Showing results by narrator "Michael Lesley" in All Categories

No, seriously. Talon wants to know what he did to deserve this. What would make a sentient rock decide that he of all people should be the one to save the world from zombies? That’s right. Zombies. Because apparently a higher power decided that teaching magic to teenagers wasn’t enough of a challenge.

Twenty years ago, monsters rose on earth and began a new age of civilization. One where humans live in military-controlled, cramped and dirty cities along the coasts, and the majority of the United States is known as the Wastes. A lawless, desolate and dangerous place, teeming with monsters that have claimed the land for their own. Including Wyn the Soul Eater. He appears every three years, making his way across the country and slaughtering humans randomly, sucking them dry until they’re nothing but husks.

Garrick Von Stein is the most frustrating person I’ve ever met, and yet, as soon as he calls me for help, I jump right in. Every single time. Why? I have no idea. I mean, I really do like to look at the dragon shifter king, but that doesn’t explain this strange pull, this need, I feel to be near him.

I’ve been in love before. It's a fact that I cling to with frighteningly intense desperation as I try to convince myself that I’m normal. Ok, so I’ve only been in love once, but I know that for at least one brief, shining moment, the world and everything in it felt like magic. I know love exists. I know it does, because when I’m lying in bed alone at night, I can still feel it. I know deep in my soul that I’m capable of love. I have to be.

Like the "Dark Continent" of Africa, the dark island of Madagascar holds many chilling secrets. One of them is a long-thought extinct species of dinosaurs living at the country's core. A massive earthquake rocks the mountain range within the Andringitra National Park. The splitting Earth reveals a network of tunnels, hidden away for millennia. Responding to the series of violent upheavals, a pack of hypersensitive predators flee their subterranean home; frenzied and hungry, they head for the surface.

Recently graduated at twenty-six, and two months behind on rent, Oliver Barnes is desperate. So desperate, in fact, that he applies for a job in the Greed district of Hell's Pentagram. But when he misses his train and, subsequently, his job interview, he stumbles, instead, upon a strange little coffee shop in the middle of Purgatory's barren desert—and into an unexpected opportunity. It isn't the job he came to Hell for, but maybe it's exactly the job he needs.

I was just a boy when the monsters rose on earth, forcing humans to flee to the coastlines and live in cramped, dirty, military-controlled cities. I enlisted as soon as I could to escape. Now, I’ve been in the military for twelve years and have the scars—and missing body parts—to prove it. As a hardened soldier who’s spent his fair share of time out in the Wastes—the dangerous place where monsters roam free—I didn’t think anything could surprise me anymore.

Once upon a time, the wizard’s apprentice, Sam of Wilds, got his happily ever after in the arms of his cornerstone, Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart. A year has passed, and while Sam’s been captured five or six more times since then, things are pretty great. Until they're not.... Because Vadoma, the leader of the gypsy clan and Sam’s grandmother, has come to the City of Lockes with a dire prophecy written in the stars.

As the rightful heir to the Maryno family dynasty, Toni grew up with clear expectations of who he was supposed to be, and more importantly, who he wasn't. Growing up a constant disappointment isn't a childhood experience he recommends, but he's come a long way from the little boy who could never measure up to his family's toxic standards. At twenty-nine, he's finally proud of the man he's built himself into, and while the routine of his life is simple and, sure, sometimes lonely, he's content. Or so he thought.

It's probably our fault your world is doomed if I'm honest. Sorry about that. Sticking with honesty, we're not great at saving people, or ourselves. You should probably pack a bag and head for the hills. You know, just in case... My name is Adam Vex, and I'm definitely not the hero we all need, but along with Zee and Victor, a whole bunch of s*x demons, one shadow beast, a sassy AI bartender, and some uncontrollable gremlins, we're all you've got. Welcome to the end of the world at the SOS Hotel.

I may not know where I come from, or who I am, but I’ve done my best to build a life for myself. I know a handful of people in town, I have a nice place to live, and I enjoy my job. I look just like everyone else. But I don’t feel like everyone else, because I feel…everything. The emotions of others get tangled with my own as they race through my heart and sink into my soul.

A year has passed since the Dark Wizard Myrin attempted to take control of the Kingdom of Verania. Though the scars of the final battle remain, Veranians have come together in unity in order to rebuild. Good King Anthony sits on the throne once more, with Morgan of Shadows at his side. However, a king is not immortal. One day, Anthony will step down, paving the way for his son, Grand Prince Justin, to assume the throne. And Justin wants anything but. Unfortunately for him, he finds himself with bigger things to worry about than just becoming the ruler of a country.

When I—along with my best friend and his big purple monster boyfriend—come across a fortress-like raider camp while journeying across the monster-infested Wastes, we stop to deliver a message. Somehow, that simple pit stop turns into a seemingly impossible quest to get this camp's missing leader out of the prison where he's being held and forced to fight monsters and other humans. I know exactly where it is because I've been there. Problem is, I'm making this journey with the prickliest and most arrogant guy I've ever met, who seems to hate me on sight. Oh, and he's also half-monster.

I’ve made some stupid decisions in my life, and one in particular keeps coming back to haunt me. When I keep running into a handsome stranger, I know I should push him away, if only to keep him safe from my mess, keep him safe from me. But something inside of me—my heart, my magic, or my soul—keeps pushing me toward him, offering to make all my secret dreams come true. And I don’t know how to stay away.

Do you believe in love at first sight? Paul Auster doesn't. Paul doesn't believe in much at all. He's thirty, slightly overweight, and his best features are his acerbic wit and the color commentary he provides as life passes him by. His closest friends are a two-legged dog named Wheels and a quasibipolar drag queen named Helena Handbasket. He works a dead-end job in a soul-sucking cubicle, and if his grandmother's homophobic parrot insults him one more time, Paul is going to wring its stupid neck.

Despite growing up in a family of villains, I’d rather curl up and read than commit crimes. When I get coerced by my brother into helping him rob a bank, I run into August, my childhood crush, also known as Chrono, the city’s greatest superhero. He’s sexy, sweet, and suddenly, he’s asking me to Thanksgiving with his parents.

Josiah Erickson wants to be a movie star. The problem with that is so does half of Los Angeles. But he's on his way, what with memorable roles as a TV show background cadaver and a guy in a commercial for herpes medication. All he needs is his big break. And that break may come in the form of a novelist who goes by the enigmatic name of Q-Bert.

Do you believe in love at first sight? Sanford Stewart sure doesn't. In fact, he pretty much believes in the exact opposite, thanks to the Homo Jock King. It seems Darren Mayne lives for nothing more than to create chaos in Sandy's perfectly ordered life, just for the hell of it. Sandy despises him, and nothing will ever change his mind. Or so he tells himself.

I've already mentally prepared myself to kill the screaming, murderous monster in the cage outside our camp. I'm used to it. It's what I do here. Kill monsters and other people. This monster, Seraph, is particularly unstable—has been since the moment he arrived from Collector Mary's monster menagerie to the west, where the military stashed him away. He's in pain. I can see it. But he's not a mindless beast. Not like some of the others think. When I start guarding him in his cage every night, I begin to see the person beneath the agony that tortures his every waking moment.

When a strange woman shows up outside our camp in the Wastes with monsters chained up to her RV, it feels like I’m the only one who actually wants to help them. That big, grey-skinned monster with the cage on his head and the chain hanging from his back—something is telling me I need to help him. I need to free him. But I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to do that, especially when he can’t even talk to me to tell me how. Collector Mary is finally leaving our camp to head back to her monster menagerie, so I do the only thing I can think of to help him: I go with her.