Showing results by narrator "Joe Hempel" in All Categories

After a six-year absence, Addison Potts is back in Charleston to stir things up. And what better place to make her villainous return than her estranged cousin’s wedding? Only, the nuptials hit a snag when the bride doesn’t show, leaving Addison to play getaway driver for the jilted groom. Elijah Montgomery Du Pont is the future mayor of Charleston. From his military career to city hall, every detail of his life has been meticulously planned. Until now. His only respite from life’s sudden upheaval is Addison, his new, improbable best friend. She makes him happy. Grounds him.

Six months after he almost died in a caving accident, sculptor Tim Overleigh spends his time crutching his broken body from bar to bar in downtown Annapolis. He has told no one that it was his dead wife, Hannah, who helped him survive—and that he's still seeing her . . . But a chance meeting with an old friend—and a plane ticket to Kathmandu—reawaken Tim's passion for adventure.

When an ill-fated NASA project causes an extrasolar meteor to hit a small Pacific island, people rush to blame the agency for a mysterious death on the island. Under social media pressure, NASA sends David Anderson to the island to investigate the death and vindicate the agency. But Anderson is not the only newcomer to the island. More people are dying. Anderson and his team must figure out what is killing everyone before they, too, become victims. But how do you stop a killing machine that keeps evolving?

As battle looms closer, problems plague Jolie and the princes. Nico keeps sneaking off, Justina and Brayden are still on the loose, and Jolie must learn to harness her powers before the battle. It's going to take everyone working together to win. Join Jolie, and the Four Princes of Jinla, in the final book of the Her Royal Harem series. Contains mature themes.

In 2043, Capes Online is the biggest, most popular VRMMORPG in the world. With over one billion active players and counting, gamers can become brave Heroes or cunning Villains, their every choice determining their alignment. Everyone wants to play this game and almost everyone does. Except for 25-year-old police officer Nyle Maxwell, who can't log out. Killed in a car accident on his first day on the job, Nyle gets his mind uploaded to Capes Online to save his life.

Real estate agent Anthony Graham has his family on the run after witnessing a murder at the hands of the powerful Costello crime family. They’re forced to hide at one of Anthony’s properties, a deserted campground with a sinister past. No one is safe from the men that hunt them, or the terrors that await them inside The Devil’s Nest.

In the conclusion of the three-volume time travel sequence, Jonathan Shade is sent back to 1926 to kill an upstart wizard named Henry Winslow. Henry wants to die because in order to achieve his goal of immortality, he must first achieve resurrection. Jonathan Shade and Kelly Chan are part of a larger plan playing out across time, and while Henry Winslow is a major player, there's someone else acting as the mastermind, and his name is Jonathan Shade.

After barely surviving the horrors in ACM mine 1134, Justin Barclay and his ghostly tagalong board a colonist ship bound for a new world. As they explore the futuristic colonist city within the ship, they quickly realize all is not as it seems. The arrival of Dr. Hallie Hayes, a fugitive scientist, arrives on the colonist ship shortly after. Her charge: get her life’s work to the core Coalition planets before it falls into the wrong hands. But she’s too late.

Conryu returns home after an eventful first year at school, eager for a quiet summer vacation with his best friends. Unfortunately, it is not to be. Just days after he arrives home, the Le Fay Society broadcasts its demands and his life is at the top of the list. Conryu soon finds himself on the run from the police, and the only way to save himself is to hunt down those threatening the city himself.

Early in their three decades of correspondence, Neil Peart sent Kevin J. Anderson extensive descriptions and travelogues of his adventures bicycling solo across Africa. Peart painted a vivid and unsettling landscape as memorable as the lyrics to his songs. Anderson, award-winning and best-selling fantasy and science fiction author, used those descriptions as the backdrop for plotting an intense, atmospheric dark fantasy story that followed Peart’s experiences, though with a much more ominous twist.

