Showing results by narrator " Michael David  Axtell " in All Categories

Glenda Lawson believes her husband was the only US serviceman shot and killed on American soil during World War II. But in 1945, investigators ruled that Billy Lawson died in a “mugging turned ugly.” Sean O’Brien is learning the ropes of commercial fishing when he gets his anchor caught on something underwater. He discovers a German U-boat partially buried in sand, and inside is a frightening cargo. The media pick up the story, and a 35-year-old woman who has a haunting tale visits O’Brien.

On New Year's Eve in 2012, Matthew Schrier was headed home from Syria, where he'd been photographing the country's civil war. Just 45 minutes from the safety of the Turkish border, he was taken prisoner by the al-Nusra Front. Over the next seven months he would endure torture and near starvation in six brutal terrorist prisons. And, eventually, he would escape. In this gripping, raw, and surprisingly funny memoir, Schrier details the horrifying and frequently surreal experience of being a slight, wisecracking Jewish guy held captive by the world's most violent Islamic extremists.

For more than 50 years, not a day goes by when Caroline doesn't think of her brother, Andy. The last time she saw Andy was when he left home to spend 30 days at Florida's largest reform school. Caroline's family was told that Andy ran away in the middle of the night. Fifty years later, Sean O'Brien receives a letter from a dead man. A year earlier the man had hired Sean O'Brien and chartered his boat for a fishing trip. Now the man is reaching from the grave to hire him again.

Penny Barclay thought eating Faerie's sacred fruit would keep the rebels from gaining the upper hand, but it all went sideways. Not only have the rebels found footing in Faerie and taken down the Mist, but Penny is under fire by the fae with their deep-rooted prejudices against mages. Even Aiden—or rather High King Aedon of Faerie—is rather put out with her. If she doesn't prove herself quickly, she'll find herself with more enemies in Faerie than just the rebellion.

As soon as Gail and Jon Durbin bring home their adopted baby Maya, she becomes the glue that mends their fractured marriage. But the Durbin’s social worker, Paige, can’t find the teenage birth mother to sign the consent forms. By law, Carli has seventy-two hours to change her mind. Without her signature, the adoption will unravel.

Paulo MacGregor is a liar. As Marquess of Delphine and the only oracular mage in the kingdom, it's his job to report any threat that may grow within Olympia's borders. But he didn't. He knows about The Cartographer. He knows about the rebels and what they're planning. He knows it all, and he does nothing. If he did, Laurel Flumen would have never come to assassinate Prince Dion. And if she had never come, he'd never have had the chance to change her fate.

The Tutorial is over. Humanity has been surrounded, forced to confront those who summoned humanity to the Convergence, Liam is forced to fight to survive. The sky shattered as the Zones opened. The Drakkhan Empire proved its readiness, and Liam must now fight with everything he has. In order to protect humanity and save the ones he loves, his limits must be furthered.

In light of the nearing disaster, the world had grown aware of the looming threat, bringing forth chaos as it slowly descends toward the apocalypse. In preparation to face off against the great calamity, Evan has decided to level up and awaken his companions as Dimension Transcenders. They must venture into the unknown territories of a dangerous Fragment Rift—one that would grant them a trial like no other before. Rumor has it that two mighty conquerors had overthrown its ancient world. They had reigned supreme for centuries being undefeated by many, guarding the secrets at its core.

After being sanctioned by Avyleir Library, Roun and his friends find themselves looking forward to their futures as sacred guardians of humanity. Roun knows, however, that their evaluation was only one obstacle along an endless path, and it does not take long before they receive their next challenge: the coterie’s first Copper rank mission. The job seems simple on the surface, and tasks them with protecting a village from the threat of a roaming brigand clan. Yet upon their arrival, they discover the inhabitants are anything but what they expected.

When an old man sees an unidentified Civil War photograph of a woman in the newspaper, he begins a desperate search for a 160-year-old painting that he believes will match the image of the enigmatic woman in the photograph, and if it does, it will prove that his great-great-grandfather did not run from battle. After the old man hires Sean O’Brien to find the mysterious painting, O’Brien discovers it’s linked to a secret letter and map that will lead to a trapdoor where a hidden key to the most horrific war on US soil lies buried.

