Showing results by narrator "Kevin T. Collins" in All Categories

Harvey Anderson is a twenty-six-year-old street performer from New Jersey. He enjoys his peaceful life, but everything turns upside down when he is abducted and beaten by a group of nondescript thugs. Working for a sinister man known as "the spider," these goons have spent nine years searching for Harvey's girlfriend, Sally Starling. Now they think they know where she lives. And whom she loves.

Newlyweds Polly and Leo Xanthus long for a life where they never have to hide from the mafia that forced them into seclusion. The Marcello crime family is on the brink of going under. With their revenue streams drying up and the feds ever-present on their tail, aging crime boss Alfonso Balivino looks to steal a diamond owned by his one-time boss, Kostas Xanthus, to fund the family. Now, Polly and Leo will be forced to leave their unknown location and find their way home to New Orleans before the Marcello family murders again, forcing them and the ring on Polly’s hand out of hiding.

Malwynn and his twin sister, Umaryn, experienced true horror when their hometown of New Picknell was razed to the ground in the first act of war by a Necromancer from The Amaranth Empire. They took their thirst for vengeance north across the border, and, after killing both the innocent and the guilty alike, they discovered a horrible truth. The Empire had not ordered the strike. The Necromancer had been paid.

For Hunter Cady, meeting Kaitlyn is the greatest thing that has ever happened to him. Whereas he had spent most of his days accomplishing very little, now his life has a purpose. Smart, funny, and one of a kind, Kait is somehow charmed by Hunter's awkwardness and droll humor, and her love gives him reason to want to be a better man.

With a mysterious key in hand and their only friends by their sides, the twins Malwynn and Umaryn race against the Amaranth Empire's invasion. Chased from the capital city of Varrland, branded as criminals for the murder of their traitorous aunt, they begin the trek to the forlorn wilderness of Duulan. They seek a village where their parents had nearly perished decades ago, where an abandoned mine, protected by an army of the dead, conceals the darkest secrets of Elmoryn.

The apocalypse just got worse. When remorse drives Cyrus to abandon his hidden compound he doesn't realize what new dangers lurk in the undead world. He knows he must wade through the vilest remains of humanity and hordes of zombies to settle scores and find the one person who might understand him. But this time, it won't be so easy. Zombies and unpleasant survivors aren't the only thing Cyrus has to worry about. Not anymore.

Is death the end...or only the beginning? Ethan Wate always dreamed of leaving the stifling Southern town of Gatlin. But he never dreamt that finding love with Lena Duchannes would drive him away. Lena is a Caster girl whose supernatural powers unveiled a secretive and cursed side of Gatlin, so powerful it forced him to make a terrible sacrifice. Now Ethan must find a way to return to Lena - and Gatlin - as she vows to do whatever it takes to get him back. Even if it means trusting old enemies or risking their loved ones’ lives.

Mac Callahan, a seasoned FBI agent in Washington, DC, has given up the fast lane to live a life of sweet tea and sunshine in Alabama with the girl of his dreams, Samantha Peterson. But Mac’s years of bringing down drug lords and psychotic criminals is about to catch up with him just as he’s resigned himself to leave it all behind. Carefully planning, Hector Quintes has patiently waited to crash Mac and Samantha’s happily ever after. As Hector becomes intimately close to their family, the line between friend and foe grows strangely blurred.

The 12-year solstice has come. And with it, a sinister carnival brings a new sense of terror and wonder to a small coastal town. An enormous shoe is washed up on the shore...a tiny man disguises himself as a mouse...a crow provides eyes for a blind innkeeper...and three curious adventures discover the gateway to the Land of Dreams - where you don't always get what you want, you get what you deserve....

Did career criminal Alonzo Barnett, in and out of prison since age 15, commit the latest drug deal he's accused of? Yup, he's guilty as charged. But is he guilty as sin? That's the question criminal defense attorney Harrison J. Walker, the maverick known as Jaywalker, has to answer as he takes the court-appointed case. As Jaywalker is well aware, one wrong move, even for the right reason, can derail your life - and land an otherwise redeemed ex-con back in the slammer for years.