Welcome to a very special issue of Weird Tales. This issue celebrates the Bram Stoker Awards, the “Oscars” of the horror trade. They are presented every year by the Horror Writers Association (horror.org), a group founded in 1985 (and incorporated in 1987) by a collective of masters of that genre, including Joe R. Lansdale, Karen Lansdale, Robert McCammon, and Dean Koontz. This issue is packed with short stories, flash fiction, poems, and an essay—all written by past winners of the Bram Stoker Award.

Alexander Madison is part lawyer, part pastor, and part con artist. When a Muslim imam is accused of instigating honor killings, Alex must decide whether to take the case that every other lawyer in town is running away from. He doesn't realize until it's too late that defending the imam may cost him the one thing in life he cares about most. Fatal Convictions is the story of a lawyer willing to risk it all and the women who must choose between faith and love.

Jade Michaels is a coyote shifter who rebels against society and embraces the negative stereotypes of her kind. Her father bailed on her mother the second she found out she was pregnant, leaving Jade to believe that true mates are nothing more than fabricated fairy tales. At the start of her senior year at the ARC, Jade is determined to leave her mark and embarks on a campus wide inclusion campaign. Her number one goal is to take down Greek Row.

Haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her family, Heather finds herself back in Hunther, Wisconsin, after 20 years running from it. She returns to finally put the past to rest but uncovers another tragedy and finds herself in the beguiling grip of a young woman who knows more of her family secrets than Heather does. To survive this homecoming, Heather must piece together a toxic history that she long tried to forget.

Justin is excited to start his new job at an energy mine, on a distant planet - until things begin to go wrong. Small things. Annoying glitches in the mining complex's tech. Enough to aggravate him. Enough to notice a connection. When the first miner dies from a tech-related accident, Justin can no longer turn a blind eye. But the mine's brass don't want him digging for answers - even though something from the mine's past is lurking beneath the surface.... And it wants blood.

NYPD detective Sheryn Sterling has had her eye on Alex Traynor ever since his friend Cori fell to her death under suspicious circumstances a year ago. Cori’s death was ruled a suicide, but Sheryn thinks Alex - a wartime photojournalist suffering from PTSD - got away with murder. When Alex’s fiancée, Emily, a talented and beloved local doctor, suddenly goes missing, Sheryn suspects that Alex is again at the center of a sticky case.

What if decemancy isn't enough? Powerful forces threaten the stability of both the West and the entire world. The Eldemari's ambition, a descendant vanquisher: everyone is out for Ian's head. The odds are long, even with Euryphel's Regret and End affinities shifting the rhythm of war. Ian must plumb the depths of a new area of magic, one he swore off years ago: the forbidden study of the soul—necromancy. But first, he needs to find a teacher.

When Carter Monk, one of the Circle of Sorcery’s agents, goes missing in Australia, Dasiuke Kugo and his partner Helena are dispatched to find out what happened. But just getting to Carter’s last known location is a challenge since Australia is now a sealed country, no foreigners allowed. When they finally arrive, they’ll have to deal with monsters, demon magic, and an obsessed cult if they want to rescue their friend and get to the bottom of the mystery he’d been investigating. Succeed or fail, nothing will be the same after they mission.

Conryu's life was supposed to be peaceful after the fall of Morgana. Two months living on the floating island and working on bikes have been among the best of his life. But that all changes when Jemma St. Simmons, Director of the Ministry of Magic in London, contacts him looking for help. Conryu is forced once more to get involved in a dangerous magical situation. Now faced with an enemy that negates his greatest strength, can Conryu find a way to defeat a long-forgotten foe before it's too late?

At six years old Tyler Klein made a promise to his best friend Josie. "When I grow up and get my wolf, I'm gonna make you my mate." Back then he didn't know a lot about mating, but he thought he knew a thing or two about love. Josie's family changed allegiances to a new pack shortly after that and the memory faded long ago, that is until Josie shows up at the ARC to visit a friend.