Showing results by narrator "Steve West" in All Categories

For Alex Mercer his wife, Millicent, and their precocious 11-year-old son, Max, are everything - his little tribe that makes him feel all's right with the world. But when he and Max find their enigmatic next-door neighbor dead in his apartment, their lives are suddenly and irrevocably changed. The police begin an extremely methodical investigation, and Alex becomes increasingly impatient for them to finish. After all, it was so clearly a suicide.

What happens when you ask a bunch of losers, discipline cases and misfits to save the galaxy from an ancient evil? The ancient evil wins, of course.

When Viola Marek hires Fox D’Mora to deal with her ghost-infested mansion, she expects a competent medium. But unbeknownst to Viola, Fox is a fraud – despite being the godson of Death. As the mystery unfolds, Viola and Fox are drawn into a quest that neither wants nor expects. And they'll need the help of a demonic personal trainer, a sharp-voiced angel and a love-stricken reaper. And it transpires that the difference between a mysterious lost love and a dead body isn’t nearly as distinct as you’d hope.

Captain Warden and Lance Corporal Goodwin are the space marines with the hard job. They have to infiltrate a Deathless base, identify and capture a senior officer and extract him from under the nose of his soldiers, preferably without dying in the process. They’re relying on Ten to watch their backs, but when he is accosted by the denizens of the jungle he’s yomping through, he has to make a tough choice between speed and humanity.

Tim Diamond - the world’s worst private detective - takes on his most dangerous case yet, and it’s going to be up to his brother to keep him out of trouble. A short story from Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Once upon a time, a man who believed in fairy tales married a beautiful, mysterious woman named Indigo Maxwell-Casteñada. He was a scholar of myths. She was heiress to a fortune. They exchanged gifts and stories and believed they would live happily ever after—and in exchange for her love, Indigo extracted a promise: that her bridegroom would never pry into her past. But when Indigo learns that her estranged aunt is dying and the couple is forced to return to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, the bridegroom soon finds himself unable to resist.

Many years ago, the storytellers say, the great King Arthur brought justice to England with the help of his gallant Knights of the Round Table. There was Sir Lancelot the Great, Sir Kay the Loyal, Sir Bedivere the Just, and others, including young Givret, who was known for being...well, short. Poor Givret: His size makes him so easy to overlook. But there’s more to knighthood than height, and before long, Givret’s quick thinking lands him a place at the famous Round Table!

Luke Kanowski is a young playwright - intense, magnetic, and eager for life. He escapes a disastrous upbringing in the northeast and, arriving in London, meets Paul Driscoll, an aspiring producer, and the beautiful, fiery Leigh Radley, the woman Paul loves. The three set up a radical theater company, living and working together; a romantic connection forged in candlelit rehearsal rooms during power cuts and smoky late-night parties in Chelsea's run-down flats.

Lisa’s dated a series of disastrous men; Simon’s loved and lost the girl of his dreams. She’s hoping fate might intervene in her love life; he’d prefer that it stopped meddling with his. Today, they’re meeting, courtesy of the local paper’s ‘Blind Date’ feature - but while Lisa’s looking for that elusive ‘spark’, Simon’s sure lightning doesn’t strike twice. Will theirs be a love that’s written in the stars, or merely another mismatch written up in the Gazette?

When Temple wakes up in a filthy hotel, he doesn't remember a thing. Not how he got here. Not even his name. Temple just happened to be the first word he read on the bible sitting on the dusty nightstand. When he discovers that he and all those around him are caught in the apocalyptic hellscape of a collapsing metropolis, he must carefully weigh the balance between charity and self-sacrifice as he sets out into this strange new world. Grasping at a chance for purpose, he befriends young Nina.

Jamrach’s Menagerie tells the story of a nineteenth-century street urchin named Jaffy Brown. Following an incident with an escaped tiger, Jaffy goes to work for Mr. Charles Jamrach, the famed importer of exotic animals, alongside Tim, a good but sometimes spitefully competitive boy. Thus begins a long, close friendship fraught with ambiguity and rivalry.

Hanna Donnelly is the station captain's pampered daughter, and Nik Malikov is the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. Together they struggle with the realities of life aboard the galaxy's most boring space station, blissfully unaware that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall with news of the Kerenza invasion.

Known since school as "The A Team", Nick, Dan, Jan, and Will have been best friends for years. But now they're older, and their bond is stretched by partners, children, and the tightening net of secrets that are threatening to emerge. On the morning of Nick and Lisa's wedding, their friend Penny is found poised on the hotel window ledge, soaking wet and ready to jump. As the A Team rally around her, they soon realize that none of them are being as honest with themselves - or with each other - as they think they are....

Hanna Donnelly is the station captain's pampered daughter, and Nik Malikov is the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. Together they struggle with the realities of life aboard the galaxy's most boring space station, blissfully unaware that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall with news of the Kerenza invasion.

The giant characters of history - from Mozart to Michelangelo, Shakespeare to Einstein, Henry VIII to Hitler, Catherine the Great to Margaret Thatcher, Jesus Christ to Genghis Khan - lived lives of astonishing drama and adventure, debauchery and slaughter, but they also formed our world and will shape our future. In this eclectic and surprising collection of short and entertaining life stories, Simon Sebag Montefiore introduces his choice of kings, empresses, sultans and conquerors as well as prophets, explorers, artists, actresses, courtesans and psychopaths. 

Discover the truths, the history, the myths and the magic behind the best-selling All Souls trilogy. Fall under the spell once more with this all-encompassing insider's guide to A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night and The Book of Life. The All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness, featuring historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont, delves into mythology, alchemy, literature and architecture. And history is brought to life.

The White Drake's army has cut a bloody swathe across the world, leaving nothing but ash in its wake. Thousands of innocents have died beneath its blades, and countless more will surely follow. Only small-time criminal Claydon Torcreek and master spy Lizanne Lethridge - along with their ragtag band of allies - stand between the White Drake's fury and the world's end. To save the future, they must delve into the past - and unravel a timeless mystery that might just turn the tide once and for all.

In this groundbreaking new work, Professor Hawking and renowned science writer Leonard Mlodinow have drawn on 40 years of Hawking's own research and a recent series of extraordinary astronomical observations and theoretical breakthroughs to reveal an original and controversial theory.

Late in the twenty-first century, drought and wildfires prompt an exodus from southern Europe. When twelve-year-old Caleb is separated from his mother during their trek north, he soon falls prey to traffickers. Enslaved in an enclave outside Manchester, the resourceful and determined Caleb never loses hope of bettering himself. After Caleb is befriended by a fellow victim of trafficking, another road opens. Hiding in the woodlands by day, guided by the stars at night, he begins a new journey - to escape to a better life, to meet someone he can trust, and to find his family.

When his uncle is brutally murdered, Josiah King knows that business just got personal. His uncle's ties to the Alliance can mean only one thing: Josiah and his black ops team are targets along with everyone they love. Primed for vengeance, Josiah is determined to unravel the plot - until long-legged redhead Sutton Dahl becomes a dangerous distraction.