Showing results by narrator "Rudy Sanda" in All Categories

It's not that Knox hates people - it's that humanity always disappoints him. When you become an oil-rich Texan billionaire overnight, people treat you a certain way. Just once he'd like to meet someone who isn't dazzled by his wallet. Then he meets struggling yoga teacher Lexi Brandon. She's weird. She's unpredictable and tends to say strange things. She lurks in the bushes and dresses in all black. Lexi's definitely not his type, but she's also the first one to ever truly see him and not just another rich, dirty Price. And that's...fascinating.

Addiction is a subject which straddles public and personal interests; societal and criminal justice concerns; and family, social, and medical responses. It is a continuing area of uncertainty and concern for society and professionals trained in the field. This Very Short Introduction presents the basic facts about addiction: what it is, how and why it develops, how it is treated, and how society can respond to it.

Falon Shaw is the go-to photographer for celebrities in New York City. She's young, beautiful, and driven. She's determined to be the best, and she's not about to let anyone get in her way. She dreams of a future filled with travel and photographs of places far away from the only world she's ever known. Music is Asher Foster's passion. After he dug himself out of the pit of his addictions, he turned his life around. He found not only solace on the stage, but fame as well. He's trying to put his demons behind him.

Jim and Kram are back in their second hilarious romp around their secluded Southeast Alaskan island. With a serial killer at large (a cereal serial killer, to be more accurate), an unlucky entrepreneur with an out-of-control facial tic, and the nephew of a notorious crime boss setting up shop on the island, Lieutenant Jim Wekle will have his work cut out for him.

Clay Price has everything he's ever wanted, except the one thing money can't buy - Natalie Weston. Years ago, Clay and Natalie were in love...until she turned down his marriage proposal. Now Clay and his brothers are oil-rich billionaires, and they can have whatever they want. And what Clay wants is Natalie in his bed, no matter what it takes. If it means being ruthless, he'll do it.

Nicole Morgan has been labeled many things - the geeky music girl, the shy sidekick of Miss Popularity, and the girl with the scar. Now only one name haunts her through the halls of Oyster Bay Prep. The girl in the picture. After heartthrob Chace Porter is found dead in the woods near the school, the police search for the girl snuggled up next to him in a picture discovered among his personal effects. A girl no one knew was even close to him - and whose best friend, Lana Rivera, was his girlfriend.

When a dip-net fisherman hauls in a severed human foot, Lieutenant Jim Wekle is thrown into another whodunit on his remote island. Alaskan mayhem ensues with a rogue gang of elderly women on ATVs, a Planet Patrol environmental boat with an oil leak, and an influx of tourists, each clutching a fresh copy of a book titled, Muskeg Mama. Kram is in rare form as he decides to enter the local work force by applying his unique perspective to a series of part-time jobs.

All I ever wanted was to be a female fighter. It was in my blood to smack people around. Some girls wore pink dresses and makeup; I wore sneakers and bruises. I was a loner, stuck to myself because I was different, until Camden Steel moved next door. I punched him in the mouth, and he saw me through rose-colored glasses from that day on. I had everything I ever wanted. The boy next door, inspiring career...until I didn't.

Gnat is on his voyage with the Shiamiru, all the while trying to find backup for humanity among the great spacefaring races. After all, based on what he's already seen, he knows not to count on the good sense of his own kind. Even facing an external threat, the people of our Earth cannot see past their internal squabbles and come together to fight as one. Gnat does not expect gratitude from his leaders for taking such matters into his own hands, but when have laws and rules ever stopped our intrepid hero before?

This collection of eight stories paints a vivid image of people who don't do what you might expect them to living on the fringes in America. Not stories of triumph over adversity but something completely other. Described in language that is brilliantly sardonic, Woods' characters return repeatedly to places where they don't belong - often the places where they were born. In the background are the endless American wars and occupations and too many early deaths of friends and family. This is fiction that is fresh and of the moment, even as it is timeless.

