Showing results by narrator "Thomas Stephen Jr." in All Categories

Conducted under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, intended to stem the flow of firearms to Mexico, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) ran a series of “gun walking” sting operations, including Operations Wide Receiver and Operation Fast & Furious. The government allowed licensed gun dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers so that they could continue to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels.

It began soon after the Millennium. Reports of newborns with strange malformations, too weak to live…caused by a single genetic mutation. Or, as the press quickly dubbed it, the Dragon Virus. Scientists predicted that it was an evolutionary dead end; that the mutation would burn itself out quickly; that it was nothing to be worried about. They were wrong. Every racial type. Almost every continent. No known cause. Human-created, maybe. Or just God, throwing the dice. Infecting us, warping us. Tied into our genetic code, from here on in. No known treatment. No idea where even to begin. Everything was about to change.

Peree knows what he’s doing as the new Keeper of the Water Bearer, Fennel. He knows Fennel’s Sightless. He knows that means the Scourge can’t hurt her when she gathers fresh water for her people. He knows how to wield his bow and arrow to kill piles of the revolting flesh-eaters as they swarm around her. He’ll motivate her, distract her, do anything he can to keep her working. And most important, he'll make sure his people get every drop of their share of the water she collects.

A truly astonishing and original work of fiction, Wrinkles is the story of a life lived 44 times, from childhood to adulthood to old age. It is a story of one man, a writer, who is born, who grows, who loves, who stops loving; who eats, sleeps, smokes, lies, boozes, cheats, regrets, has sex, has dreams, and lives. In short yet intimately detailed chapters, each covering a single aspect of his life from youth through old age, we get to know this person fully through the small yet telling incidents that make him who he is.

In the aftermath of battle, the people of Southfld must cope with devastating losses, including their governor...and seven of his successors. The Battle of Skyruach is over. Jharan, a captain of the Southfld Guard, grieves for his friend Maronin as he gathers the remnants of their two companies into one. Encamped on the battlefield, the lven army prepares to mourn the loss of Southfld's governor, even as two of the governor's subordinates come seeking Jharan with news that will change his life.

Fleeing the savages who destroyed his home, an lven bladesmith must forge a new weapon to destroy the enemies standing between him and freedom.Wounded and grieving the death of his love, Ghalran helps another survivor escape the raiders who destroyed their village. Enemies pursue them into the heart of the mountains, trapping them in a cavern warmed by fire slumbering deep in the earth. Ghalran senses he could make a new weapon here—one that will devastate his enemies—if he has the courage and the magical strength to tame the mountain's fiery heart.

Vineart Bradhai wanted only to tend his vines, craft his magic, and be left alone. Instead, the need of desperate sailors faced with unstoppable monsters took him from his vineyards, onto the wild seas... and into history. A novella set in the world of The Vineart War trilogy.

The sequel to The Revealers, this realistic young adult novel deals with a timely and urgent issue for adolescents and their schools - cyberbullying. The suspenseful and engaging story is the first to deal with the full-range of behaviors that fall under the umbrella of cyberbullying, using an expanded cast of characters to portray the rumor-spreading politics of an entire middle school.

Dave Meggyesy had been an outside linebacker with the St. Louis Cardinals for seven years when he quit at the height of his career to tell about the dehumanizing side of the game - about the fraud and the payoffs, the racism, drug abuse, and incredible violence. The original publication of Out of Their League shocked readers and provoked the outraged response that rocked the sports world in the 1970s.

Jon Grebbel arrives on the colony world of Janus, and finds himself without memory of his life on Earth. He meets Elinda, an earlier arrival, whose lover, Barbara, vanished and then was found lying in the woods, apparently brain-damaged. Elinda has also lost her memories of Earth. Investigating Barbara's fate and their own, the two find their love and their search for justice turning toward bitter self-discovery and revenge, even as they begin to uncover the darkness at the heart of their world.