Showing results by narrator "Jonathan Water" in All Categories

“Gladiator or toy?” Kaspar asks, as if it’s the easiest choice in the world. It might be an easy answer for someone branded, brainwashed, and who remembers no other life. But that’s not me - not yet, anyway. I’m a cop - or at least I was until my cover got blown. Now, I’m a captive on a ship; one of the trafficked people I vowed to save. Kaspar’s a toy - a pleasure slave - content to warm our sadistic owner’s bed; he laps up the abuse he’s conditioned to associate with affection. To gain our freedom, I must be everything his fractured mind needs.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man brings listeners along on a journey through a man’s life, from his childhood through adulthood. The protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, begins life with fear and confusion of the world, but as he grows older and becomes more educated and world wise. The novel follows him through his days at a Jesuit college with a strict administration, through his family’s difficult economic times, his return to religion and faith as an adult, and his eventual mistrust in established societal institutions.

When the Dragon King commands Crux find a proper mate, his days of carefree bachelorhood are over. One trip to a psychic matchmaker and he's on the path to his destiny. But it all comes screeching to a halt when he meets a human woman who lights his inner fire and makes him yearn.

In the aftermath of a cataclysmic nuclear winter, Eryn, a boy with special abilities, wanders across the ice, where he discovers the last vestige of human civilization in Antarctica. The abduction of the first extracorporeal birthed twins born into this all-male society leads to a fast-paced rescue mission that uncovers millennia-old secrets and the true origin of humans. Mika and Connor can’t understand their boys’ infatuation with Eryn. Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome, but one thing’s for sure, Eryn’s double-dipping.

The Metamorphosis is one of the most commonly referenced books when you talk about absurd literature. It is heralded as a masterpiece of the existential literature genre because of how it demands the reader to accept the absurdity of the world just as it is. Although some of the events of the story are fantastical in nature, the ideas it conveys about existence, the meaning of life, and humanity are relatable to us in the real world, too.

Destiny, or perhaps mere chance, has chosen Shanis Malan to be the bearer of the Silver Serpent, the one prophesied to bring an end to decades of clan war, but a pretender has risen in the East, and enemies invade her homeland on all sides. Will she choose the path that leads back to the home she loves, or will she accept her destiny and face the Keeper of the Mists? David Debord's memorable series continues in this second book of The Absent Gods series.

Amory Blaine is an intelligent young man from Minnesota who believes that his life will be full of promise. A poet and lover at heart, his life is derailed with his deployment as a soldier in World War I. When he returns, he begins a career in advertising but is disenchanted with the work, feelings that it does not let his creativity run free the way it should. The novel follows Amory’s life and series of failed romances as he contends with living in the aftermath of a global war.

Torn from my life, I’m in a world I don’t understand. There are no masters, no kneeling, and no loving punishments to keep me grounded. Despite the smiles and care Jiao provides, I’m not his priority. I believe his concern is genuine, but his interest is professional. Casting my world into history is his aim, and for that I can’t trust him. The voices are getting louder; I’m losing time. I need to hold on, need to stay loyal. Master will come for me soon, and blood will wash my sins clean. I refuse to imagine what they will do to the man who stole me.

Spiritual Atheist is a ground-breaking "philosophical memoir" that draws on the author's knowledge of cutting-edge neuroscience, physics, and psychology; his insights into wisdom traditions like Taoism, Kabbalah, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Zen, and Sufism; and twenty years experience leading hundreds of major organizations, and tens of thousands of individuals, to transform themselves.

In the depths of the Inferno the Generals reside, reigning over the nine circles of Hell with lust-filled appetites and desires spawned by moral felony. They are evil. Betrayers! Outcasts that shunned the light of God. But when Seraph Dante descends from Heaven in search of her former lover Lucifer, she begins to question all she has ever known.

Historian Dr. Nina Gould is visited by her stepbrother, whom she had not seen for ages. With him, he brings a man holding him hostage. Nina has to help them locate a man reputed to own the Holy Grail, or else her stepbrother would be implicated in a serial killing spree. Her research on the Grail reveals that a unit of Allied soldiers, called the Perceval Chapter, were entrusted with the Grail during the North African Campaign in 1944, tasked to keep it out of Nazi hands.