Thea Glenheim's new next-door neighbor turns her small town upside down. Trace Della's handsome, successful, and committed to helping high-risk boys. And he's changing things in ways a lot of people don't like. One in particular. Bad things begin happening on Trace's property, and troublemakers compete with each other to stop him in his mission to provide a place for kids who need help. All the while Thea is caught in the middle, between the people she's known all her life and this new man in town. He's a mover and shaker. She's a quiet piano teacher. Yet opposites attract, don't they?

Many companies fall into the trap of spending too much time and money on low performers, while high performers aren't getting the necessary resources, development opportunities, or rewards. In The Differentiated Workforce, the authors expand on their previous books, The HR Scorecard and The Workforce Scorecard, and recommend that you manage your workforce like a portfolio - with disproportionate investments in the jobs that create the most wealth.

After Colin Campbell went on a short business trip abroad, he returned home to discover his wife of many years had moved out. No explanations. No second chances. She was gone and wasn't coming back. Shocked and heartbroken, Colin fell into a spiral of depression and loneliness. Soon after, a friend told Colin about a dog in need of rescue - a neglected, 140-pound Newfoundland Landseer, a breed renowned for its friendly nature and remarkable swimming abilities.

Small-town Steadfast, Wisconsin, has spent the last six years raising funds to help a medical student stay in med school. In return, the student contracted to practice medicine in the local clinic for the next six years. Kirsi Royston is that doctor, and now, she must tell the town she is leaving at summer's end. In the midst of their conflict over Kirsi wanting to break the contract comes the unthinkable. Meth is creeping into the county, poisoning students at the local high school. And the local eccentric, a woman who has bullied the town for years, finds herself needing help.

I didn't realize my mother was a person until I was 13 years old and she pulled me out of bed and put me in the back of her car, and we left home and my dad with no explanations. I thought that Ma was all that she was and all she had ever wanted to be. I was wrong. As we made our way from Virginia to California, returning to the places where she'd lived as a kid in foster care and as a teenager on the run, repaying debts and keeping promises, I learned who she was in her life-before-me and the secrets she had kept - even from herself.

Damien Cave and his wife Diana thought they understood what it meant to take risks. As two journalists who traveled the world covering pressing international stories, they were convinced they had seen it all; that is, until they moved to Australia. Suddenly, their kids were being thrown into giant Pacific waves in intensive lifeguard bootcamps, and they were expected to be present and participating instead of obsessing about work or politics. They soon noticed what seemed to be a societal surrender of control to nature and community.

Ceasefires have one big downside: They eventually come to an end. And when they do, once again game nodes are set ablaze, and platoons of Dark Faction soldiers threaten our customary world with destruction. The enemy has grown stronger and more numerous. To make matters worse, they also got their hands on even deadlier weaponry. They have learned painful lessons from previous encounters and adjusted their tactics accordingly.

Prudence Burns is an overly idealistic Brooklyn girl who has inherited a derelict plot of land named Woefield Farm. Her motley crew of farm hands consists of Earl, an elderly, reclusive bluegrass legend; Seth, an agoraphobic heavy-metal blogger in early recovery from alcoholism; and Sara, an 11-year-old girl with a flock of elite show poultry. When Prudence is felled by a thyroid condition, things on the farm begin to fall apart.

Claire is a 16-year-old fangirl obsessed with the show Demon Heart. Forest is an actor on Demon Heart who dreams of bigger roles. When the two meet at a local Comic-Con panel, it's a dream come true for Claire. Until the Q&A, that is, when Forest laughs off Claire's assertion that his character is gay. Claire is devastated. After all, every last word of her super-popular fanfic revolves around the romance between Forest's character and his male frenemy. She can't believe her hero turned out to be a closed-minded jerk.

Meet Lawson: Vampire by birth, fixer by trade. His mission: Preserve the secret existence of living vampires by any means necessary. There's just one problem - his oldest enemy, Cosgrove, is back, killing humans and threatening to unleash an ancient unholy evil. Can Lawson stop Cosgrove and still adhere to the very laws he has sworn to uphold by not falling in love with a beautiful human ex-KGB assassin named Talya?