Showing results by narrator "Chris Andrew Ciulla" in All Categories

Magically quiet yet deeply satisfying, Macken in Love follows two middle-aged lovers who must navigate personal histories in search of the one thing that has evaded them both. Lonesome but loveable, 50-year-old Kevin Macken devotes his days to the Irish bakery he inherited from his parents. Once Juilliard-bound, Jill Novak has never recovered from the tragedy that derailed her promising career more than two decades ago. For two people who have all but given up on love, finding each other feels too good to be true.

After Jake quits the drug business, his realtor/ex-wife, Nina, gets him a job as a housesitter for her wealthy clients. Jake celebrates by throwing a party in the mansion he was hired to look after. Unfortunately, the guest list gets out of hand, leaving Jake to contend with a hallucinogenic-vitamin-dispensing yogi, a dead guy in the bathroom, and the Norwegian - a criminal force of nature with a grudge against Jake.

When David's wife dies at the hands of a corrupt medical system, David is out for justice. With his skills as a lawyer and position inside the biggest health insurance company in America - American True Care - he plans to bring down the system, from the inside. David begins to work his way up the company while recruiting a clandestine team to build a covert case against American True Care. But this is a dangerous game and the players have ties to the highest levels of government. Propped up by lobbyists, senators, and even the White House, American True Care will do whatever it takes

WARNING: Highly prone to spontaneous fits of delirium, irrational logic, and violent, unpredictable mood swings. This individual has been sober, swollen, and hungry for the past nine months, so proceed with caution and handle with care. Anything said during the course of labor and delivery should not be taken seriously. Side effects may last up to 18 years. Please consult your physician should castration occur. And never forget, this is all your fault.

Many of the men and women doing today's most consequential environmental work - restoring America's grasslands, wildlife, soil, rivers, wetlands, and oceans - would not call themselves environmentalists; they would be too uneasy with the connotations of that word. What drives them is their deep love of the land - the iconic terrain where explorers and cowboys, pioneers, and riverboat captains forged the American identity. They feel a moral responsibility to preserve this heritage and natural wealth.

Back on the job as a cold case detective, Sutton has the chance to delve deeper into the only case of his career he's been unable to solve. As boundaries blur and the difference between truth and lies becomes indistinguishable, Detective Sutton finds himself in a race against a ticking clock. Only one thing is certain: if Sutton doesn't stop him, the monster will keep on killing, and another innocent woman will be lost forever to his darkness. But Sutton is not about to let evil win this time.

Everyone wonders what it's really like in space, but very few of us have ever had the chance to experience it firsthand. This captivating collection brings together stories from dozens of international astronauts - men and women who've actually been there - who have returned with accounts of the sometimes weird, often funny, and awe-inspiring sensations and realities of being in space.

The heart of Friday Night Lights meets the emotional resonance and nostalgia of My So-Called Life in this moving debut novel about tradition, family, love, and football. As the high school football coach in his small, rural Maryland town, Dean is a hero who reorganized the athletic program and...

A perfect storm materializes when Patrick Bouchard, an underwater welder working in the shipyards of San Pedro, California, loses his only child, Gabriel, to cancer. Driven by grief and rage, he sets out on a quest to make those he feels responsible pay, specifically, Standard Pharmaceutical, the megacorporation owning the HMO that denied radical treatment to his stage-four terminal son. That wasn't right, and someone had to be held accountable.

When a local man intentionally drowns himself, a murder that has been submerged for 20 years surfaces, capturing screenwriter Ray Boon's imagination. Ray is compelled by the little voice in his head to find the reason for the apparent suicide. His search begins with a day-old newspaper story about a skeleton found in a Gloucester, Massachusetts, quarry and ends with the identification of the victim of a 20-year-old murder and, possibly, her killer.

Long ago, the first reign of Grigori Geist nearly destroyed the Earth. Returned from exile, Geist is secretly rebuilding his kingdom beneath Antarctica, assembling his robotic Vaucan race to war against mankind. Only one obstacle remains: the war hero known as Brian Renney. Yet Brian is losing a battle against his fears. Scars of heart and mind linger from his days in Vietnam, fueling his failures as husband and father.

