Showing results by narrator "Al Pagano" in All Categories

According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), each year, an estimated 24 billion tons of fertile soil are lost due to erosion. That’s a whopping 3.4 tons lost every year for each person on the planet.

Six friends. One impossible opportunity of a lifetime. Two weeks on a wilderness cliffside documenting a strange bloom of moss that’s changing faster than it should. Creeping farther overnight. Breathing damp rot into the cracks around them. Then the accidents begin. As fear fractures the group and old trauma resurfaces, the survivors must tether together long enough to escape a living wilderness that refuses to let go. On this mountain, nothing stays dead for long, and the moss never stops growing.

Thoroughly reviewed and eagerly anticipated by the agile community, User Stories Applied offers a requirements process that saves time, eliminates rework, and leads directly to better software. The best way to build software that meets users' needs is to begin with "user stories": simple, clear, brief descriptions of functionality that will be valuable to real users. In User Stories Applied, Mike Cohn provides you with a front-to-back blueprint for writing these user stories and weaving them into your development lifecycle.

Riley Thomas is the main character of this story–whether he likes it or not. Riley Thomas has always been a normal, regular, average guy. He has a crappy job, a few friends, and a boring homelife–and that’s just fine with him. Unfortunately for Riley, fate has other plans. Death gods, immortal psychopaths, haunted dolls, and serial-killer neighbors are only a handful of his problems. So far, he’s managed to sidestep his responsibility as the main character, but all that changes when he finds himself wrapped up in a prophecy that holds the fate of the world in the balance.

CyberCursion has invented technology that enables a person to alter (redo) an event in the person's past in order to achieve a more favorable outcome. However, redoing an event for one person can have collateral effects on others that alter their timeline in a negative manner. That's what happens to Tripp Hayes. Tripp's life is turned upside down in a moment when his daughter's redo goes terribly wrong and Tripp blacks out. He wakes up in an unfamiliar place, sporting a beard and a very fit physique, neither of which he had just moments earlier. 

Walter Henry has lived quietly on the north shore of Long Island, blending into obscurity after the government erased his existence. His days are filled with solitude in his modest home, accompanied only by his loyal dog-until a late-night knock shatters his peace.His niece, Mia, stands at the...

Beating fear was once his greatest obstacle. Now he has another. Bestselling author Daniel Wright is finally rebuilding his life—one public appearance at a time. But just as he begins his book tour, a chilling discovery stops him cold: a murdered couple found with a handwritten note, sealed and addressed to him. As more couples turn up dead, Daniel is thrust into a twisted game he never agreed to play. The victims are real. The messages are personal. And the killer is watching. At his side is Nicole, the woman he’s finally allowed into his guarded world.

When renowned psychiatrist Dr. Justin Wright takes on Frank Devlin as a patient, he quickly discovers Frank’s mind is unlike anything he’s encountered before. Determined to help, Justin plunges into Frank’s psyche, unaware that he’s opened the door to something far darker than he ever imagined. What begins as a desperate attempt to heal a broken mind spirals into a nightmare of manipulation, deceit, and tragedy, for Justin and his family.

SOME SECRETS ARE WHISPERED... SOME ARE BURIED.SOME ARE WAITING TO BE REMEMBERED.Caroline Hale has been gone for seven weeks.Her husband, Lucas, can’t accept that she simply walked away. So he begins listening to the people she left behind—her friends, neighbors, even her therapist—waiting...

Pelagic Shores... that artificial floating tropical-resort island of tomorrow, the world's #1 vacation destination, home of Caly Clam, Pelagic Kingdom Park, and thirty-seven-dollar cheeseburgers…. Small-time swindler Lewis Dibble has never been to Pelagic Shores, but when his estranged uncle goes missing on the island Lewis is summoned by Security Services, and he embarks on the magical journey of a lifetime. Unfortunately, it's that sleight-of-hand, keep-your-eye-on-the-lady kind of magic, and his lifetime is about to be cut short.

Former Navy SEAL James Nichols thought he had left war behind when he joined the police force. However, when his father, a highly respected detective, dies under suspicious circumstances, James is forced to question everything he believes about loyalty, law, and the institution he swore to serve. What begins as grief becomes an obsession. Behind closed doors and within buried case files lie answers that someone is desperate to keep hidden. The deeper James digs, the more dangerous it becomes—not just for him, but also for the woman he loves and the oath he still wants to honor.

A single phone call sets off a chain of events that will test Justin's every belief. When a mysterious woman claims kinship, Justin's instincts scream deception. But when they meet, her mesmerizing appearance shatters his doubts, unveiling a truth he never saw coming.

Michael, now a psychologist, has a past that’s catching up with him at the same time an unsatisfied patient is planning his revenge. Justin, now practicing from his home office, has a patient consumed by the fear of death—a young man scared of just about everything—including fear itself. As both father and son deal with their patients’ problems and own internal challenges, they also struggle daily with Mandy’s health issue, a potentially deadly illness that threatens to take away the most important woman in their lives.

The Captain is spilling another story of his younger days with Marilyn Monroe. Sun worshippers glisten on the beach as boats anchor just off shore; their occupants swim in to sip on margaritas and rum runners and soak up the atmosphere. The bartender looks delicious in her bikini top, and land sharks are starting to circle. It's another day in paradise at the Ocean Waves.

(1919) On his return from fighting the war in Europe, Eryk Laska finds Floodwood Station, Ohio, isn't the same quiet coal-mining town he left. Not only has an underhanded contender become a threat to his relationship with the love of his life, Eryk soon finds himself a prime suspect in one of the town’s growing number of grisly deaths.

The Endless. They are beings immune to age and imbued with godlike abilities. Their struggle for power has gone mostly unnoticed since the Immortal War, 3000 years ago, when the Dwarves divided the world at the Dwarf Gate and the Mages of the Nine Powers dropped the peak of Cairn on the Shrine of the Endless.

It all starts with Richard Davis, Justin's new patient, seeking help for uncontrollable anger and hostility. He can barely walk a New York City street without exploding at the people around him. Can Justin relieve him of his negativity, or is he too consumed with his own son Michael—a boy found after seven years in captivity, who is now void of any compassion or joy?

Jade, a beautiful young woman suffering from depression and despair, is trying to escape her past...a former life that catches up with her during every full moon. Justin’s biggest obstacle to helping her is Jade herself. The closer he gets to the root of her problems, the further away she pushes him—leaving Justin questioning both her sincerity and his own professional skills.

Luke Anderson has spent fifteen years behind the curtain—designing flyers, managing egos, cleaning blood off concrete floors, and holding together a small-time Indiana wrestling operation that its owner keeps trying to burn down. He's not a wrestler. He doesn't take bumps. But he's the one who makes sure the show goes on—even when the champion can't stand up, the new kid can't be trusted, and a rich outsider with deep pockets is circling. Every Friday night at the Elmwood Armory, a few hundred fans pay to believe in something they know isn't real.

As time marches on, the Wright family faces numerous changes, yet one mystery endures: the whereabouts of Daniel. Was Monica responsible for his disappearance? Should Benji be implicated, or has Barb wrongly accused him? Haunted by echoes of his own past abduction, Michael grapples with his son’s absence, while also trying to help a patient plagued by Paranoid Personality Disorder—a man whose deep mistrust challenges Michael in unexpected ways.