Showing results by narrator "Joe Hempel" in All Categories

Horror movie starlet Clarissa Lee is beautiful, internationally known, and completely broke. To cap off years of questionable financial and personal decisions, Clarissa accepts an invitation to participate in a "fully immersive" fan convention. She arrives at an off-season summer camp and finds what was supposed to be a quick buck has become a real-life slasher movie.

When Carter Monk, one of the Circle of Sorcery’s agents, goes missing in Australia, Dasiuke Kugo and his partner Helena are dispatched to find out what happened. But just getting to Carter’s last known location is a challenge since Australia is now a sealed country, no foreigners allowed. When they finally arrive, they’ll have to deal with monsters, demon magic, and an obsessed cult if they want to rescue their friend and get to the bottom of the mystery he’d been investigating. Succeed or fail, nothing will be the same after they mission.

When a distress beacon far off the main trade routes appears on the scanner, they stop to investigate. The source, a large ship with a gaping hole in the hull, drifts dead in space. Aboard the derelict ship, floating millions of miles from the nearest civilization, a single woman, Earth Force Agent Iaka Kazumi, survives in a sealed cryochamber. When Marcus wakes Iaka, he steps into a conspiracy that could take down the entire Earth government. Marcus, Solomon, and Iaka soon find themselves on the run from Earth Force agents who want them silenced, permanently.

Nevermore…Nevermore…Nevermore. Ever since Edgar Allen Poe penned those words to paper in 1845, the infamous response of the raven has continued to echo throughout history. The poem has become so familiar that we know it in our bones. From the memorable opening line—Once upon a midnight dreary—Poe paints a bleak scene that swiftly catapults us to the depths of heartbreak and grief.

Clive Menard is just an ordinary guy living an ordinary life. But when a talking spider crawls inside his head, things get a lot less ordinary…and people start dying. Could an itsy-bitsy arachnid be behind the killing spree terrorizing Clive’s community? To evade a sharp detective and find a murderer among friends, Clive must shake the cobwebs loose and piece together the puzzle of his life, all without falling prey to a dark force beyond his comprehension.

When three desperate teens meet Aaron, a failed practitioner of the dark arts, who offers them the best high they've ever smoked in exchange for kinky sex play, things only go from bad to worse. Aaron hopes to ensnare and re-birth the spirit of a late witch to capture her power from beyond the grave for his own.

The Jonathan Shade series continues with books 4-6: The Complete Time Travel Trilogy. Includes: Anubis Nights, Sunset Specters, and Wizard's Nocturne. From hunting a dead sorcerer in ancient Egypt to the roaring 20s where flappers dance to jazz and secret societies kill each other for magical dominance....

In the aftermath of the release of Dr. Hallie Hayes’ weapon aboard the Nidus, Justin Barclay and his fellow survivors are forced to flee for their lives, but they soon realize they can’t run forever. The weapon is multiplying like a sentient plague...and it will consume everything and everyone in its path. As Justin and Hallie form new alliances with old rivals, facing down monstrous foes and treacherous enemies, they work to destroy the weapon and escape the infected ship. But the plague has other intentions—and it will not be stopped.

Haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her family, Heather finds herself back in Hunther, Wisconsin, after 20 years running from it. She returns to finally put the past to rest but uncovers another tragedy and finds herself in the beguiling grip of a young woman who knows more of her family secrets than Heather does. To survive this homecoming, Heather must piece together a toxic history that she long tried to forget.

Tim's a streetwise detective, investigating the death of a homeless woman on his turf. Paired with grizzled veteran Gabe, they have to determine if the murder is a one-off, or if something more sinister is afoot. The trouble is, Tim doesn't always play by Gabe's rules. Nikki's past made her strong. Survival has been her goal since she was a girl, and it's the one thing the killer never counted on. She'll need to use everything she's learned if she doesn't want to become his next victim. Will the detectives overcome their differences and piece the grim puzzle together?

As old age creeps at the edges of his life, Papa Marco drudges one day into the next until a single shout rekindles memories of who and what he is. Hidden by his shaggy gray mane, a forgotten strength remembered becomes the kindling that will set the Frontier ablaze on a path to war. With each battlefield win, the leader Marco once was becomes the signal fire to rally scattered colonial forces in a push to reclaim their freedom. Rising out of the ashes of the Exodus Wars, their enemy will stop at nothing to silence their victory cries in the cold dark void.

At the edge of Frontier space, renegade Templar Orin Lashra has evaded capture by the Marshals and their premier fighting force, the Lancers. Darting across the colonies, Lasher and his friends wage a brutal war against the Seven Seats cartel for their part in the murder of the woman he called mother. Lasher’s relentless pursuit of vengeance soon draws the attention of the Gun Wraith, a mysterious mercenary intent on taking Orin for a client who considers his capture a no-fail mission.

Summer has just begun, and fear is in season. School’s out, and the faculty at Fairington Elementary School are free for the summer. Emily Young can’t deny her attraction to Aaron Jackson, the ed tech from her classroom, but she’s afraid of being hurt again. Meanwhile, Aaron is determined not to let his phobia of drowning prevent him from enjoying the sun and the sand of Maine’s best beach town. But they’re about to learn real fear. Fairington is home to a monster.

For most of his life, William Chance has been the living proof that his grandmother and her fellow missing-persons researchers were right all along about the terror from the stars. Now, he's avoiding the limelight and hiding out from everyone, including his family. He knows he can avoid everything, except for the nightmares: fires, storms, disease, and violence - he dreams of it all. When he's suddenly exposed, he finds that the media, government operatives, and renegade true believers are desperate to find him, but he has another mission.

When Vince Carter takes a shortcut to work, he notices a billboard that nearly sends him into an oncoming van. The ad is for Dream Woods, New England's answer to Disney World. It closed decades ago, but now that it's back in business, Vince is eager to take his whole family, hoping the magic he remembers will save his failing marriage.

It will take everything they've learned to stop the rise of evil. The last dragon's egg is discovered in the treasury of Veldwaite, launching Lorit and Chihon into a battle with the Temple Priests. They rescue a young Wizard and enlist his help in the fight to stop the Temple from harnessing the power of the last dragon. Now they're the masters, training him. They've come a long way since the farm. Fought many battles. But will it be enough to save the dragons from the clutches of the Temple in their last effort to ensnare the world in darkness?

Kim and Julian try to adjust to their new home, but reminders of the previous owners are many. For Kim, it's difficult not to fixate on the mysterious disappearance of the house's last tenants and she quickly grows obsessed with learning more about them. All the while, the house's quirks and flaws become more than just an annoyance. They're becoming frightening. The strange door in the basement, which had been wallpapered over so as to keep it hidden, has opened of its own accord.

At 26, Hope has only ever slept with one man, and at her boss's unsolicited advice, Hope plans to forget the abuse and degradation she suffered at her ex's hand by seducing and bedding the next man she meets. Only after Hope finds a promise of death at her doorstep, her plans are derailed, and her only chance at staying alive rests on the dedication of her new bodyguard and her own sheer will to live the life she deserves.

When Japanese nature show host Daisuke Matsumori finds himself on an alien world, he hopes to rekindle his passion for his work. Traveling through a newly discovered wormhole in the Papuan highlands, he joins biologist Anne Houlihan on Junction, a patchwork planet of competing alien ecosystems.

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.