Showing results by narrator "Steve West" in All Categories

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around - and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he's been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

For thousands of years, there has been a cycle: a Demon King rises and conquers, and a Hero is reborn a hundred years later to defeat him. Each time, civilizations are ground to dust beneath the Demon King's hordes, but humanity has remained secure in the belief that a Hero of legend will always save them. There's just one slight problem. It's only been 23 years since the Demon King's latest rise, and this time, he's already conquered more than half the world. If humanity simply waits for the Hero's return, there may be no world left for him to save.

Barely a month since his promotion to Inspector, DI Ford is called in to investigate the murder of a young nurse and her son in a small flat in Salisbury. There are few clues, and no apparent motive, but Ford can sense that there's a serial killer at work. After all, he knows from brutal personal experience how killers cover their tracks.... It's been six years since Ford lost his wife in a climbing accident - an accident he caused. He is desperate to keep the truth hidden, especially from his son, Sam.

With her trademark lyricism, Maggie Stiefvater turns to a new world, where a pair are swept up in a daring, dangerous race across a cliff—with more than just their lives at stake should they lose.

Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the sultan. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. Both Zafira and Nasir are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya - but neither wants to be.

First, the bad news: an ancient evil—you know, your standard consume-all-life-in-the-galaxy deal—is about to be unleashed. The good news? Squad 312 is standing by to save the day. They've just got to take care of a few small distractions first. Like the clan of gremps who'd like to rearrange their favorite faces. And the cadre of illegit GIA agents with creepy flowers where their eyes used to be, who'll stop at nothing to get their hands on Auri. Then there's Kal's long-lost sister, who's not exactly happy to see her baby brother and has a Syldrathi army at her back.

A rare glimpse into heaven, hell, and previous lives - Dr. Rajiv Parti's near-death experience brought him on a journey through the afterworld, leading to a spiritual awakening that transformed his career, his lifestyle, and even his fundamental beliefs. Before his near-death experience, Dr. Rajiv Parti was a wealthy man of science with a successful career as the Chief of Anesthesiology at the Bakersfield Heart Hospital in California. Dr. Parti was the last man to believe in heaven or hell - that is, until he saw them with his own eyes.

When the body of forty-four-year-old Karen Simmons is found abandoned in remote woodland, journalist Kiki Nunn is determined this will be the big break she so desperately needs. Because she has a head start on all the other reporters. Just a week before Karen was killed, Kiki interviewed her about the highs and lows of mid-life romance. Karen told her all about kissing strangers on the beach under the stars, expensive meals, roses. About the scammers, the creeps, the man who followed her home the other night...

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.

In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep. Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice - save the woman he loves or everyone else? - while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the muse of nightmares, has not yet discovered what she's capable of.

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.

When we last saw Squad 312, they working together seamlessly (aka, freaking out) as an intergalactic battle raged and an ancient superweapon threatened to obliterate Earth. Everything went horribly wrong, naturally.

An epic collection of fantasy stories from true masters of the genre, including a never-before-published Song of Ice and Fire novella by George R. R. Martin. Fantasy fiction has produced some of the most unforgettable heroes ever: Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné, Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Classic characters like these made sword and sorcery a cornerstone of fantasy fiction and an inspiration for a new generation of writers spinning their own magical adventures.

In this thrilling next instalment, the secret society of Alexandrians is unmasked. Its newest recruits realize the institute is capable of raw world-changing power. It’s also headed by a man with plans to change life as we know it—and these are already under way. But the cost of this knowledge is as high as the price of power, and each initiate must choose which faction to follow. Yet as events gather momentum and dangers multiply, which of their alliances will hold? Can friendships hold true and are enemies quite what they seem?

Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories is a brilliant collection of short stories, personally chosen by Andrea Camilleri, following Inspector Montalbano from his very first case in Vigàta, in which he stumbles upon a young girl lurking outside a courthouse with a pistol in her handbag. When she is taken in for questioning and won't utter a single word, Montalbano must find another way to learn whom she is trying to kill and why.

The last thing Alice expects to see at her husband’s graveside on his birthday is a giant, talking frog. On closer inspection, it’s a grown man dressed as Kermit. Turns out Alice’s husband is buried next to Ben’s older brother Harry, who—as a parting practical joke in his will—insisted that Ben visit his grave each year, on this specific day, dressed in an as-yet-undisclosed pageant of embarrassing fancy dress.

When mariner Robinson Crusoe sails from London to the African coast to Brazil, his unpredictable voyage takes a catastrophic course. The lone survivor of a shipwreck, he washes ashore on an Atlantic island. Resourceful and determined to contend with providence and nature, he finds his sovereignty empowering. Through the years he builds a civilization as a solitary man. Then he discovers a stranger’s footprint in the sand.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, the spirit tethered to a magical bridge rapidly approaches burnout – and craves her freedom. Elsewhere, Congress enacts a complex auditing system designed to un-waste your youth. We also follow a banished fairy, as she answers a Craigslist ad. And we meet a Victorian orphan, who gains literacy for her occult situationship. In another time and place, a multiverse assassin contemplates the one who got away.

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.

Selly has salt water in her veins. So when her father leaves her high and dry in the port of Kirkpool, she has no intention of riding out the winter at home while he sails to adventure in the north seas. But any plans to follow him are dashed when a handsome stranger with tell-tale magician's marks on his arms commandeers her ship under cover of darkness. He is Prince Leander of Alinor, and he needs to cross the Crescent Sea without detection so he can complete a ritual on the sacred Isles of the Gods.