Showing results by narrator "Steve Barnes" in All Categories

If knowledge is power, then what's a secret? A year after thwarting the Kabbahl's attempt to restore shadow magic, the impetuous Marcus Fith, denied the opportunity to help his family search for his sister, decides to take matters into his own hands. When the only meaningful clue his family has seen mysteriously shows up - a letter addressed to him... written in his own blood - Marcus escapes in order to work out the set of expiring instructions that promise to lead him to his sister. Promises are slippery things, however.

Inspired by the rising chaos in Sheng Fan, Xu Liang, mystic and officer of the Imperial Court, leaves his homeland for the barbarian outer lands in search of four magical blades to unite with two sacred weapons already in the possession of the Empire. His plan is to bring all of the blades together and return them to Sheng Fan's Empress as a symbol of unity that will bolster the people’s faith in the Imperial family and assist against the surge of dark forces. Complicating his plan is not the finding of the blades, but finding them with bearers.

A reluctant teen, a tattooed man, and a Big Boss with an even bigger secret. They'll keep you guessing until the very end with this gamer's fantasy tale. In the gaming world you can always power off. In the world of Nin, power is forever. Soon to be ninth grader, Xavier Dare, thinks he can ace any video game out there. When a mysterious tattooed man challenges X to play a game that's never before been completed -- X can't refuse.

One word changes everything. The all-powerful ruling authority, the Common, implants sensors into its citizens, sensors into the eyes and into the ears. They can see what you see and hear what you hear, and everything is monitored and recorded. One wrong word, or action, and you can lose your citizenship, which means death.

Everlasting is on the brink of total war. As the terrorist organization known as Garden attempts to assassinate key members of the Leadership, another unseen hand has plans of its own. Back at the human outpost, Mei Curie and her team are working to create the ultimate cure for the Variant gas. But with the war raging deep within the city, the shield could collapse at any moment, killing millions. Time is of the essence. Meanwhile, Terry waits beneath Everlasting, having been rescued by Garden's forces.

As a young man, Cedric discovers a terrifying defect in his nature. He has no blood loyalty, which means he can defy his king - something that has never happened in recorded history. But what begins as a flaw evolves into a strength. Citizens begin to listen to Cedric, and he discovers that if he leads, others will follow. But there's a catch. The more who follow him, the more famous he becomes. And the more famous he becomes, the more targets he finds pinned to his back.

Terry is on the run, having escaped from prison and killed its overseer. He and his friend Ludo need to find a way to get to the northern border. That's where Ludo's wife is being held, but time is of the essence. If they don't hurry, she'll be sacrificed to the gods as part of some barbaric ceremony. With an army at their heels and a continent to cross, Terry and Ludo will need all the help they can get.

When a threat so brutal it has the force to rip the magic right out of the world takes over Vagabond Circus, everyone seeks refuge away from the big top. Finley knows he has to protect the circus he's grown to love and its people. But to do that he'll have to further scar his soul. Jack is relentless to take back what was stolen from him, but in the process he becomes someone he never expected. And this acrobat, who once stole the hearts of millions, accidentally steals a heart he didn't expect.

When the worst case scenario befalls the Vagabond Circus, Zuma knows she must ensure it doesn't fall to doom. Titus's job is to guarantee the show goes on, while the acrobats seek to avenge and rescue. Jack has no idea that he's about to levitate himself into a deadly situation, and only Zuma and Finley can save him from a threat unlike what most have ever encountered.

The moment Ari Bowers stepped inside the abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of White Haven, Pennsylvania, she wanted to hightail it out of there like the ghost-fearing girl she was. Instead, she let her crush, Marcus Wagner, lead her into the shadows. Oops. As she predicted, they ran out screaming. But something followed her home.

Marcus and his twin sister, Ellie, live in the loft above their grandparents' magic shop - the one all the rumors are about. Soon the children are thrown into a world that they never knew existed. Not only is the family business a front, but Marcus learns that he has been marked as a dead man from the time he was born.

When a stranger joins the cast of Vagabond Circus - a circus that is run by Dream Travelers and features real magic - mysterious events start happening. The once orderly grounds of the circus become riddled with hidden threats. And the ringmaster realizes not only is his circus and its magic at risk, but also his very life.

Adam Kadman is the captain of a seed ship known as the Eden. Carrying 10,000 cryogenically frozen colonists, he and his crew must seek out new worlds for potential habitation. With the help of Lilith, a shipboard cyber brain, Adam and his team will stop at nothing to secure humanity's future. But time is running out. The Eden is breaking down, and accidents are beginning to occur at an alarming rate.

The humans on the Sentinel Battle Station have waited a decade in silence for their enemy's return - a merciless, bird-like alien species known as Apex, who are bent on exterminating all other sentient life in the quadrant. But when a strange warship appears, the crew is thrown into chaos as one faction is desperate to communicate with the newcomers, and the other will kill to keep their mission a secret. For the crew of HMS Blackbeard, a Royal Navy warship light years from home, the battle station may be their salvation.

After witnessing his father's murder and his home burned to the ground, Michael is left wandering the violent streets of London alone. Having been captured and managing to escape the clutches of the most heinous of men, he's terrified of recapture. All Michael wants to do is find somewhere safe. Somewhere he can call home. To do that he must survive in a city where he's the weak and the hunted - with no family or friends to help him.

The original Codex stories appeared in The Crimson Pact anthologies as The Transition and The Merging. These stories are connected to each other, and to Failed Crusade at their roots, but occur many years later. They follow an unsuspecting foreign exchange student named Sloan Boyle. A seemingly innocent interaction with a stranger in a Spanish Cafe leads to a dangerous series of events, and a weighty discovery that threatens everything Sloan ever knew about this world and his role in it.

George had begun to question his membership in the gang of murderers and rapists, but now that blood coats his hands, he can feel his humanity slipping away. All he wants to do is leave, but the leader of the gang is his psychotic brother-in-law and the only one who knows where George's pregnant sister is being kept. With just a few weeks left until she gives birth, George knows that leaving the gang now would mean condemning her and the child to the life he wants to escape.

Killing a man in the heat of the moment, violating a sacred peace among the criminals of Ralon's Bend, a young thief called Joren sets off a chain of events he could never have imagined. He gets banished from his home, caught up in the political intrigue of nations, and wanders the world with his friend, Mattal, the only witness to Joren's crime, trying to fix the mess he caused.

The Key to Making Money on Craigslist features a complete system for building sustainable wealth through merchandise resale. Over the course of the book, Steven Fies shows you exactly how he did over $20,000 in sales and earned over $6,000 in gross profit in one year on Craigslist - all in just a few hours per week. With a core focus on teaching you reliable and tested methods for profitable resale, this book delivers immediately usable steps to harness your business acumen and realize success.

With the alien death fleet destroyed and a temporary truce shattered, Captain Drake and his crew flee from the vengeful Lord Admiral Malthorne who has seized the throne of Albion. When half the fleet joins Drake in rebellion against the usurper, civil war embroils the kingdom.