Showing results by narrator "Joe Hempel" in All Categories

When the matriarch of a rich Seattle family dies under suspicious circumstances, private investigator Thomas Austin is on the case. This time, the suspect list is easy.

Ryan Davenport is Mayor of Ravenden. He's a type A personality who likes things neat and orderly. He runs a tight ship and will do whatever it takes to keep Ravenden and those he cares about safe. But Gracie Montgomery doesn't make that easy. She's a carefree spirit with a death wish because she knows she can't die, at least not by fire. A rare fire witch known as the phoenix means fire can never really hurt her. This makes her reckless and wild, a danger to those around her.

Aaron Decker's life changes one December morning when his wife, Allison, is killed. Haunted by her absence - and her ghost - Aaron goes through her belongings, where he finds a receipt for a motel room in another part of the country. Piloted by grief and an increasing sense of curiosity, Aaron embarks on a journey to discover what Allison had been doing in the weeks prior to her death.

Kelsey Adams is alone, and has been since childhood. Running away is all she knows and necessary to preserve her deepest, darkest secret. She cannot afford for anyone to get close, or know about the monster within. But when she lands a lucrative job as an administrative assistant to Kyle Westin, CEO of the Westin Foundation, her life changes and everything's at stake. Can she conceal her growing feelings and her true self from this enigmatic, strong willed man, or will her world fall apart?

For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He's haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother's life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together. Nor can they deny the memories of that summer, so long ago—the strange magic taught to them by an even stranger man, and the terrible act that has followed them all into adulthood.

The moment everything changed didn't happen in that cliche rockets-red-glare kind of way, it happened in the form of a waking nightmare. I caught my husband, my high-school sweetheart, the father of my children, balls deep in a sordid affair. That was when I gave up on men and love. I didn't count on the NHL's golden boy, the beautiful, arrogant Cooper Stone, turning my life and my hockey rink upside down. We're from different worlds and places in our lives, but when our hearts collided, something so wrong and different turned into something so right.

Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon. Survival horror. One of the most brutal, most terrifying full-immersion games ever made. A place where fantasy characters such as elves and dwarves clash with technology, where giant monsters roam the hills, entrusted with protecting the gates of heaven from the demons who would tear it all down. A game where one plays the last of the battlefield surgeons: a healer tasked with keeping the behemoths alive at all costs. But on this server, they don't care about the game. They've come because of the game's most unique feature: full pain.

On Memorial Day, 1992, three decorated navy officers disappeared in the sleepy beach town of Hansville, Washington. Thirty years later, their medals were found in the marshlands of Foulweather Bluff. So were their bones. For private investigator Thomas Austin, this case hits close to home. The son of a JAG lawyer, Austin grew up around the navy. To solve the case, he must piece together clues buried in the marshlands and dark secrets hidden in navy history.

Karis Begay is the only surviving heir to the Begay wolves of the Alaskan Pack. Someday she will take her place as Pack Mother, which is a lifelong burden she has always carried with pride. It kept her isolated from others and hesitant to let anyone close to her. As she enters her freshman year at Archibald Reynolds College, no one knows who she is or who she is destined to become. It's a chance at a fresh start, and just maybe...the beginning of something new.

The fourth book in this twisty, fast-paced mystery series, The Horror at Murden Cove locks you on a storm-battered island with a killer whose motive is so deranged, you'll have to listen to this audiobook twice to believe it.

The statues disappeared in an instant. While they were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction without ever lifting a finger. They also contributed to the untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into their path, naming them the Carls and gaining viral fame in an avalanche of conspiracy theories. When April's friends try to carry on with their lives, a series of clues arrive - mysterious books that seem to predict the future - and which also seem to suggest April may be very much alive...But there's a bigger mystery to solve.

Thomas Austin was once a prominent NYPD detective, known for locking up a psychopathic serial killer dubbed "The Holiday Baby Butcher". Now retired in a small beach town in the Pacific Northwest, Austin runs a little café, trying to overcome the loss of his wife, a DA who was gunned down only one year ago.

Bram Stoker Award-winning author Laird Barron returns to the dark and dreadful with his fifth horror collection, which weaves sixteen weird tales into a mosaic of the bloody and the macabre.

When the body of a beloved social media star washes up on the rocky shores of Second Beach, panic spreads through the surrounding coastal community. What was once a peaceful haven is now shrouded in fear, and the locals demand answers. But what begins as a tragic mystery quickly spirals into something far more sinister. Beneath the surface of Washington’s sleepy beach towns lies a hidden underworld—a secretive criminal syndicate that has operated in the shadows for years.

Only 1 percent of the population is blessed with magic affinity at birth. Fewer still have high enough affinities to rule. Ian’s decemancy eclipses all, granting him ultimate control over Death. He conquers cities with a thought and turns them into ruins with a gesture. But overwhelming power isn’t enough to escape the time loop or reveal its purpose.

You'd think a billion dollars, a professional hockey team and a six-bedroom mansion on the Promenade would satisfy a guy. You'd be wrong. For seven years Rebecca has brightened my office with her wit and her smile. She manages both my hockey team and my sanity. I don't know when I started waking in the night, craving her. All I know is that one whiff of her perfume ruins my concentration. And her laugh makes me hard.

Bella: Meeting him was a fluke. Dating him was a mistake. Watching him become a drug addict put me through hell. Running was my only option. Jackson: I'm running from my demons and when I find out she's trying to escape her past, I know what I have to do. One broken cop. One woman fighting for her life. A fragile love. Sinister secrets that threaten to tear them apart. They've been to hell. The hard part will be finding their way back together.

Gia's red hair and lack of powers set her apart from every other raven shifter witch in existence, and not in a good way. Shunned by her Flock, still living with her parents, and working day in and day out as a waitress, she longs for a change. David is a mimic, one of a kind. Being different isn't always a good thing. The only time he feels like he's fitting in is when he's pretending to be someone else. Alone, jaded, and always hiding, he just wants someone to see him for who he really is.

Stop enabling, people pleasing, and being so agreeable. The Art of Everyday Assertiveness is a guide for the chronically nice, overwhelmed, and accommodating. It is a deep psychological dive into what makes us lack assertiveness and how to systematically combat those compulsions.

The supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real...tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle us. Chosen from a wide variety of venues, these stories are as eclectic and varied as shadows.