Showing results by author "J. Parker" in All Categories

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all. To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job.

If you are struggling to process loss, pain, or grief from the last few years or the last few minutes, J.S. is an experienced and deeply empathetic listener and grief catcher who has held the pain and questions of thousands of patients. While social and cultural narratives about grief are dominated by "letting go, moving on, or turning the page" in his nearly decade of service as a chaplain at a major hospital with a designated level one trauma center J.S. understands firsthand how rushing or suppressing grief only adds a suffocating layer of pain on top of the original wound.

This is the true story of Aemilius Felix Boioannes the younger, the intended and unintended consequence of his life, the bad stuff he did on purpose and the good stuff that happened in spite of him.

In these hilarious stories by some of the top authors of middle grade fiction today, each young character is coping with a minor superpower—while also discovering their power to change themselves and their community, find their voice, and celebrate what makes them unique.

It’s important to look after your crew when you’re in the battlefield salvage business. It’s stressful work at the best of times, and although your employees are unlikely to be happy it makes sense to keep them alive. So when Saevus Corax finds himself having to capture a castle to stop his men from being killed, he has no choice but to give it a try. Needless to say, the conventional rules of siegecraft are unlikely to be followed.

Finding one's calling is not just about finding something we can do - it is about finding what we can't not do. "Let your life speak" is a time-honored Quaker admonition to live one's life as witness to the deepest truths one knows. But as Parker Palmer explains, those words can also mean "listen to your life, and let it tell you what your truth is."

Paul Bernado and Karla Homolka were so perfectly iconic as a newlywed couple that they were dubbed "Ken and Barbie". But their marriage had a dark side involving sex, death, and videotape. The "perfect couple" first raped and murdered Karla's little sister then kidnapped teenage schoolgirls whom they enslaved, raped, tortured, and killed while gleefully recording themselves on video doing it.

This is the history of how the City was saved, by Notker the professional liar, written down because eventually the truth always seeps through.

The task was simple: Sneak into Zachary Sun's closely guarded manor. Retrieve my pendant. Slip out. Problem #1? America's most unattainable bachelor caught me. Problem #2? He decided to keep me. As the help. Zach Sun's winter may be the coldest I've ever felt, but he makes my skin burn. Reserved, calculated, and savagely cruel, he thrives on the weaknesses of others. Little does he know, he just met his match.

Eamon Tauk was literally born into the Space Corps. They spent two decades forging him into a Marine. Training him to be a killer. Twisting him into a fanatic. Then they assigned him to protect Dr. Jella Duverii, a mildly subversive alien zoologist who could very well undo all the work they put into him. When the young cadet and his charge crash land on Kanaris with the survivors of their Recon battalion, they find themselves leagues away from their objective, marooned in an environment so hostile even the trees seem hellbent on killing them.

A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all. To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job. Sixteen Ways To Defend a Walled City is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege.

Reframing aging as "a passage of discovery and engagement", Palmer says, "Old is just another word for nothing left to lose, a time to take bigger risks on behalf of the common good." On the Brink of Everything is not a "guide to" or "handbook for" getting old. Instead, it's Palmer turning the prism of insight on his experience as a way of encouraging listeners to do the same with theirs. In elegant prose and lyrical poetry, he offers a set of meditations on the meanings of one's life - past, present, and future.

How often do you hear inner voices saying you’re not good enough, not tough enough, not fit enough? How much time do you spend dwelling on regret, shame, and things you wish you could do over? Research shows that when we truly accept ourselves, it changes everything. We become less reactive and more resilient. Our physical health improves. We are capable of deeper and more satisfying relationships. In The Self-Acceptance Summit: Volume One, you’ll find a collection of insights, encouraging voices, and on-the-spot tools to help you transform your relationship with yourself.

The first season of the Tor.com Collection includes the following Tor.com audiobooks originally published separately in the fall of 2015: The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson; Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell; Sunset Mantle by Alter S. Reiss; Binti by Nnedi Okorafor; The Last Witness by K. J. Parker; Of Sorrow & Such by Angela Slatter; Envy of Angels by Matt Wallace; The Builders by Daniel Polansky....

As a hospital chaplain, J.S. Park encountered hundreds of patients at the edge of life and death, listening as they urgently shared their stories, confessions, and final words. J.S. began to identify patterns in his patients’ lives — patterns he also saw in his own life. He began to see that the events and traumas we experience throughout life become deafening voices that remain within us, even when the events are far in the past.

I've loved Evan Morgan ever since I was a little girl. Growing up, he was my best friend. I thought he always would be. Turns out, I was wrong. September 30th was the day my world shattered. In the blink of an eye, everything changed. Now, my heart is broken. My life is chaos. And my mind? It's a mess. The only thing that still makes sense is how I feel about Evan. I love him more than anything, but it's not enough anymore. I'm tired of chasing after him, tired of being held at arm's length.

There’s no formal training for battlefield salvage. You just have to pick things up as you go along. Swords, armour, arrows–and the bodies, of course. Over the years, Saevus Corax has picked up a lot of things. Some of them have made him decent money, others have brought nothing but trouble. But it’s a living, and somebody has to deal with the dead. Something else that Saevus has buried is his past. Unfortunately, he didn’t quite succeed.

Enjoy the wisdom, compassion, gentle humor, and companionship of a master teacher in a beloved book that has helped hundreds of thousands of people find their way toward meaning and purpose.

A Hidden Wholeness is a thoughtful and heartfelt examination of sources and consequences of the alienation we feel when our inner and outer lives become divorced from each other, when external forces pressure us to depart from our soul's true yearnings. The book lifts up the problem of the "divided life", diagnoses its sources, assesses its personal and social costs, and offers a model of community that will help people live with greater integrity and wholeness.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was not trying to start a movement. She was simply tired of the social injustice. Yet her simple act of courage started a chain of events that forever shaped the landscape of American race relations. Now, decades after her quiet defiance inspired the modern civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks' own words tell of her courageous life, her passion for freedom and equality, and her strong faith.