working in the Bronx; Claire, a delicate Upper East Side housewife reeling from the death of her son; Lara, a drug-addled young artist; Gloria, solid and proud despite decades of hardship; Tillie, a hooker who used to dream of a better life and Jazzlyn, her beautiful daughter raised on promises that reach beyond the skyline of New York.

“You don’t write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich”, writes Nelson Algren in his only longer work of nonfiction, adding: “A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.” Nonconformity is about 20th-century America: “Never on the earth of man has he lived so tidily as here amidst such psychological disorder.” In Nonconformity, Algren identifies the essential nature of the writer’s relation to society....

Pony Carteret - the lovely headstrong youngest member of the Carteret family - has always been a strong swimmer. So when she is discovered drowned at the family's summer home on Lake Aral, Vermont, her red hair tangled in an anchor chain and her baby abandoned on shore, her family is stunned. William Carteret, Pony's older brother, can't accept the explanation that his favorite sister's death was an accident.

Known for his vivid imagery, provocative subjects, and charged prose, Paul Watkins has emerged as one of the most gifted writers of his generation. This powerful novel shimmers with lyrical descriptions of the seascape as it sounds the depths of memory and conscience. Seeing a man brutally murdered in his local hangout on the docks of Newport sends Paul Wedekind into a torturous reverie of his past.