Showing results by narrator "Joe Hempel" in All Categories

From literary icon Joyce Carol Oates comes a brand-new collection of haunting and, at times, darkly humorous mystery and suspense stories. These are tales of psyches pushed to their limits by the expectations of everyday life - from a woman who gets lost on her drive home to her plush suburban home and ends up breaking into a stranger's house, to a first-person account of a cloned 1940s magazine pinup girl being sold at auction and embodying America's ideals of beauty and womanhood.

The Science of Attraction is an in-depth look at human attraction and what draws people together. It dives into peer-reviewed research, combined with the insightful and straightforward observations of a renowned dating coach. Patrick King is an internationally best-selling author and acclaimed speaker and coach. Together, this book is the ultimate guide to inform, diagnose, and recommend highly actionable steps to take your dating life to the next level.

A Rumor has fractured humanity... Violence is on the rise... The police have stopped answering calls... Hospitals are overrun... Cities are burning... Matt Shaw cannot be reached for comment... Duncan Ralston is Dead. This is how it happened.

Sadie was just an average teenager, or so she thought. The night of her senior prom everything changes leaving her beautiful dress in rags strewn across her front lawn while she cowers under the porch terrified and covered in fur. As a halfbreed human/wolf shifter, the Pack Alpha put a gag order in place on the night of her birth. If she never got a wolf, she would live her life oblivious of her father's heritage. But if her wolf surfaced, only then would she be told of their world.

Are you sick of procrastinating, losing focus and leaving projects unfinished? Do you feel overwhelmed by your responsibilities and unable to control the chaos of your day? Do you feel you could be more productive if only you knew how to manage your time?

Away at college, survivor Lilian Roth has discovered she's able to communicate with spirits. She and her best friend, Ben Laramie, use the skills they've acquired to free ghosts from their hauntings. But Rex Garrote, the mastermind behind the Ghostland Disaster, is raising an army of ghosts to slaughter every living person on Earth. Left with no choice but to fight, Ben and Lilian must recruit their own army of freed ghosts and prepare them for war.

Tales of blood, magic, and steel by masters of the craft!

After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market. It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise.

Christian Windsor's odd genius brought him and his FBI unit fame when he stopped the sadistic murderer called The Surgeon. Christian's genius couldn't reveal the sociopath working right next to him, though: the world-renowned psychiatrist, Luke Titan. Dead bodies begin showing up again, but this time, Christian knows them. The killer doesn't want other people: He wants Christian. A delusional psychopath thinks Christian can bring God's return, which gives Luke Titan the perfect opportunity to continue his own sick purpose.

The nations of the Continent are on the verge of declaring war with Audland over the actions of the man who would be the next Mage Emperor, and only Tane, Kadka, Indree, and Tinga know the truth about Endo Stooke's plot. The problem is, they're on the run, blamed for the attempted assassination of the Belgrian Kaiser. And the non-magical forces gathering off Audland's coast are the perfect target for the terrible spell Endo has created—a spell that saps the life out of anyone without magic. A spell that won't be sated by foreign armies alone, if it reaches Audish shores.

Zeke's finally beaten and/or Subordinated all the other Apocalypses in his city. You'd think a winner would be due a hero's welcome, or at least a good night sleep. Instead, he's greeted with a grim sight—other Apocalyptic domes opening all around him. There's no time to spare. With every passing moment, all the competing Apocalypses grow stronger and firm up their defenses. It's Zeke's turn to go on the offense as he strikes out of his city and takes on all the other Apocalypses out there.

The Exceptional Crimes Unit stopped another criminal: Lucy Speckle. The brilliant FBI agent, Christian Windsor, pushed her to suicide....watching as she cut her own throat. It changed Christian, though, and those around him are starting to notice. He's darker. Harsher. Crueler. His partner, Luke Titan, couldn't be happier because he engineered the whole thing. If anyone knew Titan's true intentions, they'd call him a psychopath. They'd lock him up. They'd put him in the electric chair. Too bad his genius keeps him hidden in the shadows.

This year brings 22 more in-your-face stories that break boundaries and trash taboos, transgressive tales you can't "unread" (as Chuck Palahniuk says). Some of the stories you'll find here are loaded with very graphic descriptions of violence, sex, and depravities, while others may contain only one shocking moment of brutality. In others, the hardcore aspect may be less graphic and subtler than you might expect. Some of these quieter tales offer the listener some time to recover from the more disturbing ones preceding.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first issues of Weird Tales Magazine, 100 Years of Weird is a masterful compendium of new and classic stories, flash fiction, essays, and poems from the giants of speculative fiction, including R. L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Tennessee Williams, and Isaac Asimov.

With the Heart of Alchemy in place, the Immortality Engine is complete. Now, all Otto needs is to learn how to use it. The secret to immortality can be found in only one place: the Sanguine Scroll. Written by the first and greatest Arcane Lord Amet Sur, the scroll services as a manual for the engine among other things. But Otto isn’t the only one seeking the scroll.

Kevin Taylor is an Internet-famous handyman on a mission: Find a house and renovate it in 30 days. By flipping a derelict house in a month's time and chronicling the entire thing on video for his online subscribers, he seeks to become a star. The problems that plague this property will require more than elbow grease to fix, however. Shadows throughout the home are distorted, and an enigmatic trespasser keeps showing up in his footage. Worse still are the hideous voices that issue from otherwise empty rooms in the dead of night.

In the vein of Mary Karr’s Lit, Augusten Burroughs’ Dry, and Sarah Hepola’s Blackout, As Needed for Pain is a raw and riveting - and often wryly funny - addiction memoir from one of New York media’s most accomplished editors which explores his never-before-told story of opioid addiction and the drastic impact it had on his life and career.

The Rising is the story of Jim Thurmond, a determined father battling his way across a post-apocalyptic zombie landscape, to find his young son. Accompanied by Martin, a preacher still holding to his faith, and Frankie, a recovering heroin addict with an indomitable will to survive, Jim travels from state to state and town to town facing an endless onslaught of undead hordes and the evils perpetrated by his fellow man.

Introvert Survival Tactics is going to shed light on exactly how you function and how to use your tendencies to your advantage - social survival tactics for your most demanding social obligations. Introvert Survival Tactics takes you on a tour of self-discovery and allows you to understand your exact wiring. You’ll be armed with specific and actionable survival and party tactics to get the most out of your social energy and make an impact every time.

The White Wolf, the Beast of Brenton Woods, a legendary creature said to walk like a man. When the full moon rises, it will feast. Unseen for years, truth has turned to rumor, mere folklore. Until something lures the monster from exile, calling it home. For Tyler and Ben, a firsthand encounter leads to an exploration of the forbidden depths of Brenton woods, and for Ben, the discovery of a family secret. When Wendy and her friend's hangout in the abandoned cabin is compromised, the hunt begins.