Showing results by narrator "P.J. Ochlan" in All Categories

Ask any self-respecting Louisianan who makes the best gumbo and the answer is universal: "Momma." The product of a melting pot of culinary influences, gumbo, in fact, reflects the diversity of the people who cooked it up: French aristocrats, West Africans in bondage, Cajun refugees, German settlers, Native Americans-all had a hand in the pot. What is it about gumbo that continues to delight and nourish so many? And what explains its spread around the world? A seasoned journalist, Ken Wells sleuths out the answers.

China's strategic capabilities and doctrine have historically differed from the United States' and Russia's. China has continued to modernize and expand its arsenal despite its policy of no first use, while the United States and Russia have decreased deployed weapons stocks. This volume brings together an international group of distinguished scholars to provide a fresh assessment of China's strategic military capabilities, doctrines, and political perceptions in light of rapidly advancing technologies.

From the satirical minds behind the viral sensation The Babylon Bee comes the latest installment of its guide series. This looks at the two original gangsta genders—male and female—shows us the progressively insane slide into the multiplying number of genders that has lately been spiraling out of control.

With a healthy dose of wit and a heaping helping of wisdom, New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas answers questions about Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and much more.

From the introduction by James Thompson: Finland, the myths and truths. Internationally, it has a reputation as perhaps the best place in the world to live. A great economy. A low crime rate. Good and nearly cost-free health care. The needy are provided for by the state and live in reasonable comfort. Finns: peaceful and quiet people, living in the perfect example of a social democracy functioning as it should. A tourist, or even a person who has lived here for a length of time, might well view Finland as such.

Descended from a long line of fighters, lovers, and dreamers, the MacCallister clan are legends in their homeland of Scotland. But when Duff MacCallister came to America, it seems he brought the legend - and the war - along with him.... Here in America, life is full of surprises. Duff never expected to hear from his old friend Charles McGregor, his battalion commander from the Black Watch Regiment of Her Majesty's army. Turns out McGregor lives in New Mexico now. And he needs Duff's help.

What are the secrets to a contented life? One of Rome's greatest and most influential poets, Horace (65-8 BCE) has been cherished for more than 2,000 years not only for his wit, style, and reflections on Roman society, but also for his wisdom about how to live a good life - above all else, a life of contentment in a world of materialistic excess and personal pressures. In How to Be Content, Stephen Harrison provides fresh, contemporary translations of poems from across Horace's works that continue to offer important lessons about the good life, friendship, love, and death.

Jack Knight-Snow has had a bad year for losing things. So far he has lost a ship full of ancient treasure, his family, his friends, his title, his lands and money, his fiancé, the century into which he was born...oh, and his physical body. Worse, feisty Chiara D’Angelo might just make him lose his mind. For her part, Chiara simply wants to help Jack get his body back and move on with his life. She doesn’t want to like his snarky humor or his gorgeous eyes. She’s a hot mess when it comes to romantic relationships. Case in point...she’s developing feelings for a ghost.

When a former teammate makes a desperate cry for help from two thousand miles away, Chase Fulton and his team of American covert operatives launch a rescue mission unlike anything they’ve undertaken in their storied career. From the Sea of Cortez to the burning Amazon jungle, the chase is on inside the mysterious and ancient world of tribal existence, at the farthest reaches of civilization.

There are anxious words to describe being in unfathomable trouble. A feeling of pressure, an emotion of being in over-your-head, and a sense of being smothered. Legion Centurion Alerio Sisera was drowning in the sea and experiencing all of them. From black, to gray, to green water overhead, Alerio transitioned through the ocean layers as he swam upward. Lungs screaming for air, and his chest heaving, his body threatened to take in a breath. It became a competition between the urges of his lungs

The heart and life of a battle is the center of the combat line. A dark, throbbing, and terrifying place. A place where death prowls between enemy shields, waiting for sharp blades to carve out an advantage. Welcome to 262 B.C. A single Legion is rushed into combat to stop a fortified army. The clash between Empire and Republic thrusts thousands of Legionaries into a nasty epicenter of conflict.

When American covert operative Chase Fulton leaves the battlefield to hone and shape the next generation of warriors who would step into his tracks and preserve the very ideals of liberty and freedom from tyranny, he’s forced to face the painful memories and life-altering decisions of his past while driving a new breed of fighters to face his own demons headlong without stumbling. Just when Chase believes his days of living with a rifle in his hands have finally come to an end and benevolent fate has allowed him to walk away, necessity calls and will not be denied.

When American covert operative Chase Fulton’s life is turned upside down with news almost too good to be true, everything he believes about his world changes in an instant, and the life he dedicated to serving his country and the preservation of freedom suddenly fades out of focus as a new reality becomes the center of his existence. But before the dream of his new life can materialize, one final mission demands his devotion like never before.

Everybody starts at the bottom when they change careers. Alerio Sisera understood the concept. He even recognized the difference between being a military man who lived by the gladius and a politician who used a pen to craft agreements. But the theory went to Hades when a series of brutal robberies required Lictor Sisera to investigate the crimes. Bringing fresh eyes to the scenes, a different perspective to the questioning, and postulating a hypothesis ended when blades were drawn.

When the sun sets and darkness consumes the bayous of Southern Louisiana, a world comes alive that can neither be confined nor adequately described. It’s a place of ancient magic, filled with the music and laughter of a people who spend their lives in self-imposed isolation, cut off from the rest of the world and its trappings of modernity. Time passes with the slow progression of the moon across the sky, and ancient spirits whisp their way through Spanish moss and across the mist of waters infested with predators from another era.

With his team back in the fight, American covert operative Chase Fulton is forced to dive into his own psyche and revive the devoted warrior deep within. As opposing worlds tug at every corner of his mind, he must once again immerse himself into the realm of the fearless to face an opponent unlike any he’s known.

Jay is living his best life at Karloff Country, one of the world's most famous resorts. He's got his family, his crew, and an incredible after-school job at the property's main theme park. Life isn't so great for the rest of the world, but when people come here to vacation, it's to get away from all that. As things outside get worse, trouble starts seeping into Karloff. First, Jay's friend Connie and her family disappear in the middle of the night and no one will talk about it. Then the richest and most powerful families start arriving, only... they aren't leaving.

When a bomb rips the façade off the Kensington Hotel in Tokyo, dozens are killed and injured while one man walks calmly away from the wreckage, a coy smile playing on his lips. Former Army intelligence officer Dan Reilly, now an international hotel executive with high level access to the CIA, makes it his mission to track him down. He begins a jet-setting search for answers as the clock ticks down to a climactic event that threatens NATO and the very security of member nations.

In the shadow of a devastating hex, pursued by a stealer of souls, with both interference and help from Tormy and the potty-mouthed kitten Tyrin, Omen faces monsters, ghosts, and grave troubles unshackled by the volatile seasons themselves. Accompanied by the prince of Terizkand, a Sundragon scholar, a cynical spy, and a reckless Corsair, our young firebrand has to employ all his strengths as the autumn winds carry them into the center of a cataclysm that threatens to swallow the world.

Magnus "Steps" Craig is part of the elite three-man Special Tracking Unit of the FBI. Called in on special cases where his skills are especially indispensable, Steps is renowned for his incredible ability to find and follow trails over any surface better than anyone else. But there's a secret to his success. Steps has a kind of synesthesia, an ability that allows him to see whatever a person has touched in a unique color - what Steps calls "shine".