Showing results by narrator "Shawn Compton" in All Categories

North Carolina represents a perfect distillation of the promise and peril of modern American democracy: hyperpartisanship, gerrymandering, dissatisfaction with the two-party system, the urban-rural divide—these issues are all brought into sharp relief in the Tar Heel State. For that reason, North Carolina politics and government are increasingly of interest not just to North Carolina citizens but to journalists, political observers, and people across the country. 

The Overdrive Corporation has announced another Selection, the exclusive tryout process for aspiring Fortress Masters. Designing maps for the Mech-battling virtual-reality RPG is Julian's dream come true, but a brutal defeat against superstar sniper called Dynamic has destroyed his confidence. Hoping to find a stronger machine, Julian enters an immensely challenging map that promises ultra-rare Mech frames. During the ill-fated mission, he finally learns what it takes to get better. It's not the strength of the machine that matters most, it's the skill of the pilot.

It is not difficult for the observant Christian to recognize a church in decline. In every small town, suburb, or city, there is often a church on the brink of shutting their doors, or at the very least recognizing the stagnancy of a church’s growth. Matt Capps and Steven Wade know this not only from observation, but from experience in their own revitalized churches. In Shepherding Renewal, these pastors address the hardship of serving a church in decline, and even more so address the need to breathe new life into the dying church.

Paul D'Anieri explores the dynamics within Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia and the West, that emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually led to war in 2014. Proceeding chronologically, this book shows how Ukraine's separation from Russia in 1991, at the time called a "civilized divorce", led to what many are now calling "a new Cold War".

In The Golden Girl and All, Hardman is hired to find Peggy Holt, a drug dealer, stripper, and serial seductress who has kidnapped her six-year-old daughter from her ex-husband. Peggy has disappeared into an Atlanta underworld populated by the dirty cops, crooked lawyers, and violent mobsters that she's bedded and betrayed...and who keep coming back for more.

Life's gotten better for hard-edged security guard Sean Coleman. With personal affairs in order and relationships rekindled, he travels to Las Vegas to help celebrate his buddy's last days as a bachelor. Soon after he arrives, however, a twist of fate spawns a reunion with an old flame. Curiosity and a desire to make amends unexpectedly lead Sean down a dark path into the Vegas underground, where another face from the past emerges---a federal fugitive whose family, years earlier, altered the course of Sean's life.

During an interrogation in Afghanistan, when asked how long the jihadists intended to fight, a Taliban commander uttered the words, "If it takes a thousand years." This chilling statement illustrates both how terrorists of this level operate and the generational approach they take when it comes to bringing destruction to the world.

Navy SEALs lead on the ground. Fighter pilots lead in the air. Together, they can lead anyone, anywhere. Joint Force Leadership brings together Jim "Boots" Demarest and Mark McGinnis' combined 50 years of military and business experience and presents battlefield- and boardroom-tested tools and skills that will resonate with business people, travelers, and military enthusiasts alike. In military parlance, a "Joint Force" is the combination of forces from different service branches into a single unit. Each comes with its own culture, identity, and vocabulary.

One cycle has passed since the Siege of Clarion, and all of Rhea is supposedly at peace. But the alarming events that sparked the siege have not been forgotten—nor forgiven—and the inhabitants of the Great Houses face a host of challenges. To overcome such tribulations, each must confront old fears, enemies, and dilemmas. But with scylla attacks getting worse, and the Pax already starting to break down, do they have the strength to endure? Or will they stumble, plunging their Houses—and Rhea itself—into chaos once more?

1960: Against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War, three pairs of fathers and sons must put their honor and bravery to the ultimate test.

The story of America's astounding industrial mobilization during World War II has been told. But what has never been chronicled before Paul Dickson's The Rise of the G. I. Army, 1940-1941 is the extraordinary transformation of America's military from a disparate collection of camps with dilapidated equipment into a well-trained and spirited army 10 times its prior size in little more than 18 months.

In 2065, corporate sponsored governments jockey for supremacy in the biotechnical arena. Bullets and missiles take a back seat to cyber-enhanced soldiers and pulse weapons. In this extreme environment, only the most hardened body and mind can survive. Calder McKenna was a failed experiment in the military's push for power. Now a special agent for the metro task force, he lives day by day trying to forget the ones that were lost, the ones that he could have saved.

A tribute to the glorious slasher movies of the 1980s.

When I returned home from my latest deployment in the U.S. Army, my life began to fall apart. One night, after heavy drinking, I placed my 1911 pistol in my mouth and thought a prayer—silence. I deactivated the safety and began to slowly squeeze the trigger. BANG! I dropped the pistol, and I looked around me, but there was no blood. The bang I heard was the Bible on my desk falling and hitting the floor. I fell to my knees and asked God for forgiveness. I surrendered to Jesus Christ and asked him to help me. He answered.

The 1830 murder of wealthy slaver Joseph White shook all of Salem, Massachusetts. Soon the crime drew national attention when it was discovered that two of the conspirators came from Salem's influential Crowninshield family: a clan of millionaire shipowners, cabinet secretaries, and congressmen.

In a near-future New York City, where self-driving cars roam the city streets, rival entrepreneurs Brandon and Tyler compete to produce the smartest AIs, training them in a virtual game world. As the two rivals struggle to dominate the market, their personal enmity pushes them to attack each other's reputations, hack each other's cars, and develop ever more sophisticated algorithms to keep their customers safe. The result? Intelligent computers that excel at using all available data to determine which humans should live, and which should die.

They took away his sight, his hearing, his feeling, and his body. But he got to keep his brain—a fully operational CPU with a nerfed IO. Daler Tait is the youngest of three sons of a mining mogul on a desert planet in the far reaches of the galaxy. He has big ambitions and little patience, but to please his parents, he plans to apply to the Academy of Virtuous Knowledge.

Aaron Platt has spent every day of his life breaking his back to scrape a living from the rocky, played-out fields of the Adirondack farm he inherited from his sadistic father. One winter morning, he follows footprints in the snow to his barn and discovers a man freezing to death in a horse stall. What unfolds between the two men, past and present, is a brisk, gritty depiction of crime and punishment. But their harrowing story is more than that, exposing the shocking hypocrisy of the people who live in the nearby bucolic town.

Six months after the murder of his uncle, Sean is trying to get his life together. He's stopped drinking, he's taking better care of himself, and he's working hard to keep a fledgling security business afloat. At a blood plasma bank Sean frequents to earn extra income, he meets the distraught relative of Andrew Carson, a man who went missing weeks earlier on the other side of the state, with a pool of blood in the snowy driveway of his home as the only clue to the man's fate.

In this brutal, fast-moving thriller from Ralph Dennis, the author of the legendary Hardman series of crime novels, Kane finds himself caught between the mob, Cuban revolutionaries, and his own government as he seeks retribution for a man murdered for uncovering small-town corruption...and justice for another man on death row, falsely convicted of raping and murdering a child.