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar. Pressia Belze has lived outside of the Dome ever since the detonations. Struggling for survival she dreams of life inside the safety of the Dome with the 'Pure'. Partridge, himself a Pure, knows that life inside the Dome, under the strict control of the leaders' regime, isn't as perfect as others think.

Erin feels that she has reached a breaking point in her cancer treatment. Having gone through two exhausting programs of medication and facing a third, she decides to take a week off from doctors and hospitals and even her family, and to fly from her home in Washington D.C. to a retreat in California that is designed for cancer victims with no chance of survival. So when the plane encounters extreme turbulence and comes apart in midair, she accepts the reality. Only fate has other ideas, for she miraculously survives not only the explosion but also the fall from the sky.

Is falling in love the beginning...or the end? In Ethan Wate’s hometown there lies the darkest of secrets. Ethan Wate is in love with a caster girl. When he looks at Lena, it’s like there’s no one else in the world. But Ethan is mortal, and on her 17th birthday Lena made a choice that changed everything. The girl Ethan loves has broken the world with the supernatural powers she is struggling to control.... Now, if they are to fix the chaos Lena has caused, one of them must make a terrible sacrifice. Sometimes there isn’t just one answer. Sometimes there’s no going back. And this time there won’t be a happy ending.

Rafe Montfort was a decorated Green Beret, the best of the best, until a disastrous mission and an unforgivable betrayal destroyed his life. Now this deadly soldier has returned to the sultry Georgia swamps to reunite with his brothers and take back all he lost. But Juliet must never know the truth behind what he's done...or the dangerous secret that threatens to take him from her forever.

On the surface, King Giles’ life seems quiet. A non-operational cover (NOC) agent for the government, he spends his days caring for his patients and his nights and weekends keeping tabs on operational terror cells. But when an ex-girlfriend shows up dead in his front yard with lace panties shoved in her mouth and his address in her hand, the FBI wants answers, and his secret life and next mission are compromised.

Luka's carefree existence as the spoiled son of a minor noble ended the day his family was arrested and imprisoned in the Eyeless Tower. His father, a political rival to the praetor of Camdon, would never live to see freedom again. Luka should have joined his father on the scaffold but fate - or the schemes of men - intervened. Escape came. Now Luka has a chance to thwart his persecutors and avenge his family. Beginning life again in a distant province, he takes a new name - Rideon

In a twisted game of life and death, dominance and destruction, humanity and colonizers - outside survivors struggle to find footing and reclaim what they've lost. Mary soon discovers she is the key - but will she be able to use her deadly gifts to defeat those who have created her?

Critical Mass is a treasure trove of sparkling, spiky prose and a fascinating portrait of our lives and cultural times over the past decades. In an age where a great deal of back scratching and softball pitching pass for criticism, James Wolcott’s fearless essays and reviews offer a bracing taste of the real critical thing.

In the early 1980s, Brian O'Dea was operating a $100 million a year, 120-man drug smuggling business, and had developed a terrifying cocaine addiction. Under increasing threat from the DEA in 1986 for importing seventy-five tons of marijuana into the United States, he quit the trade - and the drugs - and began working with recovering addicts in Santa Barbara. Despite his life change, the authorities caught up with him years later and O'Dea was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years at Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary in Los Angeles Harbor.

Just after noon on a spring day in 2006, aspiring singer-songwriter Hilary Williams and her sister Holly - the granddaughters of country legend Hank Williams and daughters of country music star Hank Williams, Jr. - were driving through Mississippi down a rural stretch of Route 61 on their way to their grandfather’s funeral. Suddenly, the front wheel of the truck became caught in one of the many deep ruts and gravel lining the road, causing the vehicle and its passengers to flip over several times, crushing steel and breaking fragile bones as it crashed.