Showing results by narrator "David A. Smith" in All Categories

"Work Sets You Free" by David Barnett is an original short story featuring the protagonist of the forthcoming novel Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl. Gideon is a young fisherman in Yorkshire, England, in an alternate 1890, who embarks on a journey to find Captain Lucian Trigger, the famed Hero of the Empire, to deal with a mystery plaguing his home village.

At long last former Knight Commander Cade Williams has defeated the adversary, but his victory has come at a terrible cost. His wife, Gabrielle, is no more. His reputation lies in tatters, his trust in others broken. His closest friends and allies are now at risk from the very order they pledged their lives to maintain. If it could go wrong, it has. Unable to bear the reality of what he has done, all Cade wants to do is find a deep hole and pull it in after him. Let the world go on without him, for all he loves is lost, and he sees no reason to continue.

The war continues, and the undead ravage the land. Jirom, Horace, and Emanon begin to hope they might free the empire. But can they manage to do so before the dark king conquers the world?

On the blood-stained battlefields of a divided nation, Dr. Samuel Knight used his surgical skills to treat wounded Confederate soldiers. In the brutal prison camps of the Union Army, he offered his healing services to fellow captives who’d given up hope. But now, with the war over and the South in ruins, the good doctor faces his hardest challenge yet: to save himself.

The labyrinth of tunnels beneath Corvis is home to some of the city’s worst criminals, but now even these hardened thugs have reason to watch their step in the dark, shadowy undercity. Death moves in that darkness, leaving behind a trail of horribly mangled bodies. The identity of the killer is a mystery, although his calling cards - brutally savaged corpses and a distinct, repulsive odor - are constants at each bloody murder scene.

Captain Cade Williams and the newly formed Echo Team are sent to the city of Boston to investigate reports of a mysterious blood cult and the disappearance of several members of the Templar Order. What they find will have repercussions that echo well into the future....This story introduces the character of Cade Williams, a former Boston SWAT officer who developed certain unusual powers in the wake of an encounter with a supernatural entity known as the Adversary.

Does Horace have the power and strength to save what he fought so hard to win? In a setting reminiscent of ancient Egypt and Babylon, where God-Kings and God-Queens hold the power of life and death, Horace, the one-time slave who became a powerful magician, has turned the tables on his former masters. Follow Horace, Alyra, and Jirom as they navigate the hurdles of managing the slave rebellion under the Akeshian Empire's nose. But evil is not content to sit back and let them gather their strength. A new threat is coming in the form of an unstoppable army of the walking dead.

In a setting reminiscent of ancient Egypt and Babylon, where God-Kings and God-Queens hold the power of life and death in their hands, Horace, the one-time slave who became a powerful magician, has turned the tables on his former masters. Follow Horace, Alyra, and Jirom as they navigate the hurdles of managing the slave rebellion under the Akeshian Empire's nose. But evil is not content to sit back and let them gather their strength. A new threat is coming in the form of an unstoppable army of the walking dead.

Half-white, half-Cheyenne Yakima Henry has been ambushed and badly injured. Bleeding to death, he doesn't know who'll get to him first: the gunslingers or hungry wolves. Thankfully, comely widow Aubrey Coffin comes along and drags Yakima to safety. But as he heals, lawless desperados circle closer to finish the job they started by putting his innocent savior in the cross fire.

Having taken a job shotgunning a stage coach, Yakima gets tangled in corrupt town where theft, lies and murder dog him at every turn. The deeper he gets involved with the townsfolk, the harder he struggles to make things “right,” Each choice making things more dangerous and deadly.

There are a million ways to die in the Rockies - and a million predators, natural or otherwise. But even a seasoned mountain dweller like Preacher is shocked by the latest horror lurking in the hills. Trappers are being hunted down like animals. Captured. Murdered. Mutilated. Their hearts carved out of their chests. Some of the victims were Preacher's friends. Now two others - Audie and Nighthawk - have gone missing. Preacher is determined to track them down before they end up on the chopping block. But nothing can prepare him for what's waiting at the end of the trail....

Mexico in 1914. On the verge of a bloody civil war that's spiraling out of control — a place where only real men survive — an officer for the US War Department, Myles Adams knows all about keeping a cool head. And he's just the man who can help his former partner-in-arms Stewart Cook rescue his soon-to-be fiancee, Alexia Garcia, from rebel forces.

In The Left-Hand Way, the second book of Tom Doyle's contemporary fantasy series, the American craftsmen are scattered like bait overseas. What starts as an ordinary liaison mission to London for Major Michael Endicott becomes a desperate chase across Europe, where Endicott is both hunted and hunter. Reluctantly joining him is his minder from MI13, Commander Grace Marlow, one of her majesty's most lethal magician soldiers, whose family has centuries of justified hostility to the Endicotts.

Daniel Provost is the son of a farmer. Living up to his father's high standards for the farm is very hard work, but his life is basically comfortable and a loving woman is waiting to become his wife. When a well-traveled stranger, bearing a story of Jim Bowie's legendary silver mine, appears at the farm, Daniel might just throw away everything for the chance at adventure he thought had passed him by.

Wagon boss Hugh Hitchcock knows the cowboy life better than most: In 1883, if you’re a cowboy, you can’t own a cow and you are stigmatized as a drunk. Worse, you are exploited by the wealthy cattle owners who fence the range, replace traditions and trust with written rules of employment, refuse to pay a livable wage, and change things “that ought to be left alone”. The cowboys working in the Canadian River country of the Texas Panhandle decide to fight back, to do the unthinkable: Go on strike.

Cuno Massey killed those deputy US marshals all right, but only because they were about to rape the women he was escorting to safety. Thrown into a federal penitentiary, he faces a death sentence - until the beautiful Camilla and her cutthroat gang bust him out and head for the Mexican border. Pursued by lawmen as brutal as the desperadoes he travels with, Cuno rides a bloody trail, unsure where his allegiances lie, and wondering if he was better off waiting for the gallows....

Xriah and Vylis, two avatars, both empowered with differing superhuman abilities, are repeatedly thrust into wildly varying worlds to do battle on behalf of their respective deities. Though the nature of their deities is shrouded in mystery, both avatars' faith in their purpose is strong and unwavering. On each successive world they seek one another out, and then it is a battle to the death, despite the fact that both the defeated and victor alike are reborn and plunged into yet another world, to begin the fight all over again.

John Henry Cole is an operative of Ike Kelly's Detective Agency, based out of Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. Returning to Cheyenne from what had been a deadly assignment in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, Cole has decided that he has no alternative but to resign from the agency and pursue a different line of work. However, in Cheyenne, Cole learns that Ike Kelly has been murdered and his body burned in a fire that destroyed both the agency office and the shop next door.

Young twins Jed and Tim Strange set out to find their sister, who left home to avenge their father's murder over a year ago. But when they're accused of a murder they didn't commit, they must go on the run to find the true killers.

In a saloon north of El Paso, the legendary Doc Holliday is forced to kill a rancher's son in self defense. His father, Colonel Robert McHenry, is desperate for revenge. And now Doc is a hunted man on the run. Heading west, he turns to Jacob O'Brien, hoping to find refuge at the family ranch. Jacob knows it's a lose-lose situation — one that's bound to end in violence and blood. Colonel McHenry is the famous "Lion of Lynchburg," whose relentless courage in the Civil War earned the respect of fighting men everywhere.