Showing results by narrator "Steven Barnett" in All Categories

Behind every cottage door is a liar. Look past the tended lawns and screened windows open to the sea breeze and dusky porch lights shining on waning summer nights. And listen closely. Are those whispers of swaying marsh grasses? Or hushed secrets floating in the salt air? Walking the sandy roads, it's hard to tell. There. There's the imposing Barlow cottage on the bluff. Elsa's shingled inn by the sea. The Fenwicks' last-standing cottage on the sand. Cliff's ramshackle beach trailer. Celia's tucked-away guest cottage.

After a heartbreaking summer on the Connecticut shore, a group of beach friends is as adrift as an unmoored rowboat. When a dismayed Jason Barlow drives as far away from the sea as he can, leaving behind his wife, Maris, as well as their stately cottage on the bluff, that news hits like a sudden wave. Gathering over an intimate meal in a coastal diner, the friends make a solemn pact to lean on each other and not make any more rash decisions.

Beyond Horizons explores classic sci-fi themes through a contemporary lens. Continuing the legacy of decades gone by, these fast-paced standalone stories offer wondrous settings, philosophical sci-fi questions, and twists that pack a punch.

Celia Gray finds herself house-sitting a silver-shingled cottage at Stony Point. She arrives with her guitar, a few staging jobs ... and a bit of summertime sadness. That is, until an unforgettable group of beach friends draws her in like a breath of salt air. Sal DeLuca heard the words in a dream: Take me to the sea. So after a decade of demanding work, he takes his first vacation in years.

During two August weeks, denim designer Maris Carrington and coastal architect Jason Barlow prepare for their much-anticipated wedding. Guests arrive early, turning keys in charming cottage doors to begin their New England summer escape. The wedding is a reason for old friends to gather again; to meet in their shabby beach hangout and get the jukebox cranking; to walk that weathered boardwalk beneath a starry sky; to breathe the sweet salt air. "Cures what ails you," one of the friends, Neil, always said long before his life was sadly claimed. But his legacy was not.

When you're the king of the mountain, everyone wants to see you fall. He’s secured all three Relics. All problems solved, right? Wrong. Monsters from the Gate roam deserted Earth and Daniel Hunt is first in line to chase them down. Meanwhile, an invisible enemy increases its hold on the human race; infecting one by one as it spreads across the population. This alien pandemic soon reaches those closest to Daniel.The Galactic Government looks to W.O.L.F. led by Daniel Hunt for help in their darkest hour. Will the aid of the Relics be enough?

After years of pursuing a denim design career, Maris Carrington never imagined trading her Chicago studio for a New England shingled cottage. But a forgotten home movie tucked inside a dusty attic box leads to an unexpected summer ... One of uncovering family secrets while settling her father's estate, one of inheriting a forlorn German shepherd, one of reconnecting with old friends on a weathered boardwalk, beneath starlit skies on a beach nestled in a crook of the Connecticut coast.

When Judy Fletcher's life is at its lowest ebb, she jumps at the chance to trial a truly next-gen digital assistant. Oracle promises to change everything. By harnessing live and historical data from billions of users' messages, habits and even real-world conversations, there is almost nothing the app can't do. As Judy's life immediately changes for the better, she feels empowered like never before.

Home, for Joel Briggs, is the old New England farmhouse on winter road. From the front porch, he listens to the barred owls or watches the towering Christmas tree lit up in the yard. It's a quiet road, kind of like his life. Quiet. Until Faye Weston walks right into it.

With the Terradox colony stable and established, attention turns to the most ambitious endeavour in human history: the creation of a planet-sized romosphere capable of carrying a sizeable population on a one-way course for the stars.

"Terradox Zero: Before the Crash", an illuminating prequel story to the best-selling Terradox series, giving new insight into the journey's crew and passengers.

At long last, the dream of a functioning research colony on Terradox has become reality. Thousands of men, women, and children now call the distant romosphere home, with experts in countless fields recruited from Earth to spearhead the most ambitious research projects ever devised. All eyes fall on the closing stages of a colony-defining isolation test within Terradox’s least hospitable zone—the man-made hellscape of Little Venus, where six astronauts-in-training have survived 51 weeks surrounded by an almost impossibly hostile atmosphere.

When Kurt Jacobs imagines the ultimate gadget—one capable of replacing phones, credit cards, keys, and TVs—the idea consumes his every waking moment. When the Sycamore corporation buys into Kurt's creation and The Seed becomes a reality, his every dream comes true. Power like this has never existed. But amid all of the awe and optimism, there is far more going on behind the curtain than Kurt or anyone else could ever have predicted.

All eyes fall on the closing stages of a colony-defining isolation test within Terradox’s least hospitable zone—the man-made hellscape of Little Venus, where six astronauts-in-training have survived 51 weeks surrounded by an almost impossibly hostile atmosphere. But while the astronauts of tomorrow count down their final few days until freedom, the gravest threat of all might already be on the wrong side of their Isolation Kompound’s impenetrable walls....

After discovering the truth behind Sycamore, tech pioneer Kurt Jacobs rejects the corporation’s offer of a new identity and chooses to fight to expose the truth. But with an overt threat against his family hanging over him, Kurt must act without being seen.

In 10 original stories, Sycamore X explores Sycamore's augmented reality dystopia through the eyes of parents, teachers, job-hunters, Sycamore employees, unwilling celebrities, and more.

In 12 original stories, this super-sized collection picks up right where Sycamore X left off by exploring the mega corporation’s augmented reality dystopia through the eyes of a varied cast of characters, some new and some familiar.

The book, the cup, the sword; ancient alien relics buried on Earth have been recovered. But before they can be put to use, two old friends must be saved. Angelica and Jax codenamed Angel and Spartan have been gone since the end of the Voy invasion. With no communication received from the two original members of the Pack Protocol, the search begins. Daniel will lead a team to discover the truth and the nightmare that waits for them.

Dylan Kline, salesman extraordinaire, eyes Saturn's moons as his ultimate cosmic jackpot. As global attention turns towards the first launch of the billionaire's ambitious project, the stakes could hardly be higher. Kline's advanced rocketry has finally enabled heavy long-distance transit, opening up a new frontier of unimaginable revenue opportunities.

Mistakes. Everyone in the New England beach town of Stony Point has made one. Some mistakes are as big as the blue depths of Long Island Sound. Others, as small as a speck of sand. Some mistakes make their presence known, like the call of the gulls feeding on the bluff. Then there are the mistakes that whisper like the slightly swaying marsh grasses. More than anyone, Jason Barlow is ready to admit his mistake. But is it too late?