The year is 77 AD. On the frontier of the Roman Empire, a Dacian man named Verus is captured and enslaved during an imperial raid north of the Danube. He is sent to a rock quarry known as The Pit, as one among thousands of fresh slaves needed to mine marble for Emperor Vespasian's new amphitheater. Funded by spoils taken during the Siege of Jerusalem, the Emperor promises it will be the largest gladiatorial arena ever; his personal gift to the people of Rome. Requiring years of herculean labor and millions of cubic feet in stone, Vespasian's son, Titus, worries if his father will live.

A high school group off on a long weekend in the Newfoundland woods discover human remains. Unbeknownst to the authorities, one of the history teachers finds an ancient coin with the body, keeping it a secret. When the teacher contacts her old college friend Dr. Nina Gould, she suggests to Nina that the coin could be a remnant from the era of Alexander the Great. Meanwhile, in Nina's hometown, a kidnapper has been employed to capture her in order to get to billionaire explorer David Purdue, a close friend of Nina's.

For years the Earl of Blackbourne has suffered a thirst for blood and a desire for flesh. His victims have been many. Condemned alongside him is his kindhearted half-brother. But hope arrives in the form of a beautiful debutante, whose servants could satiate his appetites while he attempts to undo the curse. An oppressed indentured servant, Daliyah yearns only for her freedom. When she finds herself trapped at Castle Blackbourne, it's not just her freedom that's in peril. If she succumbs to the ravenous fangs of the Earl, her body will be his to take and her life his to drain.

A curious thing happened when Larry Lizer woke up this morning. When he opened his eyes, he did not recognize his surroundings. Most people would have been put out by such a significant inconvenience, but it was not a feeling unfamiliar to Larry Lizer. In fact, he had been dealing with this particular interdimensional peculiarity for a long time.

Note to self: Don’t fall in love with a gangster. I’m the good girl: A college student who studies hard, wants to do good, and plays by the rules. I shouldn’t be falling for a guy like Darren Lee, the bad boy owner of an exclusive nightclub that, unbeknownst to me, caters to an international triad. We’re absolutely wrong for each other. Maybe that’s why the heat between us is so sizzling hot...But Darren’s desires run dark and wicked. Should I submit to his passions? Something tells me that if I throw caution to the wind, I could be in for a world of hurt.

Eryn brings aboard a stranger, an eight-foot-tall, mysterious male with golden Khopesh blades and the strangest yellow eyes. He may or may not be a friend, but Cian isn’t wasting his time on him. He wants his mate with webbed toes, and he wants the ache in his chest to disappear. But now Cian has his hands full and must save a group of humans from the moon before he can finally woo his oblivious mate.

Billionaire explorer David Purdue is tasked with returning a stolen religious relic to its rightful place to avoid a prison sentence, forcing him to return to Ethiopia. The tribunal in charge of his case allows him to take a handful of people with him on the expedition, two of which happen to be investigative journalist Sam Cleave and historian Dr. Nina Gould. Meanwhile, in Egypt, two astronomers from an ancient order notice a sinister shift in the heavens, marking the advent of cataclysm.

Three years following the destruction of Legio XXI in Pannonia, former Tribune Tiberius Artorius Castus and retired Centurion Primus Ordo Gavius Lucifer arrive in Rome. Their political fortunes rest in their letters of introduction from the revered general and Governor of Pannonia and Upper Germania, Marcus Ulpius Trajan. As the two former soldiers embark on a life far removed from the Danube frontier, they remain ever mindful of Trajan’s cautionary advice; that Roman politics are deadlier than the most fearsome enemy warrior.

Thomas may be the first magical cougar to go freelance, but he still has a lot to learn about selecting clients. Guilty over the injuries suffered by his friend and client O’Meara, Thomas resolves to collect enough magical essence to get her healed. Teaming up with an under-appreciated cabal of technomagi, Thomas finds himself battling encroaching mages, vicious spirits, and the forces of the multiverse itself to gather the energy mysteriously popping up all over Grantsville.