Showing results by narrator "Michael Norman Johnson" in All Categories

The Crucible of War -- A floating asteroid the size of a small planet carving its way through the universe. Eight Cities, a million participants, death, blood, carnage, control. The Crucible is televised across the cosmos and provides entertainment for the The Great Galactic Empire and its Citizens. Every once in a while though it needs it's Contestants replenished. This time around Earth has been chosen. 50,000 humans are to be given the honor. One of those is 52 year old retired Army Master Sergeant, Jebediah 'Jeb' Stone.

It's scary how much life can change in an instant. One minute I'm preparing for a new school year in my San Diego town, and the next I'm being ripped from my childhood home. Making the cut from my father's death two years ago that much deeper. Not only am I being forced to leave a place that reminds me so much of him, but I'm being forced to move hundreds of miles across the country to a city I've only learned about through Mom and social media.

This award-winning series from LJ Evans should come with a warning label: Do not listen unless you are prepared to invest your heart and soul. It's about finding yourself and your path on this wild ride called life while overcoming loss, heartbreaks, and illness. It's about family and hope and love. Each book can be listened to as a stand-alone novel but comes with spoilers for the first book in the series.

Darkness always works overtime. It thrives in the depravity of grown men. Hardening hearts and leaving them empty. It destroys everything and everyone it touches. Now it's coming for our innocent beacon of light. Stronger than she knows, but still so fragile. In the fight of her life, all I can do is watch. There's no outlaw justice for what she's facing. No protection from the cold realities of life and death. But there's also no limit to what I would do for her.

"Who did this to you?" my enemy growls. You would think the most wanted criminal kingpin in the country would be too busy racking up bodies to care about the bruise on my cheek, but nope. Here he is, holding my chin, while I pretend his touch isn’t electric. I need to hate him. Scratch that, I will hate him again. The guy decimated my family, and I've been hunting him ever since, determined to make him pay. That one night we accidentally spent together before we discovered we were sworn enemies was great.

I don’t do commitment. And though I swing both ways, I don’t do men either. It’s too messy, too stressful, and just asking for trouble. I’d rather shine bright like the sun than drown in the rain, so I adopt a pounce-and-bounce lifestyle for which my sparkling charm keeps me from being hated. When I show up in Sweden for a semester abroad, I expect a roomie. What I don’t expect is Lars. The storm to my sun.

They've made it through the Iron Dungeon but not without a heavy cost, mentally and spiritually, for Jeb. His madness once again flared up, instigated by the revelation some of his soldiers have been pulled into the Crucible of War, and yet, they still have no clue where humanity will land, in which deranged City they will be shoved into, and if it is not Blood City, how they will get to them?

Most people think I’m a moron. In actuality, I’m a man with a plan. It’s one of those three-year plans that takes longer than three years. Still, I’ve been making it happen. Checking off those to-dos and turning them into to-dones. Everything is almost lined up. And then my phone rings. By the time I get to Jess, she’s unconscious and bleeding. My carefully crafted plan blows up in my face. I tell the hospital we’re engaged. We aren’t, but apparently, in that place, you need a permission slip to see your most important, so I do what has to be done.

Working for America’s hottest rock band should be a dream come true for Phoebe Halstead. And it would be, if it wasn’t for lead singer Levi Hunter. Tortured... Brooding... Broken. He’s everything she should stay away from. Unfortunately for Phoebe, she’s exactly the kind of girl Levi needs. The light to his dark. The calm to his storm. He wants to be worthy of her; she knows he’ll never change. Everyone knows the greatest love stories end one of two ways...with a happily-ever-after or in heartache and ruin.

Fool's Play is the first book in a new series in the System Apocalypse universe. Written by David R. Packer in Tao Wong's bestselling post-apocalyptic LitRPG universe, System Apocalypse: Kismet follows a different path through a post-apocalyptic world, one of hope, redemption, and second chances.

For Fool and Jackal, the System Apocalypse was a chance to start again. A chance to rise, and be who they were meant to be. Now, they're trying to offer others the same opportunities as part of a secret organization helping humanity survive the System. Today's mission? Nothing big, just your typical save-the-princess quest. But when you're the Acolyte of a Trickster god, typical is the last thing you should expect. Just ask Fool's cat.

I might be a rookie Chicago firefighter, but I’m on top of the world. I’ve just earned my spot on Rescue Squad at legendary Engine 6, can get all the action I want both in and out of the bedroom, and am possessed of an enviable sneaker collection. Nothing can harsh my vibe except her—Cassandra Ferguson, my brother’s sister-in-law, or as I affectionately label her: the blister-in-law. Ever since I met her, she’s looked down her perky little nose at me, never mind that I’m a good foot taller.

With more than 10 stories from exciting new voices and a few veterans of the universe, the second anthology highlights the lives and struggles of humanity's best and worst years after system advent.

Dorian Gray’s painting was never in the vault of the library. We currently have no idea where it is and the only person who can track it is probably being held hostage in a storage yard with all kinds of cursed objects. Balthazar’s dick is still cursed and there’s no easy way to remove it. I already made it worse once. I hope it doesn’t fall off this time. I was totally against marrying Reyson when he woke up and announced I would be his new wife, but my resolve on that is starting to weaken. I’m starting to care for the damned god.

From Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling Author M. Robinson comes a coming of age, enemies to lovers, contemporary romance filled with angst and all the feels.

The angels came two hundred years ago with a mission to wipe out everything the pagan gods created. The humans came together to form the Coalition to hunt us for them. We disappear and end up in various places to be experimented on. I ended up in New Eden Asylum. The nuns and priests keep me in a padded room in the basement with all the deadlier supernaturals. They don't experiment on me and try to cure me like the others because I'm too dangerous to be in the same room with. I don't know how long I've been here, but I haven't seen or spoken to anyone in a very long time.

He's a blood stained monster, but one look at her and he knows she will be his. Gaven Belmonte is a cold-hearted killer. A hitman. Now, he's my jailer. Even though he's twice my age, I'm being forced into an arranged marriage to secure Gaven's position as the next head of the Price Family Syndicate.

I'm a vampire hunter, a legacy meant only to care about killing monsters. But all I've ever cared about is Sebastian. I'm enamored... obsessed. Stalking him and manipulating fate to keep us together. We were assigned to Visamar Academy, where a group of powerful vampires gorge on the rich. I failed him as a partner and he paid the ultimate pricethe worst thing that can happen to a hunter.

When 18-year-old Eva Walker enters the local talent showdown, she hopes it’ll will rekindle her love of music. She doesn’t expect it to ignite a fire in her heart. Rafe Hunter is everything Eva should stay away from. Tattooed, brooding, and mysterious. Not to mention the fact he’s the bassist for one of the world’s hottest rock bands. Their weekend of lust, laughter, and music changes everything.

My pack thinks I'm stoic. In truth, I'm a murderer who has never shaken off the scars of my first kill when I was a child. Once my life was forfeit, now it belongs to my King. And when the Panther King orders me to retrieve his mate from the chaos happening on Earth, I do it without asking questions. That is until my first whiff of the woman who my panther believes is his fated mate. She will undoubtedly be my queen. But does my loyalty rest with the crown the king, my best friend, wears?