Showing results by narrator "A. T. Chandler" in All Categories

Hardly were the last shots fired at the Alamo before the Texas Revolution entered the realm of myth and controversy. French visitor Frederic Gaillardet called it a "Texian Iliad" in 1839, while American Theodore Sedgwick pronounced the war and its resulting legends "almost burlesque."

Working security for a wealthy Indian businessman sounds like easy money to PI Jim Bean. He’s charged with watching the man’s teenage daughter, the stubborn and spirited Zevah Ralen. His task is simple: keep the girl out of trouble during her father’s business trip to Las Vegas. But trouble strikes as soon as the assignment starts, when a group of kidnappers ambush Zevah outside the mall. Jim barely has time to handcuff himself to her before they’re both knocked out and transported to the kidnappers’ remote cottage hideout.

Both a haunting coming-of-age story set in North Texas against the backdrop of a deadly tornado, and a character-driven, deeply-affecting supernatural thriller. In 1979, a massive tornado devastates the city of Wichita Falls, Texas, leaving scores dead, thousands homeless, and nine-year-old Todd Willis in a coma, fighting for his life. Four years later, Todd awakens to a world that looks the same but feels different in a way he can't quite grasp. For Todd, it's a struggle to separate fact from fiction as he battles lingering hallucinations from his long sleep.

Stella DeSoto has had it with Vegas and her life. She's experienced the worst of people, and now a sailboat in the Florida Keys is calling Stella's name. All she needs is the cash to buy it. And she's got an idea. It’s reckless, risky, and downright illegal. But big risks can mean big rewards…if you don’t get caught.

This edition of The Boys of Summer is enhanced with a musical soundtrack from Booktrack for an immersive listening experience! Both a haunting coming-of-age story set in North Texas against the backdrop of a deadly tornado, and a character-driven, deeply-affecting supernatural thriller. In 1979, a massive tornado devastates the city of Wichita Falls, Texas, leaving scores dead, thousands homeless, and nine-year-old Todd Willis in a coma, fighting for his life. Four years later, Todd awakens to a world that looks the same but feels different in a way he can't quite grasp.

It's dangerous to go alone! Take this. You are standing in a room filled with books, faced with a difficult decision. Suddenly, one with a distinctive cover catches your eye. It is a groundbreaking anthology of short stories from award-winning writers and game-industry titans who have embarked on a quest to explore what happens when video games and science fiction collide.

Most of his life, Kip rode for the brand. Then tragedy struck. He rode alone into Dry Gulch, where he uncovered a criminal organization bent on ruling the West. Now, riding for a mysterious new brand, Kip strikes out to destroy evil, reveal truth, and impart justice. Kip is ready to die for these things. But suddenly, he also has a reason to live. Unfortunately, he left his heart in the one place to which he can't return.

In wicked times, heroes are treated like villains. "You're not wanted in Dry Gulch," they tell Kip Callahan when he rides into town. This valley is on the brink of a range war, and Kip knows he'll probably catch lead if he sticks around, but someone framed and lynched an innocent man, and Kip is determined to uncover the truth.

What do Jeffrey Dahmer's murderous glove, a brick from Lizzy Borden's fireplace, a girl missing for over a decade, and an old mob boss have in common? That’s what PI Jim Bean must find out to solve his next case. When Irving Silverland hires him to find some missing murderabilia objects from his museum, Jim Bean struggles to find a motive behind the strange theft. But when one of the exhibit’s employees is bludgeoned to death with the stolen brick that came from Lizzie Borden’s fireplace, the bigger picture behind the crimes begins to take shape.

By the mid-1980s, singer-songwriter John Hiatt had been dropped from three record labels, burned through two marriages, and had fallen deep into substance abuse. It took a stint in rehab and a new marriage to inspire him, a producer, and an A&R man to have a little faith. By February 1987, he was back in the studio on a shoestring budget with a hand-picked supergroup consisting of Ry Cooder on guitar, Nick Lowe on bass, and Jim Keltner on drums, recording what would become his masterpiece, Bring the Family.

Lash by bloody lash, the she-devil from Dallas would get her revenge.

Picking up right after the brutal climax of their escape from Underhill, Caleb and company find no solace in their return home. After losing decades to the Fey realm, they find themselves lost in the world they once knew with no direction or plan. Until an ill-fated trip to a pawn shop changes everything, again. Arrested and turned over to the Sheriff of a small, strange town, the group is roped into another bad situation. With time running low and Dullahan marshalling his forces intent on regaining his property, they have no choice but join up and fight back.

Just like a football game, client building requires a solid strategy executed by a series of well-designed plays. While the ultimate objective of a sports team is to put points on the board, the plays are designed to systematically get the team into scoring position. The score itself - a touchdown, a goal, a run - is the closing play. But you can't get there without great opening plays. In the world of business development and sales, getting into scoring position means being in the room with decision makers and influencers - and that's what The Opening Playbook helps you to do.

Hank Fallon knows what it's like to rot behind bars. To wallow in the filth of a rat-infested cell. To smell the pent-up rage of cutthroat killers and thieves. Fallon earned his freedom the hard way. He saved the lives of four guards, got released early, and became a detective. Then he went undercover, infiltrated a prison gang plotting to bust out - and barely made it out alive. Now they're sending him back. Behind the iron. Straight to hell...

Weaving the brackish humor of Chuck Palahniuk with the empathy of Barbara Ehrenreich, J. R. Helton brings to life an obscured underside of the American psyche in this unflinching account of life inside the working class of Texas in the 1980s. We first meet Helton as a struggling writer succumbing to the bleak reality of what it means to support himself and a wife. That despair is transformed into resilience as Helton insightfully narrates his wayward years, enduring hateful employers and mind-numbing manual labor.

Coaching Up! is about inspiring those who matter to you to achieve peak performance. Whether you are a coach, a business leader, a civic activist, a teacher, a counselor, or a parent, this book will offer you a powerful, highly effective way to connect to the people you care about and move them forward toward their best selves. In sports, coaches have developed ways of connecting with their players quickly in the "heat of the battle", inspiring them to perform to their fullest potential and "leave it all on the field".

At 15, Victor Rios found himself a human target - flat on his ass amid a hail of shotgun fire, desperate for money and a place on the street. Faced with the choice of escalating a drug turf war or eking out a living elsewhere, he turned to a teacher, who mentored him and helped him find a job at an auto shop. That job would alter the course of his whole life - putting him on the road to college and eventually a PhD.

Why has the Eurozone ended up with an unemployment rate more than twice that of the United States more than six years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers? Why did the vast majority of low- and middle-income countries suffer a prolonged economic slowdown in the last two decades of the 20th century? What was the role of the International Monetary Fund in these economic failures?

Ted Barstow wasn't a spy. He didn't even work for the government. He was simply an American tourist on vacation in a small Austrian village. He had met Erica, beautiful and intelligent, and the attraction had been electric.

The cast of cosmic characters: A prodigal worm, a telepathic, egotistical, totally unscrupulous little alien running away from his father becomes the biggest prize in the universe. Capture the slimy brat and win an entire planet! A cosmic hustler, an effete snob who ekes out a comfortable living as the president's son-in-law and perfects his reflexes with endless contests of cosmic pool, becomes the most important element in a delicate game of interspatial espionage - and the galaxy's prime target for assassination.