Showing results by narrator "Charlie Thurston" in All Categories

These 11 masterful stories - the first collection from acclaimed author Jennifer Egan - deal with loneliness and longing, regret and desire. Egan's characters, models and housewives, bankers and schoolgirls, are united by their search for something outside their own realm of experience. They set out from locations as exotic as China and Bora Bora, as cosmopolitan as downtown Manhattan, or as familiar as suburban Illinois to seek their own transformations.

The rain began nineteen years ago, and it never stopped: more than a foot of rain per day until almost the whole of North America was underwater. Those who survived the first year were forced to take drastic measures, and those who held to the veneer of civilization were few and very far between. Seventeen-year-old Tanner grew up after the rain began. She and her adoptive caretaker, Russell, have long sought a fabled Colorado refuge, a dream that has kept them going through years of brutal trials as they try to stay one step ahead of the “face eaters”.

It’s been almost two years since investigative reporter Jack Logan and television producer Taylor Parks brought down the Institute. But soon, a series of bizarre, seemingly random murder/suicides captures Jack’s attention as a disturbing pattern emerges. Could someone be intentionally causing people to become homicidal? At the same time, Taylor is producing a story about a class action suit against a national insurance company that has reached the Supreme Court.

As an aspiring novelist in his early twenties, Cory Leadbeater was presented with an opportunity to work for a well-known writer whose identity was kept confidential. Since the tumultuous days of childhood, Cory had sought refuge from the rougher parts of life in the pages of books. Suddenly, he found himself the personal assistant to a titan of literature: Joan Didion. In hypnotic prose that pulses with life and longing, The Uptown Local explores the fault lines of class, family, loss, and creativity.

Colt Clemmons is an agent in a specialized division within the Bureau of Investigation - one that hunts down not just mobsters, but also monsters. For reasons that are kept top secret, Colt is the only person who can resist a siren's voice. But he's never had a chance to test this ability. The last siren left in the world mysteriously disappeared years ago. Then one night, with a single word, she reveals herself. It seems too good to be true. And it is. Because nothing about this siren-her past, her powers, or her purpose - is what it seems....

A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past 20 years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there - and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.

When I meet Tyler Marino at a wedding, romance is the last thing on my mind. Yes, he's gorgeous. Yes, we have instant chemistry. But this summer is all about convincing my skeptical parents I'm ready to run our family farm. I can't afford to give Tyler's smoldering smile a passing glance. Fine. I glance. And possibly . . . kiss. But then I go home all the way to a different state. Crisis averted. Until Tyler shows up in North Carolina looking for a job. Of course, I give him one. We've already established I'm terrible at resisting his charm.

Yes. Yes, I do have a crush on Isaac, my YouTube-famous boss. Do I ever talk to him? Absolutely not. Crippling social anxiety can do that. But I'm nothing if not tenacious. Since straight up talking to him is way too hard, I've devised a plan. Online, I have social skills I'd never dream of having in person. I'm possibly even cool. When Isaac responds to my anonymous DM, I message him right back but keep my identity a secret. If he can get to know me this way first, maybe he’ll overlook how awkward I am in person.

Three years ago, 15-year-old Ellen Vicksburg went missing in the quiet town of River Remez, New Mexico. On the first anniversary of her death, her brother Ben found her body in a shallow grave by the river's edge. The police believe she was the victim of a known psychopath. But Ben continues to pore over the evidence, gaining an unlikely ally in Ro Majors, the new girl at school. In his sister's files, they see patterns that don't fit - tiny threads that link Ellen's case to similar unsolved murders.

Apprentice mage Chance Fortunato just can’t catch a break. His training has gotten even harder, and his mentor, Dr. Corwin, is pushing him to take his mage trials early. Still, it beats his old gig working for a demon. But life takes a turn for the worse when a member of his girlfriend Shade’s werewolf pack is killed by a member of a rogue pack. Adding insult to grief, the pack is forced to let the Conclave send an observer to monitor their investigation.

The Franklin Academy is the most prestigious magick school in the US, with the highest admission standards, and tuition to match. Any student would be honored to go at all, much less get a scholarship. Not Chance Fortunato. He’d much rather stay at home and study under his mentor, Dr. Corwin. But when a student is attacked and his soul is ripped from his body, Chance knows he has to stay.

As fires devastate most of the United States, Lark and his family secure a place on a refugee boat headed to Ireland, the last country not yet overrun by extremists and rumored to be accepting American refugees. But Lark is the only one to survive the trip, and once ashore, he doesn’t find the safe haven he’d hoped for. As he runs for his life, Lark finds an abandoned dog who becomes his closest companion, and then a woman in search of her lost son. Together they form a makeshift family and attempt to reach Glendalough, a place they believe will offer protection.

Jude and Lyle's newlywed life is shattered when a vicious attack leaves Lyle infected with a disease that transforms him into a violent and often incomprehensible person. With no cure for the "zombie" virus in sight, the young husbands begin to face the last months they have together before Lyle loses himself completely.

Just when Sheriff Serenity Adams thinks life is getting back to normal, the death of a young, pregnant Amish woman rocks the community. Is it circumstance...or murder? It's up to Serenity and her ex-Amish boyfriend, Daniel Bachman, to discover the truth about the new shaman-type medicine man who's brought his dark secrets to Blood Rock. But Serenity has secrets of her own, and if she and Daniel don't work it out, the reappearance of a woman from his past could threaten to ruin their relationship.

A thousand years ago, the mighty Cahokian civilization dominated the North American continent. At the heart of the empire stood a vast city, teeming with tens of thousands of residents, traders, and travelers. The city of Cahokia sent settlers and priests throughout the continent, from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico, carrying word of the power of their gods. People who wouldn't bow to that power were conquered or slaughtered. Power rested in one being, Morning Star, a god resurrected in the body of a living man.

In this stunning volume, noted art historians Jean-Pierre Isbouts and Christopher Heath Brown discuss the historical, social, and political conditions that shaped Dali's work, identify the impact of Modern as well as Old Master art, and present an unflinching view of the master's personal relationships and motivations.

Apprentice mage Chance Fortunato has faced off with a lot of nasty things. Power hungry vampires, abusive alpha werewolves, and deranged cultists. But none of his training under his mentor Dr. Corwin has prepared him for the trial he is about to face: Junior Prom.

Summer vacation isn’t all fun and hanging out when you’re a wizard-in-training. For partly reformed warlock Chance Fortunato, it’s even worse. In addition to the constant study and training, he has to prove he’s ready to be a full-fledged apprentice before he starts at the Franklin Academy. Plus, he’s beginning to think someone has it out for him. If things weren’t bad enough with a snooty proctor monitoring his every move and demons trying to capture him, his father finally makes his first attempt to get his wayward son back under his control by trying to frame his mom.

Being a normal teenager is hard. For Chance Fortunato, former demon’s apprentice and reforming warlock, it’s almost impossible. On the outs with Shade, his alpha werewolf girlfriend, behind on his magickal studies, and still hunted by the conclave, Chance thinks his life can’t get any worse. But when an empath named Dani asks him to find her missing girlfriend, Chance’s life suddenly spirals out of his control.

As the tulips bloom and the Nazis tighten their grip across the city, the last signs of Dutch resistance are being swept away. Marijke de Graaf and her husband are arrested and deported to different concentration camps in Germany. Marijke is given a terrible choice: to suffer a slow death in the labor camp or join the camp brothel. On the other side of the barbed wire, SS officer Karl Müller arrives at the camp hoping to live up to his father’s expectations of wartime glory. When he encounters the newly arrived Marijke, this meeting changes their lives forever.