Showing results by narrator "Eric Michael Summerer" in All Categories

The start of a mischievous new middle-grade series has trouble written all over it. Twelve-year-old Seamus Hinkle is a good kid with a perfect school record—until the day he accidently kills his substitute teacher with an apple. Seamus is immediately shipped off to a detention facility—only to discover that Kilter Academy is actually a school to mold future Troublemakers, where demerits are awarded as a prize for bad behavior and each student is tasked to pull various pranks on their teachers in order to excel.

What happens to a regular guy who dopes? Surprised to learn that pro athletes aren’t the only ones taking performance-enhancing substances, journalist Andrew Tilin goes in search of the average juicing Joe, hoping to find a few things out: Why would normal people take these substances? Where do folks get them? Does the stuff really work? But these controversial drugs often silence their users, and so his queries might have gone unanswered had Tilin not looked in the mirror and succumbed to curiosity....

In a far-distant future, the Uman Empire has conquered and colonized worlds. Once thought invincible, its reign is now fragile as alien subjects and enemies conspire against it. On holiday in the capital city, cop Jack Cato gets a glimpse of the Emperor-and realizes what he's looking at is a supposedly dead shape- shifter. His mortal enemy is still alive and once again on the run. And the fate of the Empire - and Cato's own honor - are at stake....

Over a generation ago, the Council ordered the systematic extermination of the magic wielding, Runic Race. In the face of the damning orders, a few Dragonics refused to participate and instead demanded justice. But their call to defiance came too late - no Runics survived. Now, those against the Council's oppressive reign have long since been outcast to the fringes of society - their numbers and determination dwindling.

From the author of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying comes...A confidential manual prepared as part of a survival kit for Americans living in Britain, showing how to get rich in England, how to rise quickly and easily to the top of British society, examining the blessings, foibles, and weaknesses of British life, and providing the reader with his just share of wealth, warmth, wisdom, and happiness.

Returning home after eight months overseas, Air Force lieutenant Rick Walsh learns that his girlfriend, Maia, has been kidnapped. Walsh's determination to find her leads him into a conspiracy that spans two universes, because Maia is from an alternate world - and she's not the only person who knows how to walk between the two.

In a far-distant future, the Uman Empire has spread to the stars and beyond, conquering and colonizing worlds, ruling with a benevolent - but iron - fist. The Pax Umana reigns, and all is well. But on one planet, the remnants of a violent, shape-shifting race called the Sagathis are confined, kept captive by xeno-cops, who have been bio-engineered to be able to see through their guises.

We live in an incredible period in history. The computer revolution may be even more life-changing than the Industrial Revolution. We can do things with computers that could never be done before, and computers can do things for us that could never be done before. But our love of computers should not cloud our thinking about their limitations. The AI Delusion explains why we should not be intimidated into thinking that computers are infallible, that data-mining is knowledge discovery, and that black boxes should be trusted.

In these edgy, unexpected tales, a body-hopping mercenary avenges his pet elephant, and an orphan falls in love with a sentient starship. Fighters ally to power a reality-bending engine, and a swamp-dwelling introvert tries to save the world - from her plague-casting former wife.

In the era of mass incarceration, over 600,000 people are released from federal or state prison each year, with many returning to chaotic living environments. In these circumstances, how do former prisoners navigate reentering society? In Homeward, sociologist Bruce Western examines the tumultuous first year after release from prison. Drawing from in-depth interviews with over 100 individuals, he describes the lives of the formerly incarcerated and demonstrates how poverty, racial inequality, and failures of social support trap many in a cycle of vulnerability.

The road to self-discovery leads Maverick Kensington deep into the heart of New Orleans. The colorful characters, beautiful scenery, and a hot mess of a woman he finds along the way offer him the perfect place to reinvent himself. The French Quarter and Blue Bayou are exactly the change of pace he's looking for. Carys Matthews is young and inexperienced. Having her family's hotel dropped in her lap after her mother's untimely death.... She doesn't have time for relationships, but Maverick Kensington is worth an exception.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is driving change at an unprecedented pace, level, and intensity that is impacting businesses across industries, not to mention our everyday lives. We are rapidly blurring the physical and the digital, transforming the way we live and, in some sense, what it even means to be human. Whether we run a startup or multinational, a nonprofit or academic institution, a city or a whole country, we need to embrace this change to not just survive but thrive under these new realities.

The Backpack: How to Understand and Manage Yourself While Loving Others Along the Way tells the story of Jon, Sofia, and Buddy, whose pathways merge on a life-changing flight. Written by a senior consultant with the Flippen Group (a worldwide leader in self-awareness training), the book brings together an angry passenger, a wise flight attendant, and a down-home cowboy. Their chance meeting leads to the ride of their lives as they fully grasp the importance and meaning of their backpacks. As this engaging story reveals, self-awareness is like a backpack!

Van Sato's got labels. Tourettes, ADHD, SPD - words that have defined his existence since the time he was old enough to know what they meant. Now, Van wants to prove he's more than an acronym, a syndrome, a problem kid. He takes a summer job as a day camp counselor to prove he's capable of independence and moving on to the next phase in his life. Maybe, he might even make a friend while there. Someone who's got just as many or even more labels than him. Someone who understands what it's like.

From the moment she first met him, Callie knew that Simon Montague was a dead man walking. From rock-climbing to wing-suiting, the infuriatingly charismatic tech CEO lives every moment of his life like it might be his last—and given his packed schedule of adrenaline-fueled adventures, Callie calculated that statistically, one would be soon enough. In order to secure funding for her groundbreaking work in astrophysics, Callie must work with Simon—and as much as she tries to resist it, the shy and play-it-safe scientist soon finds herself warming to his outgoing personality and thirst for life.

Outline Your Novel will help any writer take their story from concept to a finished draft. Outline Your Novel teaches you how structure works and how to use that structure to make and follow an outline.

In early 2003, a young Wall Street investment banker named Bo Parfet set out to accomplish something very few had done before - climbing the highest mountain on every continent. He was not a professional climber, but what began as a casual interest would soon become a lifelong passion and in just over four years, Bo would overcome the odds and conquer all of the mountains - Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Denali, Vinson Massif, Elbrus, Carstenz Pyramid, Kosciusko, and Everest - with courage, unbridled passion, and determination.

My mountain domain operates as smoothly as the sleek machines that mine for ore in the caves, but when a human female is found in the snow, every alarm bell rings—literally. It's Jane, a volunteer of the human-Mitran breeding program, who had disappeared six months earlier, but not willingly.

I had it all: A great job. Fame. Wealth. I didn't have her. She's the one I let slip away—from my bed on vacation. She didn't know who I was or what my batting average was. I got to be myself with her and now I wish I'd gotten her number. Until fate brought her back to me.

Jason Crane's Salem adventure continues! Caught in the middle of a war, separated from his friends, forced to take sides between the resurrected witch judges of the Appointed and the terrible witch Legion, Jason is fugitive from the noose and from his destiny, but he can escape neither one.