Showing results by narrator "Tom Taverna" in All Categories

A collection of short stories; some are true, some are fiction, but all are captivating. To say that the deep south is different is stating the absurdly obvious. In many ways it has not changed in the last 100 years or so. This is especially true of South Louisiana where I grew up, just a stones' throw from the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and practically on the banks of the same river that Huck Finn rafted down. Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Hershey Bars and Werewolves.

When Sloan Booker’s father dies tragically, he has no other option but to give up his job as an FBI agent and take over his family’s vehicle restoration business in Oahu, Hawaii. Giving up his badge is difficult but having Homeland Security and his old boss request the use of his house in a stakeout, spying on his Muslim neighbors who they suspect are terrorists, is just too damn much for a man already frazzled. It makes no difference that they’ve offered him a partner to be in charge of the surveillance...until he meets the gorgeous divorcee.

When high-powered corporate lawyer Dupree arrives in White Owl, Washington, he should know better than to get between a corrupt deputy and the focus of his lust. Little did he know that his actions set in motion a reign of terror on the whole town. Will the town continue to allow a corrupt man to destroy their gentle life and make law the enemy? Sometimes the battle between good and evil seems unwinnable, until just one man steps out of the shadows and dares to make a difference.

Forced into a marriage arranged by the orphanage where she lived, Sadie escapes the clutches of an abusive older man: her betrothed. She needs to stay hidden, where no one knows her or cares that she has broken the law. Dr. Elliott Larkin is still reeling over the loss of his young family. His brother in Big Rock has convinced him to come back home to visit, and he decides a change would do him good. Who would have thought a mine collapse on the outskirts of town would be just what the doctor ordered?

Humanity has come face to face with its own mortality. The Earth, its environment overwhelmed by the products of an increasing human civilization, no longer offers its inhabitants quality of life. Survival, for all of the Earth's species, has become the only goal. Then they came. Not many, just a few. Their behavior and instincts were more like the bear and the deer than human but they possessed powers beyond humanity's comprehension. They came to restore paradise on Earth.

Adam Dupree is at a literal crossroad of life. Dupree’s life has become a living hell, and it’s time to make a change. Turn right and end it. Or, turn left, break free, and see where life takes him. That one decision sends Dupree on an epic journey of rediscovery, as he attempts to understand the mystery inside himself. Moving down a literal and figurative highway, his life attains meaning by defending the weak, protecting the poor, and standing up for what is right in an unjust world.

Honor, courage and a profound sense of right and wrong! These are the character traits Marshal Wallace McKenney lives by. His reputation is known far and wide in Kansas and neighboring states. Those on the other side of the law usually give him and his pearl-handled Colt a wide berth. Those that don’t...well, they pay the price.

Kevin J. Kennedy has put together some of the horror world’s best-selling anthologies over recent years. Now, for the first time, he has collected some of his own short stories in one place. Dark Thoughts features a brand new, 8,000 word tribute story to Richard Laymon's Dark Mountain.

Hailey is a palm reader and a fortune teller, complete with crystal balls and tarot cards in her little shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans. She is a throwback to the '60s, with her boho style and long, blonde hair. Joshua is a marketing guy - a handsome business type - who has been seeing Hailey professionally for over a year. She predicted his promotion, that he'd find the perfect condo, and just about everything that's happened in his life recently.

Residents of Santa Clarita, one of the nation's safest cities, are jolted when a decapitated woman is discovered in the car of a missing realtor. When detectives home in on her wealthy husband, a mystery begins to unravel, and the investigation heats up. Los Angeles homicide detective Dickie Jones has returned to work after recovering from gunshot wounds. His wife has left him, and his partner, Matt “Pretty Boy Floyd” Tyler, has been assigned a new partner.

After the 1986 tragedy of the Space Shuttle Challenger, the technicians of NASA hoped to create a failsafe shuttle, incapable of malfunctioning. With the space shuttle Lightning, all systems were go.... Then lightning struck twice. America’s greatest technological achievement has been sabotaged. First an engine malfunctions. Then, another. Now Lightning is desperately trying to land, racing against time - and a powerful and unseen enemy will do anything to make the first flight of Lightning its last....

Sheriff Seth Reed believes in justice and seeks vengeance on the lawless folks who dare corrupt tranquil Ruby Creek. But when the mayor mysteriously dies and Sherman takes over, corruption begins, especially when a mysterious gunslinger comes to town. As the mysterious stranger disrupts the town, a body of a young woman is discovered. As Seth tries to unravel the mystery, he becomes the next target. When Sherman's wife desperately begs Seth for help, Seth realizes that peaceful Ruby Creek life is all a sham, and no one can be trusted.

Whatever happened to Jane Roe's baby? Norma McCorvey, of Caddo-Comanche heritage, did not terminate the pregnancy that led her to become the anonymous plaintiff of the landmark U.S. supreme court women's rights case Roe v Wade because in 1971, when the motion was first argued, abortion in the U.S. was illegal. The Jane Roe real-life child would now be a woman in her late 40s, the potential of her polarizing celebrity unknown to her. A religious rights splinter group has blackmailed its way into learning the identity of the Roe baby, the product of a closed adoption.

Tales from the Beach House is a satiric work of fiction that sharply captures the "man-bites-dog" world of contemporary South Florida. The Beach House, a crumbling old motel, is home to a collection of eccentric residents. Amongst their ranks: a tennis pro at the end of his game, a mortuary scientist whose love life has flat-lined, a paparazzo photographer searching for scoops, and more. Each member of this cohort is in search of something - fast money, an easy hustle, fleeting romance, enduring love, fame, power, dignity, happiness...a place they can call home.

What happened to the girls? Overnight, hundreds of teenage girls disappear from the streets of America. Off the coast of Florida, a virtual reality theme park opens for the super-rich. Are the two connected? When two assailants accost 23-year-old Kaden Baker at an awards gala, she enters a maelstrom of high-tech international intrigue that pits her against a mysterious foe.

A prison yard becomes the place where a “lifer" inmate attempts his last stand against the gun tower. An ICU nurse attending to an inmate meets the man that tormented his daughter. A rogue correctional officer receives a body receipt from the county coroner for a man he killed. A prison psychiatrist meets his maker by getting bludgeoned to death by the bust of Freud. The infamous serial killer Ed Kemper finally receives the punishment he told the judge he deserves for his crimes - death by torture.

Alice Comyn was a student of piano performance getting by on an insufficient grant from her college and the kindness of two men: one, a distinguished descendant of European nobility who was too good at playing bridge, and the other, an obscure automobile mechanic who was too good at fixing wrecks. Although Alice’s chief business was communing with long-dead composers, she was still young enough to believe that she would live forever and that her knotted fingers and hunched back could be redeemed by fame.

A collection of stories about how and where the author found heaven in his travels across the lands.

Richie Krebbs is an ex-cop, a walking encyclopedia of crime and criminals who chafes at bureaucracy. Frank Robey quit the FBI and joined the Detroit PD, obsessed with the case of a missing child and unwilling to leave the city before she was found. When Richie unearths a possible clue in one of Detroit’s many abandoned homes, it puts him on a collision course with Frank - and with depths of depravity that neither man could have imagined.

Journey through the minds of 22 horror authors who have teamed up to reveal the most terrifying aspects of the forest. These original supernatural and psychological horror stories include: ghosts, demons, serial killers, true stories and unsolved mysteries, unique monsters, classic myths and legends, and above all else, a profound respect for the terror hidden within the mysterious trees.