Showing results by narrator "Thom Rivera" in All Categories

It’s senior-year spring break, and Noelle Meyer and Evan Sinclair have been kidnapped. Neither knows why they were chosen, only that they share a tragic past: Evan’s father got away with killing Noelle’s mother, effectively ruining her family when the death was ruled an accident. Despite the connection that should have made them enemies, the teens instead unite to face their other common denominator—their abductors. Noelle and Evan survive one sadistic circumstance after another, eventually making a harrowing escape. But every happy ending comes at a price…

Josh Duffy is staring into the abyss. A decorated army veteran turned military contractor, his last mission went sideways, leaving him badly injured and his career derailed. Now, he’s working as a mall cop, trying to keep his family one step ahead of the bill collectors. So when a chance at redemption - and a big pay day - comes his way, Duff eagerly jumps in. The job - to ride shotgun on a motorcade of heavily armed and armored vehicles as they roll into Mexico’s cartel country.

The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban.

Oscar winning writer-director Guillermo del Toro and bestselling author Cornelia Funke have come together to transform del Toro’s hit movie Pan’s Labyrinth into an epic and dark fantasy novel for listeners of all ages, with enchanting short stories that flesh out the folklore of this fascinating world.

The first new Henry Rios novel in 20 years from six-time Lambda Literary award winner Michael Nava is a brilliantly plotted mystery that weaves together the gripping story of two gay men against the backdrop of 1980s San Francisco as the tsunami of AIDS bears down upon the city.

After covert investigators Ryan Decker and Harlow Mackenzie demolished APEX, a billion-dollar criminal enterprise, a tenuous truce between the two factions suggested the battle was over. But not for Decker’s director, Senator Margaret Steele. She’s uncovered an even deadlier operation - code name Skystorm. Skystorm violates every international arms-trafficking law imaginable. And for the senator, exposing the plot may be a gamble too far. APEX has caught wind of the investigation, and they’ve gone on the offensive.

Because of our shared English language, as well as the celebrated origin tales of the Mayflower and the rebellion of the British colonies, the United States has prized its Anglo heritage above all others. However, as Carrie Gibson explains with great depth and clarity in El Norte, the nation has much older Spanish roots - ones that have long been unacknowledged or marginalized. The Hispanic past of the United States predates the arrival of the Pilgrims by a century, and has been every bit as important in shaping the nation as it exists today.

Happy Silverman is more than a little excited for his class trip to the museum. He loves learning about Ancient Egypt and can't wait to see real mummies. At the museum, Happy leans as close to the mummy display as he possibly can—and something strange happens. His head spins and he hears an unfamiliar voice ringing inside his mind. The mummy is inside Happy's brain and need his help—or else!

As the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination draws near, the events of that fateful day will undoubtedly be on the minds of many throughout the world. Here Dean Owen curates a fascinating collection of interviews and thought-provoking commentaries from notable men and women connected to that notorious Friday afternoon. Those who worked closely with the president, civil rights leaders, celebrities, prominent journalists, and political allies are among the nearly one hundred voices asked to share their reflections on the significance of that day and the legacy left behind by John F. Kennedy.

Winner, The Man Booker Prize, 2015 Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters - assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts - A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 1970s, to the crack wars in 1980s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 1990s.

Havana, Cuba, 1947. Young Patricio flees impoverished Spain and steps into the sultry island paradise of Havana with only the clothes on his back and half-baked dreams of a better life. Blessed with good looks and natural charm, he lands a job as a runner at El Encanto - one of the most luxurious department stores in the world. Famous for its exquisite offerings from French haute couture to Arabian silks, El Encanto indulges the senses in opulent extravagance. It caters to visiting Hollywood stars, rising politicos, and prerevolutionary Cuba’s wealthiest power players.

In Nebula Award-winning author Sam J. Miller’s devastating debut short-fiction collection—featuring an introduction by Amal El-Mohtar—queer infatuation, inevitable heartbreak, and brutal revenge seamlessly intertwine. Whether innocent, guilty, or not even human, the boys, beasts, and men roaming through Miller’s gorgeously crafted worlds can destroy listeners, yet leave them wanting more.

When someone disappears on Northern California’s lawless Murder Mountain, it isn’t news. The vast terrain for illegal marijuana harvests is also a notorious black hole for outsiders. But when that someone is the family friend of the persuasive and righteous Senator Steele, finding him becomes covert investigator Ryan Decker’s mission.

At the conclusion of the American Revolution, half the modern United States was part of the vast Spanish Empire. The year after Columbus' great voyage of discovery, in 1492, he claimed Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands for Spain. For the next 300 years, thousands of proud Spanish conquistadors and their largely forgotten Mexican allies went in search of glory and riches from Florida to California. Many died; few triumphed. Some were cruel; some were curious; some were kind. Missionaries and priests yearned to harvest Indian souls for God through baptism and Christian teaching.

One summer evening in 1916 in Blanchester, Ohio, a sixteen-year-old farm boy was riding his horse past the town cemetery. The horse reared back and whinnied, and Eugene Exman saw God. For the rest of his life, he struggled to recreate that moment. Through a treasure of personal letters and papers, God, the Bestseller explores Exman’s personal quest. A journey that would lead him in the late 1920s to the Harper religious books department, which he turned during the Great Depression into a money-making juggernaut and the country’s top religion publisher.

Written with compassionate realism and wit, the stories in this mesmerizing collection depict the disparities of town and village life in South America, of the frightfully poor and outrageously rich, of memories and illusions, and of lost opportunities and present joys. Stories include "No One Writes to the Colonel", "Tuesday Siesta", "One of These Days", "There Are No Thieves in This Town", "Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon", "Montiel's Widow", "One Day After Saturday", "Artificial Roses", and "Big Mama's Funeral".

It is a time of reckoning for José-Maria Alvarez, an aristocratic Spanish banker living in a Swiss village with his American wife. Nearing the end of a long and tumultuous life, he’s overcome by hallucinatory memories of the past. Among his most cherished memories are those of his boyhood in 1950s Franco-era Spain and the bucolic afternoons he spent salmon fishing on the Sella River with his father, uncle, and much-loved younger brother. But these fond reveries are soon eclipsed by something greater.

A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers, and bad Christians.

The untold story fictionalized around real events from the time of 1914-1919 as to why the U.S, invaded Mexico and how Germany manipulated the southern border to attempt to keep the United States out of World War One: A reluctant Tejamo hero arose to foil their plans and oppose and expose the corrupt Texas Rangers.

On 3 December 1976, just weeks before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions, seven gunmen from West Kingston stormed his house. Marley survived and went on to perform at the free concert. Not a lot was recorded about the fate of the seven gunmen, but much has been said, whispered and sung about in the streets of West Kingston.