Showing results by narrator "Aiello" in All Categories

A medieval swindler gets caught with his proverbial pants down; a foolproof plan is put into place to pick up some cash via AI, until things take an unexpected and deadly turn; a legendary bodyguard is hired to protect precious cargo, but who will protect the cargo from him? The 14 brand-new stories deal with the complex idea of morality and will make listeners wonder what side is the right side.

Christina Powers, beautiful, talented, rich, and well connected, has it all together, until she falls in love; threatening to turn her back on her wealth, her fame, and her controlling Mafioso uncle who made it all possible. Will she discover the identity of her real parents and fulfill her destiny? Now I invite you to sit back, hold on, and enjoy the adventure, because you are about to be swept away by the mesmerizing, Christina Powers.

This collection of two short stories and assorted short pieces were published previously, and gathered here for the first time. "The Perils of Effrijim" is loaded with quirky characters, a fast-paced story, and an adorable demon who just wants to be with his beloved. In "Cat Got Your Tongue", Joy Randall thought her honeymoon with husband Raphael was going to fulfill all her expectations, but almost immediately they run into a decades-old curse, a spurned ghostly first wife, and a long-dead randy Scottish Laird.

Recalling the great muckrakers of the past, an outraged team of America's best-selling writers unite to confront the disasters of wrongful convictions. Wrongful convictions, long regarded as statistical anomalies in an otherwise sound justice system, now appear with frightening regularity. But few people understand just how or why they happen and, more important, the immeasurable consequences that often haunt the lucky few who are acquitted years after they are proven innocent.

In this Italian children's classic, a lonely toymaker named Gepetto creates a small wooden puppet who magically comes to life. In a series of mischievous adventures, Pinocchio thinks he can get by on a variety of clever lies and tricks. There is one problem: his nose grows every time he tells a lie. One way or another, the truth always comes out, and Pinocchio finds out that lying does not pay.

In Getting to Green, Frederic C. Rich argues that meaningful progress on urgent environmental issues can be made only on a bipartisan basis. Rich reminds us of American conservation's conservative roots and of the bipartisan political consensus that had Republican congressmen voting for, and Richard Nixon signing, the most important environmental legislation of the 1970s.

Working as a barmaid in the rough-and-tumble city of Half Town, Jancy the Quick keeps her true profession a secret but is poised to respond whenever injustice is found. In this instance injustice has found her. But this time Jancy may have bitten off more than she can chew.

"Sun and Steel" illuminates the origin of Jirom, one of the main characters of the Book of the Black Earth epic fantasy series. This story explores the brutal nature of this world as well as the honor and duty that bind its characters together.

The lives of Toronto teens Crystal and Becca Hatcher revolve around helping their mother out at the family's used bookstore, The Speckled Muse. It's a relatively uneventful after-school job, until an package arrives addressed to her mother, Julia. Thinking it's nothing more than run-of-the-mill inventory, Becca opens it and removes the book inside, unwittingly triggering an ancient magic and intertwining their fates with the powers that flow from the mysterious leather-bound book.

At age 26 Dave Cicirelli found himself at a crossroads. While his friends on Facebook appeared to have lives of nonstop accomplishments, his early adulthood felt disappointingly routine. So one October morning, Dave announced on Facebook that he was dropping everything and heading west. Many thought him brave - or crazy.

In keeping with the Akashic Noir series tradition, each story in Boston Noir is set in a different neighborhood of the city - the impressively diverse collection extends from Roxbury to Cambridge, from Southie to the Boston Harbor, and all stops in between. Lehane's own contribution - the longest story in the volume - is set in his beloved home neighborhood of Dorchester and showcases his phenomenal ability to grip the heart, soul, and throat of the reader.

In the stories of Havana Noir, current and former residents of the city - some international sensations such as Leonardo Padura, others exciting new voices like Yohamna Despestre - uncover crimes of violence and loveless sex, of mental cruelty and greed, of self-preservation and collective hysteria.

Beneath the glitter of Mardi Gras lies the sleaze of Bourbon Street; under the celestial sounds of JazzFest, the nightmare screams of a city once at war within its neighborhoods, but after Hurricane Katrina, seemingly at war with nature and the rest of the country as well. New Orleans is a third world country in itself, a Latin, African, European (and often amoral) culture trapped in a Puritan nation.

The most civilized and 'decent' among us find that we are complicit with the most brutal murderers. We enter into literally unspeakable alliances - of which we dare not speak except through the obliquities and indirections of fiction, poetry, and visual art of the sort gathered here in New Jersey Noir.

Step into Indian Country. Enter the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas, where the heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent. Features brand-new stories by: Mistina Bates, Jean Rae Baxter, Lawrence Block, Joseph Bruchac, David Cole, Reed Farrel Coleman, O'Neil De Noux, A.A. Hedge Coke, Gerard Houarner, Liz Martnez, R. Narvaez, Kimberly Roppolo, Leonard Schonberg, and Melissa Yi.

"Readers of Brooklyn Noir will recall that its contents were labeled by neighborhood - Bay Ridge, Canarsie, Greenpoint, etc. We have chosen the same principle here, and the book's contents do a good job of covering the island, from C.J. Sullivan's Inwood and Charles Ardai's Upper East Side, to Justin Scott's Chelsea and Carol Lea Benjamin's Greenwich Village."

Brand-new stories by: Daniel Woodrell, Matthew Eck, Catherine Browder, Nancy Pickard, John Lutz, J. Malcolm Garcia, Kevin Prufer, Linda Rodriguez, Nadia Pflaum, Phong Nguyen, Andres Rodriguez, and others. Kansas City: where East and West collide, where naked ambition meets broken dreams, where blues and the night go together like rye whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. Yes, Kansas City is a surprising place of grit, gore, and betrayal, at least in the imaginations of our diverse lineup of contributors.

Beloved stage and screen actor Danny Aiello’s big-hearted memoir reveals a man of passion, integrity, and guts - and lays bare one of the most unlikely success stories ever told. Danny Aiello admits that he backed into his acting career by mistake. That’s easy to see when you begin at the beginning: Raised by his loving and fiercely resilient mother in the tenements of Manhattan and the South Bronx, and forever haunted by the death of his infant brother, Danny struggled early on to define who he was and who he could be.

Nils Hansen, Commissioner of Security Forces, must venture into the forbidding environs of Northworld, where previous explorations have mysteriously vanished.

The Consensus ruled twelve hundred worlds - but not Northworld. Three fleets had been dispatched to probe the enigma of Northworld. None returned. Now, Commissioner Nils Hansen must face the challenge of this distant planet - a gateway to nine alternate worlds. There, he will confront a world at war, a world of androids, a world of sentient machines - all unique, all lethal. But deadliest of all are the men who would be gods.