Showing results by narrator "Tim Campbell" in All Categories

CHICAGO, SOMETIME— Two people meet in the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist, undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. By the end of the story, these things will still be true. But this is not a story about endings.

It's an ordinary day in the Bellwoods, save for the fact that Jon-Tom the spellsinger has awoken as a six-foot blue crab. He soon reverts to normal—as normal as a college student trapped in a world of magic and talking animals can be, anyway—but the bizarre changes keep happening, affecting not just him but the whole of this strange world. His wizardly mentor suspects these are the effects of the perambulator, a cosmic being whose presence distorts reality.

After years of playing the rake to hide a dark family secret, the Duke of Aversley feels tainted beyond redemption and cynical beyond repair. Never does he imagine hope will come in the form of a quirky, quick-witted lady determined to win the heart of another gentleman. Thanks to a painfully awkward past, Lady Amelia De Vere long ago relinquished the notion she was a flower that had yet to blossom.

No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, "Los Angeles brings it all together". To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where "you can rot without feeling it". To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide-ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias.

Joe Harper has backpedaled throughout his life. A once-promising guitar prodigy, he's been living without direction since abandoning his musical dreams. Now into his 30s, having retreated from every opportunity he's had to level up, he has lost his family, his best friend, and his own self-respect. But Joe finds an unlikely path to redemption when he starts working as a carpenter for the bohemian conceptual artist October Danko. The job returns him to his hometown, loaded with bittersweet reminders of his former life, in the shadows of his beloved redwood trees.

It's a prick of blood, the bite of an apple, the evil eye, a wedding ring, or a pair of red shoes. Curses come in all shapes and sizes, and they can happen to anyone, not just those of us with unpopular step-parents.... Here you'll find unique twists on curses, from fairy tale classics to brand-new hexes of the modern world - expect new monsters and mythologies as well as twists on well-loved fables. Stories to shock and stories of warning, stories of monsters and stories of magic.

Jon-Tom has been trapped in a strange land of talking owls and wizarding turtles for a year now, his sole consolation that in this universe his musical abilities have inadvertently made him something of a sorcerer. But when an encounter with some burglars leads to him snapping the magical duar that channels his power, he finds himself an ordinary human again-on a quest to repair his instrument with nothing but his staff and his semi-faithful, ever-complaining otter sidekick to defend him.

Englishwoman Grace Ellington has made a home in Scotland, but to escape from the meddling people around her who seem to think she needs to wed right away she volunteers to journey north to aid a friend in childbirth. Keir MacKinnon, the younger brother of the MacKinnon clan chief, has been raised to strike fear in people, on and off the battlefield. Trained to uphold MacKinnon law, he has hardened into a lethal warrior. Caught in a Highland blizzard with the feisty Grace, Keir realizes the beautiful woman who saved him can also save his nephew's life.

It’s business as usual on the set of another cheap sword-and-sandal production by Pharos Pictures—until the lead actress suddenly falls into a deep, mysterious sleep. Jordan Harper can talk down high-strung starlets and knock sense into stuntmen, but this…this is the kind of uncanny problem that he’d usually bring to Mrs. Hope. Unfortunately, the preternaturally capable secretary is on a business trip with the studio head. Harper must get to the bottom of the mystery on his own before another cast member succumbs—or worse, they blow the budget.

In the eighth installment of Scott Pratt's best-selling Joe Dillard Series, Dillard is hired to represent the man driving the pickup. As Dillard delves into the case, he comes to believe his client is not guilty. But who is? Who has been kidnapping and killing judges all over the state of Tennessee? The search for that answer leads Dillard and his friend, Sheriff Leon Bates, down a path so dark and so dangerous to a villain so evil, it will change both Joe and Leon forever—if they manage to survive.

The cruelty of men is something Lady Chloe Edgerton understands. Even in her quest to better her life and forget the past, men always seem determined to control her. Overhearing the latest plan to wed her to a proper gentleman, Chloe finally has enough...but one misstep lands her in the arms of the most notorious rake in London. Leopold Dunlop is a ruthless, coldhearted rake...a reputation he has cultivated.

Destitute and determined to finally be free of any man's shackles, Lily Benedict sets out to salvage her honor. With no choice but to commit a crime that will save her from her past, she enters the home of the recluse Derek Winters, the new Duke of Blackthorne. But entering the "Beast of Blackthorne's" lair proves more threatening than she ever imagined.

A reckless warrior, Kieran Broderick was half-Irish, yet bound to fight for the English crown. So when King Henry decreed that he take an Irish wife to quell rebellion there, he had little choice. Newly dubbed the earl of Kildare, Kieran travels to Langmore Castle, seat of the lawless O'Shea family, to choose a bride. When he picks Maeve, a fetching lass who seems sweetly submissive, he soon learns she's a fiery, clever woman. When she refuses to allow him into her bed or her heart, he finds himself fighting the most daunting battle of his life.

Tessa will never again see her mate. Even in her dreams, she cannot find him. Trapped in a vow with the God of Death, she's cursed to live the rest of her days in captivity. Until the gods offer her a deal. If Tessa undergoes a series of trials designed to strip her of her humanity, Andromeda will release her from the vow. If she refuses, pestilence and famine will consume Dubnos until no one is left alive. Tessa is forced to play their wicked game. She'll do whatever it takes to reunite with Kalen, even if it means embracing the darkness inside her.

When his older brother disappears before his eyes, Greyson McCaim is determined to find him, even if he has to travel back in time. Because, it turns out their “crazy” father was right. Their mother didn’t leave them willingly. She’s a time traveler, and someone pulled her back to her original home in medieval Scotland.

Mairi Maclean is kidnapped on her wedding day by the enemy of her dead husband. Taken north to the water-surrounded Kisimul Castle, she is held captive in the name of retribution. But The Wolf of Kisimul Castle soon learns Mairi is not a docile pawn in this game of war between neighboring Scots. Nor will she be frightened into walking down the aisle to wed the fierce Highland chief. Alec MacNeil is set on revenge. When he finds his enemy dead, he takes his wife to replace the one that was murdered. An eye for an eye. A bride for a bride. But Mairi is more tiger than kitten.

A family of four is slaughtered in rural Tennessee. Two weeks later, a retired high school principal and his wife are brutally slain. Two Satan-worshipping teens stand accused. It's up to prosecutor Joe Dillard to convict them. A former defense attorney who spent way too much time defending people he knew were guilty, Joe is determined to win this case to atone for his past. But an evil young woman named Natasha is responsible for the slayings and Joe knows it.

Fresh off their previous adventure, Peter and his friends settle into ordinary lives, despite their newly gained special powers. Everything changes when they stumble upon artifacts that point to a legendary city of gold, its location lost in time, and its existence doubted by everyone they meet. Enchanted by the promise of untold riches and the thrill of adventure, they embark on a quest to uncover its fabled treasures.

Jon-Tom and his friends have seen better days. After his motley crew moved heaven and Earth to save civilization at the battle of Jo-Troom Gate, his merry band went its separate ways. Mudge, the foul-mouthed otter, eagerly returned to thieving, drinking, and whoring, while Talea, the girl of Jon-Tom's dreams, embarked on her own adventures, leaving him to study magic with Clothahump, the irascible wizard whose inept spell trapped him in this weird otherworld in the first place. But now Clothahump is dying, and not even Jon-Tom's spellsinging can make him well.

Clara's memories of the last few years are lost in a haze. The more she tries to remember, the harder it is. And perhaps that's just as well. Perhaps, it's better for her to focus on the present... and the future: a beautiful future with Danny Gale as her husband and her place in good society restored, comfortable and content.