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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the sun-drenched hills of Napa Valley, former Mexican cartel distributor Francisco Bautista reinvents himself as a respectable vintner, trading blood money for the prestige of California's wine aristocracy. Armed with a mountain estate, sprawling vineyards, and a fabricated past, Francisco launches his assault on Napa's wine country social elite. His unlikely arsenal includes a washed-up celebrity ghostwriter, retired sports legends, and elite wine experts—all fighting for relevance in the intoxicating world of luxury wine.

Daniel Wright has built his life on stories. He’s written thrillers that keep readers awake long into the night. But when Benji, a man long believed dead, appears at his door with unfathomable claims, fiction collides with reality in the most devastating way. Sick, dying, and manipulative, Benji demands Daniel’s help—or threatens to unravel everything he has built: his career, his family, his sanity.

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.

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.

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.

Best-selling author Daniel J. Wright has built his career on fear—both his own and the kind he weaves into his novels. But when a stalker fixates on his agoraphobia, convinced his terror fuels his creativity, fiction and reality blur in the most chilling way.