Showing results by narrator "Sean Patrick Hopkins" in All Categories

Ruby Grace has had enough. She’s been rejected by her fated mate. Forced to blood bond with a vampire. And erased from existence by dark witches. She’s not going to take it anymore. She’s sick of all the powerful supernaturals using her for their advantage. When all this began, she thought being gifted with unique magic from the gods would make all her dreams come true. But being star touched has been nothing but a nightmare.

Too many of us suffer from 'chronic performance': we feel constant pressure to look like we know what we're doing, to always be on, to rack up success after success and have all the answers, all because we assume that greater effort leads to greater success. But this temptation to portray ourselves as infallible is affecting both our work and personal lives and is blocking our ability for true growth. Through his work, co-founder of Mindset Works Eduardo Briceño has solved this by coming up with a game-changing framework that breaks our habit of chronic performance.

Insects surround us. They fuel life on Earth through their roles as pollinators, predators, and prey, but rarely do we consider the outsize influence they have had on our culture and civilization. Their anatomy and habits inform how we live, work, create art, and innovate. From ancient etchings to avant-garde art, from bug-based meals to haute couture, The Insect Epiphany proves that our world would look very different without insects, not just because they are crucial to our ecosystems, but because they have shaped and inspired so many aspects of what makes us human.

Ruby, along with the two men fighting for her heart and the friend who betrayed her, has successfully ventured to the fae realm and retrieved the Key of Hades—the ancient artifact that can resurrect the dead. Now she has to make a choice: deliver the key to a coven of dark witches or go back on her oath with them and have the human world—including her parents—forget about her existence forever.

Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America’s “hybrid Enlightenment”. James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” 30 years ago, tells us in this new book that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved.

Redeeming How We Talk explores what the Bible has to say about that central aspect of life and relationships - conversation. The Scriptures show us that words have remarkable power - to create, to bless, to encourage, to forgive. Imagine how we could spark change in our families, churches, and communities if we learned to use words like Jesus did. By weaving together theology, history, and philosophy, Ken Wytsma and A. J. Swoboda help us reclaim the holiness of human speech and the relevance of meaningful conversation in our culture today.

A week ago, Ruby Grace was an ordinary girl. Now she’s a wolf shifter, rejected by her fated mate and sent to live with an ancient coven of powerful witches. That’s not even the craziest part. Because Ruby’s been star touched—blessed by the gods with the rare ability to weave illusions with her mind.

While suspended from the Philadelphia Police Department, Mitch Tanner travels to Savannah, Georgia, to visit Cassie, the medium who assisted on his last case, in hopes of uncovering a clue to the whereabouts of his estranged wife and son. When he arrives in Savannah, he finds himself embroiled in a triple homicide and kidnapping that Cassie has been called upon to assist in by the local detectives. It isn't long before the case gets personal. Very personal. Now, Mitch is in a race against the clock to stop a deranged madman before he kills again.

Throughout history, two perspectives on the world have dueled in our minds: the extrinsic—that of mechanism and physics—and the intrinsic—that of feelings, thoughts, and ideas. The intrinsic perspective allows us to tell stories about our lives, to chart our anger and our lust, to understand our psychologies. The extrinsic allows us to chart the physical world, to build upon it, and to travel across it. These perspectives have never been reconciled; they almost seem to exist on different planes of thought.

A natural history of the wilderness in our homes, from the microbes in our showers to the crickets in our basements Even when the floors are sparkling clean and the house seems silent, our domestic domain is wild beyond imagination. In Never Home Alone, biologist Rob Dunn introduces us to the nearly 200,000 species living with us in our own homes, from the Egyptian meal moths in our cupboards and camel crickets in our basements to the lactobacillus lounging on our kitchen counters. You are not alone.

Bloomberg tech journalist Mark Bergen delivers the definitive account on YouTube, detailing how it started, how it works and ultimately how it drives Google's success. It can be seen as the story of a technical marvel that has upended traditional media and created stars out of everyday people, or the story of the rise of a ruthless advertising conglomerate with little regard for its impact on the world beyond the bottom line—but in reality, it's the story of both.

Kevin Fagan’s The Lost and the Found, set in San Francisco—one of the wealthiest cities in America—takes an empathic, character-driven approach to exploring the human side of what’s behind the homelessness epidemic. An award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee who has covered homelessness for decades and spent extensive time on the streets for his reporting, Fagan experienced it himself as a young man and brings a deep understanding to the crisis.

When a sheriff’s son is found dead in a neighboring county to the south, clues show foul play. Led by the same sheriff now doubling as a father hell-bent on vengeance, the investigation turns violent, pushing the local district attorney north to Rocky Points for help. They need somebody with an outside perspective to lead the investigation, and Chief Detective David Wolf is just their man.

When diggers at a high altitude surface mine exhume the corpse of one of their workers, the Sluice-Byron SD is called to the scene. Upon arrival, detectives find answers are hard to come by, but one thing’s for certain — they are looking at murder. David Wolf, now acting interim sheriff, is finding this second time around running the show less desirable than the last, so when a spot opens up in the investigation, he wastes no time jumping into the action.

Los Angeles might be the City of Angels, but Cassie knows better than most how many demons hide in the shadows. With Chicago in their rearview mirror, she and Detective Harris are more determined than ever to uncover the truth about David. And it’s finally within reach.

A dead man has investigators stumped. His death mirrors the work of a serial killer who'd dropped off the face of the earth and believed to be dead. A visit from a strange new ghost forces Cassie's involvement. Unsure the entity's purpose for haunting her, Cassie is both intrigued and terrified at its potential implications.

When widowed Nicholas MacPherson, Earl of Rothbury, returns from a two-year pilgrimage and finds himself in desperate need of a governess for his son, the last person he wants to see at his door is Julianna Feathers, the lass he had loved since he was a child servant in her father's castle. Her familiar smiles and the ease he feels when they speak - even to argue - becomes harder to resist. But he doesn't trust love. Her love. Still, when she stirs the rubble in search of his heart, the heart she once knew, he is helpless to stop her.

A Rocky Points businessman goes missing, leaving behind an SUV drifted over in snow and a lot of questions for the Sluice-Byron County SD. But the answers are hard to come by, and Chief Detective David Wolf’s personal problems aren’t making investigating any easier for him and his team. As the temperatures rise in the Chautauqua Valley, the most important clue emerges from the melting drifts. At the same time, Wolf’s memories surface from the shadowy depths of his mind and back into his life.

Jen is just getting used to her life on Peapod Farm with her new stepsisters, Andy and Reese. But when the school year starts, there are even more changes in store for her. Jen has to navigate new friends and new challenges--but at least she'll have Andy with her, right? As she starts the sixth grade, she finds that her stepsister seems way more interested in crushes and boys than hanging out with her, while Jen wants to know when the world decided boys and girls couldn't be "just friends" anymore.

From trade to technology to military might, competition between the United States and China dominates the foreign policy landscape. But this battle for global influence is also playing out in a strange and unexpected arena: the movies. The film industry, Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel explains, is the latest battleground in the tense and complex rivalry between these two world powers. In recent decades, as China has grown into a giant of the international economy, it has become a crucial source of revenue for the American film industry.