Showing results by narrator "Vanessa Hart" in All Categories

This collection of unabridged, spectacular steampunk speculations includes several classics of the genre. These tales will sweep you away with their amazing automata, daring dirigibles, grinding gears, and scintillating steam as days gone by are infused with tech. In "Smoke City," by Christopher Barzak, a woman comes to terms with the loss of her family to the child labor mills of the city. A doctor tries to cope with a strange plague terrorizing the citizens of London in Jeffrey Ford's "Dr. Lash Remembers."

Set on a distant planet, this is a gripping tale about a colony that believes in "appropriate technology adoption". When a heavily armed clan arrives at the colony, while it's being visited by off-world anthropologists, events spiral out of control, and the colony's beliefs are put to the test. The story is told from the viewpoint of a young woman - who soon learns just how high the price of wisdom can be.

When an old friend buys a trench coat and opens his own detective agency, PI Cat DeLuca sees a train wreck coming. Everything Billy Bonham knows about being a private eye he learned from Humphrey Bogart. And that’s just enough to make him dangerous. The bungling detective is in way over his head on a case involving murder and a stolen pair of Marilyn Monroe’s dazzling diamond earrings. His outrageous client, Cristina McTigue, is pursued by men who want her dead. Five minutes after meeting the woman, Cat would cheerfully kill her too.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post San Francisco Chronicle In True Believers, Kurt Andersen—the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Heyday and Turn of the Century—delivers his most powerful and moving novel yet. Dazzling in its wit...

What does a woman do when she discovers her husband is an incurable cheater? If she’s Cat DeLuca, she launches the Pants on Fire Detective Agency. Now Cat does what two years of unholy matrimony taught her to do: she catches cheaters. When a client, Cleo Jones, shoots her cheating husband’s bum full of buckshot, he disappears, taking her money, dog, and sister with him. Private Investigator Cat DeLuca promises to retrieve the dog and money if her client stops shooting at Walter.

Here is an unabridged audio collection of the "best of the best" science fiction short stories published in 2009 by current and emerging masters of the genre, as narrated by top voice talents. In "Erosion",l by Ian Creasey, a man tests the limits of his exo-suit prior to leaving a dying earth. In "As Women Fight", by Sara Genge, a hunter has no time to train for a fight to inhabit his wife's body in a society of body-switchers....

When Blaine Kendricks discovers strangers in Shadow Hollers, she thinks they've come to trade. She couldn't be more wrong. When Dacey Childers comes to Shadow Hollers, Blaine's family thinks he's there to hunt game. They couldn't be more wrong. When the Annekteh come to Shadow Hollers, they think the isolated community living there has no way to resist their invasion.

When Cara Marshall is transported to Narenta, she is proclaimed champion of its people against the sorcerous daemagos. Amid the grateful welcomes, Cara protests that she has been "world-napped", and wants neither her title nor her mission. "They've got the wrong person and they're going to get me killed because they won't admit it." With no knowledge of weapons or magic, can she save the Narentans and find her way home?

A superb collection of short science-fiction tales by this genre's contemporary, and emerging, masters. Alien communications are deciphered as Earth is destroyed in "Last Contact" by Stephen Baxter. A girl auto-asphyxiates to communicate with another world in Elizabeth Bear's "The Something Dreaming Game". And more....

Stories navigating the commplicated terrain of race in America, from acclaimed writers like Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, Sandra Cisneros, Sherman Alexie, and Amy Tan The editors who brought us Unsettling America and Identity Lessons have compiled a short-story anthology that focuses on themes...

One of F. Scott Fitzgerald's earliest short stories, "The Ice Palace" is about Sally Carrol Happer, a young Southern woman who is bored with her conventional life. She's engaged to Harry Bellamy, a young man from the North. Despite concern from her family and friends, Sally travels to Harry's hometown to meet his family. Hoping for an exciting adventure, she instead finds herself in a cold, unfamiliar place. There, in the dead of winter, she begins to question everything.

USA Today best-selling author Susan Krinard continues the saga of Touch of the Wolf and Once a Wolf in this dark, compelling new novel of a tortured man with werewolf blood - and the beautiful hypnotist who vows to heal his wounded soul.

When Camolen's Council of Wizards is cut down by twisted magic, the only witness is a palomino stallion named Ramble. Convinced the twisted magic threatens Camolen, Carey, Anfeald's Head Courier, plans to question Ramble using the now-forbidden spell that can change the horse into a human - the same spell that turned Dun Lady's Jess from horse to human and took her to another world: the American Midwest.

When his sovereign - and best friend - was killed, Ehren, first of the King's Guard, had been sent far away on a wild goose chase by the First Level Ministry. When a First Level wizard orders him to find and neutralize the dead king's next of kin, Ehren is determined to find them - and guard them with his life!

More than ever, Americans are realizing that if we want to keep this country great, we must be citizen-patriots. And here’s the handbook every citizen-patriot needs: The Essential American, featuring the fundamental documents of our nation’s history.

This collection of unabridged readings chronicles the lives of people striving to survive as aliens rule Earth. In James Van Pelt's "How Music Begins", a junior-high school band director struggles to keep the band members' spirits up after they've been shanghaied, by unknown and unseen aliens, and confined to a dormitory and practice auditorium.

The Trustworthy Leader reveals the benefits organizations enjoy when trustworthy behavior is practiced consistently by their leaders. Drawing from examples from the best companies to work for, Lyman, cofounder of Great Place to Work Institute, explains that being trustworthy means that leaders' behaviors are rooted in their commitment to the value of trust and not simply in an imitation of the practices of others.

As Darwin famously observed, the beaks of each generation of Galapagos Island finches change to accommodate shifting food resources, allowing the birds to survive by adapting their capabilities to the new environment. Today's business people should take note: In the post-crisis economy, traditional career strategies spell professional extinction, but the fluid new "gig economy" offers tremendous potential for anyone willing to adapt.

Too often discussions of management practice focus exclusively on managing people and organizational issues. Rarely, however, do they incorporate a discussion about technology or address all three dimensions in a balanced way. When they do, the result is game changing. In our hypercompetitive environment, those managers who are outstanding at being plugged into their people, technology, and organizational processes simultaneously excel at coming up with effective business solutions. 

People wanting basic advice about stocks, bonds, mutual funds, retirement planning, and tax strategies are often frustrated by information overload. Picking the right book seems as daunting as deciding what to do with their savings and investments. Investing 101: Updated and Expanded removes both roadblocks, putting people on a path that they can understand and stick with. Kristof is renowned for taking the mystery and anxiety out of investing by keeping choices manageable