Told against the backdrop of the American landscape of the late '80s to the mid-'90s, Growing Up Dead is the story of Peter Conners's journey from straight-laced suburban kid to touring Deadhead. Peter discovered the Grateful Dead in 1985, at the age of 15, through friends who exchanged bootleg tapes of live Grateful Dead concerts. A teenager living in the suburbs of Rochester, New York, he became exposed to an entirely new way of life, and friends who were enjoying more freedom and less parental guidance.

A newly minted graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1890, Dr. Thomas Parks heads to the big timber country of Puget Sound to practice trauma medicine. An hour after stepping off the boat, he's nearly crushed to death by a less-than-sure-footed mule and finds himself a patient rather than a physician. As he convalesces, he discovers that his host, a venerable physician friend of his father's, is running an elaborate medical scam, selling worthless concoctions nationwide, with enormous sales.

Ex-Dallas Cowboy Rick Bannion has been through the revolving prison door for drug trafficking and now hunts bail-jumpers. His old friend Jack Brendy has just been busted by the Feds for smuggling cocaine, and when Brendy's wife approaches him seeking a favor, Rick jumps at the chance to help. The favor? - keep the government's sleazy informer off the stand. Unfortunately, when things go wrong, Rick finds himself in the crosshairs of the Feds.

Even in a drunken stupor it is hard for airline captain Cape Thomas to ignore his recurring vision of a beautiful woman and the swaddled baby she holds. On a rare, sober day he begins a casual search through college yearbooks and yellowed courthouse records in hopes of finding the one who got away. Instead, an unrecorded codicil suggests their one union was fruitful and reveals a possible heir to an old-moneyed family - a family used to scams and scammers making claims against the estate.

When former Navy pilot Maarkean Ocaitchi learns his sister faces execution for treason, he must choose: remain loyal to the Alliance he once served, or save the only family he has left. Partnering with criminals and revolutionaries, he orchestrates a daring prison break that ignites rebellion across the galaxy. As colonial worlds unite against oppression, Maarkean transforms from reluctant smuggler to revolutionary leader. In a democracy that exists only in name, sometimes the greatest patriots must become outlaws.

Shunned by his community...locked up for trying to help an innocent girl...ambushed by rivals and left for dead in the Detroit River, Joe Bernstein has a few scores to settle, and a bold plan to seize control of the Motor City in its booming 1920s heyday. With his faithful "agent", Abie; his brilliant but fragile brother, Max; and an out-of-control enforcer named Grabowski (not to mention a couple of carnivorous creatures known as "the babies"), Bernstein gives rise to the infamous Purple Gang....

After robbing some banks, Torn Slater knows he should lay low. But when a beautiful widow asks for his help, he can't say no. Her reckless son has gone looking for trouble in Mexico - and found it in a woman called La Señorita. This power-mad femme fatale combines the torture methods of the Spanish Inquisition with the heart-ripping rituals of the Aztecs to get whatever she wants. And she wants the widow's son. Slater would be lying if he said taking down La Señorita would be easy. But dead men don't lie....

In this novel, award-winning author Dale Peck recounts the childhood of his father, Dale Peck Sr. Raised in poverty with seven brothers and sisters in suburban Long Island, terrorized by an abusive mother, Dale Sr.’s life changes when his alcoholic father dumps him at his uncle’s dairy farm in upstate New York. There, he begins to thrive, finding real love and connection with his Uncle Wallace and Aunt Bess. But ultimately, he is unable to outrun the chaos and violence of his old life.

Decades of groundwork. Countless civilians abducted, experimented on, and killed. The perfect plan has taken shape, and soon, the entire sector will be under the control of the shadowy Committee. That was the plan, anyway. But some human has decided to blow the whole thing up. What do you do when one of those pathetic little newcomers tries to ruin your plans? Make him pay. On the other hand, maybe you should have found out more about this "Barnabas" guy before trying that. But it can't possibly go too far wrong, can it? Soon you'll have an entire fleet under your control.