Before the death of his wife, Sean O'Brien makes a promise to her that he has no plans to break - until he starts building a new life in an old cabin on a remote stretch of a tropical river in the heart of Florida. It's there that he discovers an injured young woman who whispers a cryptic message into his ear.

In this second collection in the Music and Murder Mystery series, nine award-winning, bestselling authors have written their own interpretations of the Thriller song list. With original work from some of the best mystery authors out there, the anthology includes stories from Heather Graham, Jeffery Deaver, William Kent Krueger, Dahlia Rose, and David R. Slayton, among others. With poignant, frightening, and intriguing stories from some of the best writers in the genre, this eerie collection is sure to keep you up at night—and maybe even haunt your dreams.

Did anyone ever tell you about the Dimension Rifts? Yes, portals to other dimensions, which one day, sprung up all over the entire world. Rumors say it happened on a day like any other, and it came without any warning. With the Dimension Rifts appearing all over the world, a new era had come. Though filled with endless possibilities, its lurking dangers would prove to be our end. That was the start of the apocalypse; the Dimension Apocalypse. It's also the start of one man's story: Evan Cross, a warrior from the destroyed future of Earth.

A priest hears the confession of a frightened prison inmate, and he learns that a man facing lethal injection in 84 hours is innocent. The lead investigator on the high-profile case was his old friend, Sean O'Brien. And now O'Brien has a chance to right a horrible wrong. But he has less than 84 hours to uncover clues to a crime that sent an innocent man to death row.

Exhausted by dead-end forays in the gay dating scene, surrounded constantly by friends but deeply lonely in New York City, and drifting into academic abyss, 20-something graduate student Richard has plenty of sources of anxiety. But at the forefront is his crippling writer’s block, which threatens daily to derail his graduate funding and leave Richard poor, directionless, and desperately single. Enter Anne: his brilliant classmate who offers to “help” Richard write his papers in exchange for his company, despite Richard’s fairly obvious sexual orientation.

When visitors arrive, Clara Valmont must make an entirely new agreement with the vampire she is indebted to in order to stay alive. But even her brief reprieve might not be enough when something far more dangerous than a vampire comes to call. Things between Clara and Alaric are not what they appear to be, and if anyone learns the truth, then it could spell death, for both of them.

One rainy night fifteen years ago, a knock at the door changed Liss Kehoe’s life forever. On that night, Ashley Hay stood on Liss’s front porch and handed over her brand-new baby Callan. She was never seen or heard from again.

Ten years ago, Jerry came to New York City to break into show business. Today, his career is stalled, his ex-fiancé is a TV star, and he survives by bartending in Manhattan’s high-end cocktail lounges. Stunned by loss and regret, he is sleepwalking through a hung-over life when he discovers Violet’s book about when they were young, hopeful servers at a Times Square restaurant. As he searches the words of his self-destructive soul-mate, can he reconcile his past and find the hope he lost along the way?

The comet, Cain, came from beyond our solar system, its debris containing elements unknown. It brought a powerful new metal to the once-declining Midwest, alien fungus to the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and now, in the isolated region of Fairbanks, Alaska, the skies shift and stretch as an interstellar dust cloud seeds itself in the atmosphere. The National Weather Service dismisses the anomaly. Then, an hour outside of Fairbanks, a plane shudders its way through pulpy, swirling, bruise-shaped clouds, lit with sudden cracks of lightning. The sky opens. And the plane vanishes.

Darfur, Sudan. 2009. Two doctors employed by NGOs stumble across a strange metallic cylinder, which has been embedded for perhaps millions of years in desert rock. Mystified by the object, they gather four of the world’s leading experts in science and technology a computer scientist, a physicist, a biochemist, and a genetic researcher and head to London to study it thoroughly. The six have barely begun running tests on the cylinder, when they suddenly disappear telling family members not to go looking for them.