Showing results by narrator "Raphael Corkhill" in All Categories

Kid Congo Powers has been described as a “legendary guitarist and paragon of cool” with “the greatest resume ever of anyone in rock music." That unique imprint on rock history stems from being a member of not one but three beloved, groundbreaking, and influential groups—Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Cramps, and last but not least, The Gun Club, the wildly inventive punk-blues band he co-founded. Some New Kind of Kick begins as an intimate coming-of-age tale.

From tuberculosis to bird flu and HIV to coronavirus, these infectious diseases share a common origin story: human interaction with animals. Otherwise known as zoonotic diseases for their passage from animals to humans, these pathogens - both preexisting ones and those newly identified - emerge and reemerge throughout history, sparking epidemics and pandemics that have resulted in millions of deaths around the world. How did these diseases come about? And what - if anything - can we do to stop them and their fatal march into our countries, our homes and our bodies?

Jonathan Lambshead stands to inherit his deceased grandfather’s overstuffed mansion - a veritable cabinet of curiosities - once he and two schoolmates catalog its contents. But the three soon discover that the house is filled with far more than just oddities: It holds clues linking to an alt-Earth called Aurora, where the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley has stormed back to life on a magic-fueled rampage across a surreal, through-the-looking-glass version of Europe replete with talking animals (and vegetables).

The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.

Liverpool, 1935: Raised in a strict Catholic family, Viv Byrne knows what’s expected of her: marry a Catholic man from her working-class neighborhood and have his children. However, when she finds herself pregnant after a fling with Joshua Levinson, a Jewish man with dreams of becoming a famous jazz musician, Viv knows that a swift wedding is the only answer. Her only solace is that marrying Joshua will mean escaping her strict mother’s scrutiny. But when Joshua makes a life-changing choice on their wedding day, Viv is forced once again into the arms of her disapproving family.

Get a completely new look at guitar legend Eddie Van Halen with this groundbreaking oral history, composed of more than 50 hours of interviews with Eddie himself as well as his family, friends, and colleagues.

Meet Otto and Cecil. Two brothers growing up privileged in the Welsh countryside. They enjoy watching nature shows, playing with their pet pony, impersonating their Grandfather...and killing the help. Murder is the family business after all. Downton Abbey, this is not. However, it’s not so easy to continue the family legacy with the constant stream of threats and distractions seemingly leaping from the hedgerow.

Seven months after the Hemorrhage virus swept across the world, Jack, his wife, Dee, his friend Boss, and the Renegades, a ragtag collection of civilian and military personnel, have been sent on two missions. Jack likes the first: recon. The second is insane: reenter the laboratory they barely escaped from a few months back and retrieve a logbook, a logbook that could provide the cure to end the madness. 

Perched on the North Sea, this port town—by turns legendary and mythological—is a place where Highland rebels and English authorities clash in a mortal struggle for survival and dominance. Among the fray is a lovely young widow who possesses rare and special gifts. A true beauty and trained physician, Isabella has inspired longing and mystery—and fury—in a great many men. Hunted by both the British government and Scottish rebels, she came to the Highlands in search of survival.

London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old trans, autistic Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium.

Maria and William seem to have it all: two happy children, a beautiful house, a thriving business. But when their home is invaded by David, an ex-employee with a score to settle, the couple face a terrifying fight to survive. During the course of one hellish night, David picks apart their carefully constructed life. Secrets are unearthed, truths revealed. And soon David begins to wonder if he’s bitten off more than he can chew—because he’s discovering Maria and William are not the defenseless couple he imagined.

In 1765, Michael Fallon, an Irishman on the run from brutal English overlords, makes his way to Charleston, South Carolina, as an indentured servant. Bound over to Thomas Carver, a successful merchant, he quickly shows a knack for trade—and a disturbing attraction to Carver's beautiful, sensual daughter, Elizabeth. With luck and intelligence—and not without bloodshed—he rises into the rice-planting aristocracy of the Carolina Lowcountry, where a frontier spirit pulses beneath the superficial trappings of an agrarian society that is heading rapidly toward revolution.

It is 1868, and a 22-year-old Bram Stoker has locked himself inside an abbey's tower to face off against a vile and ungodly beast. He is armed with mirrors and crucifixes and holy water and a gun - and is kept company by a bottle of plum brandy. His fervent prayer is that he will survive this one night - a night that will prove to be the longest of his life. Desperate to leave a record of what he has witnessed, the young man scribbles out the events that brought him to this point - and tells an extraordinary tale of childhood illness, a mysterious nanny and stories once thought to be fables now proven true.

As the renowned granddaughter of Isabella Camherst (Lady Trent, of the riveting and daring Draconic adventure memoirs) Audrey Camherst has always known she, too, would want to make her scholarly mark upon a chosen field of study. When Lord Gleinleigh recruits Audrey to decipher a series of ancient tablets holding the secrets of the ancient Draconean civilization, she has no idea that her research will plunge her into an intricate conspiracy, one meant to incite rebellion and invoke war. 

Nathan Makaryk's epic and daring debut rewrites the Robin Hood legend, giving voice to those history never mentioned and challenging who's really a hero and a villain.... England, 1191. King Richard is half a world away, fighting for God and his own ambition. Back home, his country languishes, bankrupt and on the verge of anarchy. People with power are running unchecked. People without are growing angry. And in Nottingham, one of the largest shires in England, the sheriff seems intent on doing nothing about it. 

For the first time in this ancient bloodstained story, the tournament is breaking. The boundaries between the city of Ilvernath and the arena have fallen. Reporters swarm the historic battlegrounds. A dead boy now lives again. And a new champion has entered the fray, one who seeks to break the curse for good...no matter how many lives are sacrificed in the process. As the curse teeters closer and closer to collapse, the surviving champions each face a choice: dismantle the tournament piece by piece, or fight to the death as this story always intended.

Wilson has blended H. P. Lovecraft's dark vision with his own revolutionary philosophy and unique narrative powers to produce a stunning, high-tension story of vaulting imagination. A professor makes a horrifying discovery while excavating a sinister archaeological site. For over 200 years, mind parasites have been lurking in the deepest layers of human consciousness, feeding on human life force and steadily gaining a foothold on the planet. Now they threaten humanity's extinction.

Injured and shaken, Ryan Connors and The Nameless are trapped at a former NSA listening station in the Aleutian Islands. To escape, they must put aside their distrust and launch an operation needed to halt OPIS from completing what they started - unrestricted dominion. In Oregon, Zanzi Connors and Director Lisa Omstead have reunited to search for the one person who could provide the answers they seek, Doctor Josie Lahm, the scientist responsible for creating the technology that has caused so much suffering. But the enemy will do anything to protect their asset.

In the aftermath of a global catastrophe that has killed billions, old enemies become allies in order to survive. When Ryan Connors and his former recon team, the Nameless, form an alliance with the Yakuza, they learn of a new plot that could lead to countless more deaths. Armed with this knowledge, and driven by revenge, Ryan and his team launch a desperate bid to stop OPIS from executing their plans to destroy the world.

Maisie Murray’s sweet, docile exterior masks the courageous spirit of a firebrand determined to champion women’s suffrage with like-minded friends. But fighting for her principles has swept her directly into harm’s way - and into the arms of a man she cannot resist. A trained officer with the Royal Highland Regiment, Niall Campbell has spent his life serving the Crown. Battle-weary and searching for peace, he nothing to do with trouble - until he meets Maisie.