Showing results by narrator "James Cronin" in All Categories

When Benedict left home, it was maybe the first time he'd stood up to his family. It was also meant to be the last. "No contact," he said. "I'm disinvesting." In all honesty, they weren't sorry to see him go. Ben had never had their talent, never had the family spark. When you run a city - especially the way the Macallans ran theirs - the last thing you need is a reluctant passenger.

On June 23, 1997 - barely three weeks after her 18th birthday - Kristen Modafferi, a tall, vivacious brunette, ended her workday and vanished into thin air. An investigation into her disappearance has yet to produce a trace.

A new full-length collection of high fantasy by Dave Smeds. A lover spun from moonlight. A wife banished for carrying the child of a demon. A queen, beheaded ten years ago, whose sage counsel may still save the realm. Here are tales of swords, of magic, of romance. And of the struggle to be splendid of heart whether the opponent be within or without.

Forcing Susan Meyer to lie face-down on the floor, the intruders tied her hands behind her back with nylon rope. "Don't call the police," they warned as they led her 23-year-old daughter, Beth, away, "or you'll never see your daughter alive again." The men then pulled a pillowcase over Beth's head, forced her into the back of her mother's Oldsmobile, and drove off.

In Modern Families, Joshua Gamson brings us extraordinary family creation tales - his own included - that illuminate this changing world of contemporary kinship. Combining personal memoir and ethnographic storytelling, Modern Families tells a variety of unconventional family-creation tales - adoption and assisted reproduction, gay and straight parents, coupled and single, and multi-parent families - set against the social, legal, and economic contexts in which they were made.

In Modern Families, Joshua Gamson brings us extraordinary family creation tales - his own included - that illuminate this changing world of contemporary kinship. Combining personal memoir and ethnographic storytelling, Modern Families tells a variety of unconventional family-creation tales - adoption and assisted reproduction, gay and straight parents, coupled and single, and multi-parent families - set against the social, legal, and economic contexts in which they were made.

Andrea Benito’s Sorry For Murdering You is a delirious collection of schizophrenic essays on love, life, time, creative destruction, political theory, Martin Heidegger, getting a job in the modern workplace, concerts, digital technology, Darwinism social justice, and so on. The 18 essays included here often edge on narcissistic psychobabble but still, every sentence seems to be pregnant with shocking new insights into what it means to be a human being.

Nathaniel Carter was stunned by the verdict: guilty - with 25 years to life in prison. To the police, it was an open-and-shut case. To Carter's family and a few concerned friends, it would become a crusade for justice.

Sergeant First Class Carlos Santos-Silva died the way he served: right beside his men. Brian Mockenhaupt visits the soldiers who knew him best and last.

Chronicling five years of a troubled romance, This Is Between Us offers an intimate view of one couple’s struggle - from the illicit beginnings of sexual obsession to the fragile architecture of a pieced-together family. Full of sweet moments, emotional time bombs, unexpected humor, and blunt sexuality, the daily life of this man and woman, both recently divorced, with children and baggage in tow, emerges in all of its complexity. In this utterly engrossing debut novel, Kevin Sampsell delivers a confessional tale of love between two resilient people who have staked their hearts on each other.

Jaeme, new lord of Castle Elfwood, Decutonius, an unpredictable mage, the druidess Laela, and the venerable knight Cedric must confront the evil that threatens to crush Elfwood in only three days.

It should be simple - a dragon defeated, a slumbering princess in a castle, a prince poised to wake her. But when the prince falls asleep as his lips touch the fair maiden's, it is clear that this fairy tale is far from over. With a desperate fairy's last curse controlling her mind, Princess Aurora must escape from a different castle of thorns and navigate a dangerously magical landscape - created from her very own dreams.

Richard Stirling is a successful lawyer who specializes in defending the rights of the underprivileged. He falls in love with the pianist Rebecca Pennant, and as their romance develops, a tragic event takes Rebecca out of his life. In the wake of this dramatic misfortune, Richard re-encounters an heirloom, an astonishing mirror.

Chaz Eades is on the mission of a lifetime - the first to an alien solar system far beyond our own - and it's a one-way trip. When he learns that contact with Earth has been lost, he wants to help reestablish communication. But the commander insists on science first and contact later, the crew is inexplicably hostile, and Chaz finds himself painfully isolated. Soon he realizes that there's a secret at the heart of the crew's troubles that is much larger than any he could have imagined

In Modern Families, Joshua Gamson brings us extraordinary family creation tales - his own included - that illuminate this changing world of contemporary kinship. Combining personal memoir and ethnographic storytelling, Modern Families tells a variety of unconventional family-creation tales - adoption and assisted reproduction, gay and straight parents, coupled and single, and multi-parent families - set against the social, legal, and economic contexts in which they were made.

Twenty five years ago, Jenna, Donnie, and Nico were the best of friends, having forged a bond through the abuse and neglect they endured as residents of Savior House, a group home for parentless teens. When the home was shut down - after the disappearance of several kids - the three were split up. Though the trauma of their childhood has never left them, each went on to live accomplished - if troubled - lives. They haven't seen one another since they were teens but now are reunited for a single haunting reason: someone is trying to kill them.

An explosive return to the library leaves the six Alexandrians vulnerable to the lethal terms of their recruitment. Old alliances quickly fracture as the initiates take opposing strategies as to how to deal with the deadly bargain they have so far failed to uphold. Those who remain with the archives wrestle with the ethics of their astronomical abilities, while elsewhere, an unlikely pair from the Society cohort partner to influence politics on a global stage.

Believed to be little more than small-town smugglers at first, their trail would lead the FBI to the world's most dangerous terrorists.

David Shephard, whose wrongful arrest led to 12 years in jail, can't make up for the lost time - but he's determined to try.

Police cited the deaths of his wife and daughter as a murder-suicide - but he knew that couldn't be.