Showing results by narrator "Damian Lynch" in All Categories

Trapped on an alternate Earth, the combined crews of a crashed Russian spaceship, a British expeditionary force and a group of strays from the future must work together to survive, escape and discover what led them to this point. All are from parallel universes where small changes in history led to different realities, and the tensions between the groups are rising.

Everyone likes to think they know a bit about language: There are some words that you simply can't translate into English. The origin of a word tells you how it should be used. A dialect is inferior to a language. The problem is, none of these statements are true. In Don't Believe a Word, linguist David Shariatmadari explodes nine common myths about language and introduces us to some of the fundamental insights of modern linguistics.

Restless, ambitious Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the Schutzruppe askari, the German colonial troops; after years away, he returns to his village to find his parents gone and his sister, Afiya, given away. Hamza was not stolen but was sold; he has come of age in the army, at the right hand of an officer whose control has ensured his protection but marked him for life. Hamza does not have words for how the war ended for him. Returning to the town of his childhood, all he wants is work, however humble and security - and the beautiful Afiya.

The demon king Asroth has been freed from his iron prison. Now, alongside his dark bride, Fritha, he plans to conquer the whole of the Banished Lands. In the shadows of Forn Forest, Riv and the surviving Ben-Elim desperately search for a way to unite those who remain against Asroth's vast army. Far in the west, Drem is with the Order of the Bright Star, besieged by a demon horde. Their fragile defenses are on the brink of shattering, but they know that it is better to fight and die than to live without hope.

Drem and his friends are haunted by the horrors they witnessed at the battle at Starstone Lake: the screams of men being warped into beasts and the sight of a demon rising from the dead. But worse than any memory is Fritha, the demons' deadly high priestess. And she is hunting them. Concealed in Forn Forest, Riv knows her very existence as a half-breed is a threat to the Ben-Elim. She represents their most dangerous secret - and if the warrior angels find her, they won't hesitate to silence her.

In Inverting the Pyramid, Jonathan Wilson pulls apart the finer details of the world's game, tracing the global history of tactics, from modern pioneers right back to the beginning when chaos reigned. Along the way, he looks at the lives of great players and thinkers who shaped the sport and probes why the English, in particular, have 'proved themselves unwilling to grapple with the abstract'.

Demir Grappo is an outcast—he fled a life of wealth and power, abandoning his responsibilities as a general, a governor, and a son. Now he will live out his days as a grifter, rootless, and alone. But when his mother is brutally murdered, Demir must return from exile to claim his seat at the head of the family and uncover the truth that got her killed: the very power that keeps civilization turning, godglass, is running out.

A breakout best seller in Italy, now available for American listeners for the first time, Genesis: The Story of How Everything Began is a short, humanistic tour of the origins of the universe, earth, and life - drawing on the latest discoveries in physics to explain the seven most significant moments in the creation of the cosmos.

By early December 1941, war had changed much of the world beyond recognition. Nazi Germany occupied most of the European continent, while in Asia, the Second Sino-Japanese War had turned China into a battleground. But these conflicts were not yet inextricably linked - and the United States remained at peace. Hitler’s American Gamble recounts the five days that upended everything: December 7 to 11.

When ex-MI5 operative Joe Mason gets a call from the Vatican, he knows it is bad news. Marduk, crazed leader of The Amori cult, has escaped from a fortress-like prison in Milan, and he's hell-bent on revenge. His target? None other than Joe Mason himself. Fuelled by an unrelenting hatred for Mason, Marduk launches a burning vendetta: to not only destroy his nemesis but annihilate the very foundations of the church itself.

An explosive return to the library leaves the six Alexandrians vulnerable to the lethal terms of their recruitment. Old alliances quickly fracture as the initiates take opposing strategies as to how to deal with the deadly bargain they have so far failed to uphold. Those who remain with the archives wrestle with the ethics of their astronomical abilities, while elsewhere, an unlikely pair from the Society cohort partner to influence politics on a global stage.

Everyday Kindness is a charity anthology of short fictional stories of kindness, edited by LJ Ross. These uplifting tales of hope and of small everyday kindnesses are intended to support wider positive mental-health goals and foster wellbeing through the act of listening to tales of goodwill inspired by others. Featuring authors across the spectrum of literature, some international best-selling and award-winning writers amongst them, this is a unique collection of words.

It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise. Ever since, vampires have waged war against humanity building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Gabriel de León, half man, half monster, and last remaining silversaint–a sworn brother of the holy Silver Order dedicated to defending the realm from the creatures of the night–is all that stands between the world and its end.

Early one morning, a men’s rowing team discovers a body floating face down in the Thames. Many years before, the chief executive of a clothing manufacturer walked off with a multi-million dollar corporate retirement fund and disappeared without a trace. Now, the discovery of this body has reopened that cold case. Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp has his own evening at the theater upended by the discovery of a dead body just a few seats away.

High in the Italian alps, cut off from the outside world, sits a chapel battered by winds and icy blizzards. The priests who guard this sacred place have sworn to protect the dangerous treasure that lies within their walls. But when Joe Mason and his team are called to the remote church, they find its ancient stones reduced to rubble, the priests murdered in cold blood and their precious cargo stolen.

The murder of the Romanov family in July 1918 horrified the world, and its aftershocks still reverberate today. In Putin's autocratic Russia, the Revolution itself is considered a crime, and its anniversary was largely ignored. In stark contrast, the centenary of the massacre of the imperial family will be commemorated in 2018 by a huge ceremony to be attended by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. While the murder itself has received major attention, what has never been investigated in detail are the various plots behind the scenes to save the family.

We begin with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago. From here, Montefiore takes us on an exhilarating epic journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims and Assads.

When ex-MI5 operative Joe Mason is sent to Rome to guard an elderly professor and his daughter, he thinks he’s in for an easy ride. But on their first day in the Vatican secret archives, a masked assassin gains entry, shoots Joe’s client in cold blood and steals an ancient manuscript. Giving chase, Joe can’t imagine what could lie within those pages that would make someone willing to kill. The search for answers leads Joe and his comrades in a race against time, across continents and into treacherous mountains.

Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in the 20th century.

Ex-MI5 operative Joe Mason is on a mission to rescue a friend who has been kidnapped. Meanwhile, ancient coins – remnants of a Chinese casino buried for six hundred years – are starting to surface in Japan's clandestine underworld. Mason knows the coins and kidnapping are linked. Someone has finally unearthed the long-buried ancient casino, and its riches – both financial and archaeological – are now up for grabs. But hidden forces are desperate to conceal the discovery and take it for themselves, kidnapping and killing to silence anyone in their path.