Showing results by narrator "Michael Levine" in All Categories

Over the last generation, historians have broadened our understanding of colonial America by adopting both a trans-Atlantic and a trans-continental perspective, examining the interplay of Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the flow of goods, people, plants, animals, capital, and ideas. In this Very Short Introduction, Alan Taylor presents an engaging overview of the best of this new scholarship.

A man holds 12 children hostage at gunpoint. Across the street, James Hawker dangles from a skyscraper, watching the terrorist through a sniper's scope. Hawker has a shot, and he wants to take it, but the police brass say no. By the time he gets permission, it will be far too late. The terrorist opens fire, killing two of the children before Hawker can take him out. When the smoke clears, the madman is dead, and Hawker's career is toast. No longer a cop, he's about to become America's deadliest defender.

When a pregnant federal judge is abducted, Max Freeman pursues an eccentric gang deep into a hidden world he knows better than most: the shadowy waterways of the Florida Everglades. US district judge Diane Manchester has looked across the courtroom into the eyes of evil before. But today, as she presides over the extradition hearing of a notorious Colombian drug lord, she is also eight months pregnant. Her chair is uncomfortable, her robe is constrictive, and her due date is fast approaching.

This is the epic story of how African-Americans, in the six decades following slavery, transformed themselves into a political people - an embryonic black nation. As Steven Hahn demonstrates, rural African-Americans were central political actors in the great events of disunion, emancipation, and nation-building. At the same time, Hahn asks us to think in more expansive ways about the nature and boundaries of politics and political practice.

Bum Rap is the novel that brings Lassiter together with squabbling Miami lawyers Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord. In a tale filled with startling twists, Lassiter digs deep into the underbelly of glitzy South Beach to defend a client who's not telling him the truth.

DEA Special Agent Peter Malloy is no stranger to the devastating impact of drugs. So when six bodies turn up with surgical ports implanted in their spines, he's sure a potent new opioid is the culprit. But when lab tests show zero evidence of any known narcotics, he fears something far more sinister. Allison Stevens thought she knew everything about her boss. But after he disappears, she's stunned to discover his secret genetic research in pain tolerance. When she becomes the target of the FBI's investigation, Allison has only one move.

With his tousled hair and cocky grin, bartender Cameron Reed is no stranger to the attention of women. He dates, but never gets serious, claiming that he’s too focused on his studies. But it’s not really school that preoccupies him; it’s sensual fantasies of his best friend’s sister. Mina Silver might be absolutely off-limits because of her overprotective brother and father, but that doesn’t stop Cam from imagining the feel of her in his arms, the brush of his lips over her soft skin, or the sparks that would fly between them if he ever got her into bed.

Meet Mr. February. Reality-TV star and reformed bad boy Spencer Dean doesn’t trust women. Not after his fiancée, Brooke, left him at the altar five years ago, breaking his heart and hardening his soul. Now, Brooke is close to a deal for her own show that will launch with the remodel of a popular Austin bar. The problem? The network insists that Spencer step in as her partner. He’s tried to forget her - but he can’t deny that he still wants her. More than that, he wants to punish her. And so he agrees, but only on terms that are provocative, demanding, and wildly sensual.

Cole MacKenzie is content to be the sheriff of Surrender, Montana, but he's needed for a greater purpose. The United States needs a US marshal with a certain kind of experience to track the leader of the notorious Silver Creek Bandits as they leave a trail of bodies in their wake with every bank they rob. The leader is smart, cunning, and ruthless. And he's also his brother.

Security specialist Devon Randolph might be rough and gruff, but he'll never turn down a friend in need, especially when that friend is the fellow Ranger who once saved his life. Devon may have secrets, but he's nearby, and he's got the skills to keep his buddy's sister safe...even if one look at brash, beautiful Kylie makes him want to break all the rules. Forced on the run, Kylie and Devon dodge bullets and bad guys, but they cannot fight the attraction burning between them. Yet the closer they grow, the higher the stakes become.

Cheerful and friendly, Aaron Blake has never met a puzzle that intrigues him more than brooding Greg Falkner. He wants to get to know his roommate, but it seems the only way past his shell is through it. When a reluctant friendship turns into a budding romance, can the two keep their feelings secret from their classmates? Or will their newfound love destroy them both?

A captive God who must be freed. An Evil God set to enslave the world of Kimtair. A hero and two heroines from Earth join forces with Kimtair's warrior-princess and princes to battle the Evil One's minions. Can they defeat the Evil God and win freedom for their people?

I'll just admit it right up front - I don't love the holidays. In fact, Christmas makes me downright cranky. Call me the Grinch if you must, but if your dad chose that day to decide he was wrong about that whole wanting a family thing, you'd grow up miffed about mistletoe, too. Every candy cane, ugly sweater, and falalalala reminds me of the worst day of my life. So when my uncle - a bigwig network executive - gives me one last shot to salvage my disastrous TV production career, I've got no choice but to suck it up, head to the small town of Singletree, and fake festive.

I had it all. Killer job, to-die-for apartment overlooking the Hudson, and the successful, doting boyfriend. Well, he was successful, at least. Guys who dote don't break up with you via Post-It. After that, I did the one thing I swore I'd never do. I went home to the smallest small town there is - a place so backward my family was still engaging in a hundreds-of-years-old feud with the Tuckers. Maybe it had evolved from the days of shooting one another to slightly more benign things, like filling family stores with crickets and moving a two-ton moose around town.

The last survivors. The last chance. The last leap through time... In a crumbling biodome surrounded by endless seas and swarms of microdrones, humanity’s last survivors cling to hope. For Isabel, a dying scientist, and Diego, the man she loves, time is running out—literally. The Earth is ravaged, and the biodome that was meant to save them is failing. But when Isabel stumbles upon a long-lost time bridge, the possibility of changing the past emerges, offering one final chance to rewrite history. There’s just one problem: only one person can make the journey.

Charles and I were law students when I fell for him. He was handsome, charming, sure of himself—and he deigned to look at me. We had a dream-come-true courtship, wedding, and honeymoon, all orchestrated and paid for by his wealthy parents. Then he brought me home…and I woke up. Nineteen months and a baby later, I'm standing in our pristine living room, looking at Charles lying in a pool of blood.

One month after Daniel Cleland scales his start-up to seven figures, solidifying its rank in the top three ayahuasca healing centers in the world, COVID-19 obliterates the company’s revenues. He now has 60 days to find hundreds of thousands of dollars in survival funds or face extinction. Racing against time, Cleland hacks his way through the proverbial (and sometimes literal) jungle one perilous step at a time.

Humphrey Van Weyden is a smart, domesticated man. He enjoys reading and critiquing literature in his free time. So when he finds himself a survivor of a ferryboat accident and at the complete mercy of a tyrannical schooner captain, his life is turned upside down. Exploring themes of ambition, courage, and survival, this 1904 classic adventure novel features an antagonist based on a sailor Jack London once knew.

For Paul Tomenko, relocating trillions upon trillions of life forms on Earth to the Paraverse wasn’t all that difficult. So easy, in fact, that he does it in his sleep. After slipping into a coma, Paul uses his latent divine knowledge to create the Paraverse while imagining 50 more years of continued life on Earth. Then he dumps—no pun intended—an incalculable number of souls residing in his lower intestinal tract into the new domain with the simplicity of a bowel movement. But preserving the promise of eternal existence comes with a cost.

In this new collection, Richard Thomas has crafted 14 stories that push the boundaries of dark fiction in an intoxicating, piercing blend of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Equally provocative and profound, each story is masterfully woven with transgressive themes that burrow beneath the skin.