Showing results by narrator "David Bendena" in All Categories

In this new collection, Patrick Barb explores themes of family found and lost, media consumption and the dangers of runaway nostalgia, the supernatural in our lives, and the impact of violence in both the long- and short-term. From rural backwoods to Park Slope brownstones, Barb's characters face impossible, awful situations, testing their inner strength and understanding of reality. Covering quiet horror, weird fiction, supernatural horror, slasher horror, topical dark fiction, and more, these stories spotlight supposedly familiar terrors and fears in new and unexpected ways.

Twenty-five-year-old Linda Donovan has spent her life working for her father, Anthony, at Donovan and Daughter Exterminators in New York City. On the anniversary of her mother’s death, her father makes his annual visit to his late wife’s grave while Linda heads to a Park Avenue apartment building to work solo. When she arrives, she finds the body of an elderly resident, partially eaten by rats. The gruesome death not only speaks poorly of the Donovans’ exterminating services, it also points to foul play.

Do I want to move in with my ex-fiancé? No. But will it probably end up being a good thing? Also no. Because the truth is, I'm still in love with Jude Anthony. It doesn't matter that it's been years since we've spoken or that he was the one who walked out on me. It's hard to stay mad when I understand why he did what he did. But I need a place to stay, at least until I can find something new. So I'll keep my walls up, keep my distance, and everything will be fine. I'm sure Jude doesn't have feelings for me anymore, so there's nothing to worry about. My heart is perfectly safe.

The UFO Hotspot Compendium will take you on your own bucket list trip to 35 of the most remarkable UFO hotspots, places where aliens and cryptids are spotted, forbidden locations, as well as terrifying places only the brave dare to visit. From the Skinwalker Ranch to Area 51 to Joshua Tree, this audiobook will be a hit with true believers, the mildly curious, and those intrigued by all things off-planet. It guides listeners to experience the wonder and terror of an alien abduction, a spaceship crash, or a UFO sighting from the safety of their own home.

Diana Wolf likes to think she has it all: a rock-god husband, an empty nest, a wine cellar, and a dream home in the woods. Life is good. It has to be. But when she hires a cartographer, Kerry Perkins, to survey and map her estate in rural Tennessee, she pulls back a frayed corner of the lie that is her fairytale life. On his first night at Wolf Hollow, Kerry stumbles across a young girl's skeleton buried in the woods. But what really scares Diana is a familiar symbol carved into the girl’s skull: two wolves.

Since reluctantly accepting the marshal's job at South Pass City, Jake's life has become an unending run of solving other people's problems. When outlaw boss Dutch van Zandt and his ruthless band mount a campaign of mayhem in Jake's corner of the Wyoming Territory, Jake learns that Lucien Ashley, his persistent adversary, might be aiding the criminals to expand his burgeoning cattle fortune.

Jake Paynter is in deep trouble. With a $1000 bounty on his head, every lawman, bounty hunter, and desperado west of the Mississippi is gunning for him. His plan to lie low with the Shoshone quickly falls apart, but before he can leave for far Yellowstone, his two best friends, Gus Rivers and Stacy Blue, show up with a dilemma. Miners at South Pass City are getting murdered by a man or beast—no one is certain—and his immigrant friends from the Oregon Trail are in danger. Against his better judgment, he travels to the mining fields to bring the culprits to justice.

Jake Paynter is a doomed man. Haunted by an abusive childhood and his participation in atrocities of the Civil War, he seeks the isolation of the Plains Cavalry as a White officer for an all-Black buffalo soldier troop. Now, he is in irons and certain to be hanged for killing his captain after refusing an inhumane order. Despite his best efforts to maintain isolation, he starts to make friends on his journey to trial. The people of the wagon train begin looking to him for leadership, and he reluctantly falls into the role.

A family of giants drops a crumb of chocolate yule log - but one crumb doesn't matter, does it? Join Pip and his mother, the mice, and the ants as everyone benefits from the giant Christmas bonanza. The audience will learn along with each of the characters that what might be a small thing for you can turn out to be a very big thing for someone else.

Serving a 10-year sentence in a Nevada prison for armed robbery, Ethan Lockhart hopes that he can one day become a productive, law-abiding member of society. But society has other plans for Ethan. When he’s given a 48-hour furlough to attend his sister Abby’s funeral, he learns that her body was never found - just enough blood to declare her dead instead of missing - and he begins to suspect that there’s more to her death than was reported. Ethan decides to use his 48-hour window to find out what happened.

After a one-night stand with the wrong man, Carla Merino is hiding out in Lost Bay, Alaska, living in a camper and waitressing to stay afloat. She'd taken a memento from the evening (a habit of hers), a photograph from the man's wallet, a younger version of himself and some very important military men. But she quickly realizes who the men are - including Gordon McKint, a billionaire military security and technologies contractor with a secretive personal army and eyes on the presidency.

For Seth Roman, his younger brother Raymond, and their friends, it was supposed to be a few days of relaxation and fun, a getaway from their dull corporate jobs and troubled lives, a week of card playing, and drinking at a cabin in the remote woods of northern Maine. But when a young woman staggers into their camp with her clothes covered in blood, their lives are changed forever.

Dramatic, lyrical, and beautiful, O Captain, My Captain tells the story of one of America’s greatest poets and how he was inspired by one of America’s greatest presidents.

In this robust, elegantly plotted, and ultimately life-affirming novel, Zoe Whittall presents a dazzling portrait of the Millennial Generation - the 25-year-olds who grew up on anti-anxiety meds, text-messaging each other truncated emotional reactions, unsure of what's public and what's private. Holding Still explores an unusual love triangle involving Billy, a former teen idol, now an anxiety-ridden agoraphobic; Josh, a shy transgendered paramedic who travels the city patching up damaged bodies; and Amy, a fashionable filmmaker coping with her first broken heart.

Annie Armstrong was my best friend growing up. When betrayal brought heartbreak to both our lives, she and her father moved away from Bluefern, Montana. As the years went by, we tried to stay in touch through letters but eventually, our correspondence dwindled to an occasional text. Now, she’s a big Hollywood star I see on my television screen every week. I’m just a boring tech nerd turned billionaire. Our lives could not be further apart, especially since I’ve returned to my family’s Montana ranch to run my charity work from home. But then, Annie shows up.

Patrick Dunn, a retired ex-cop haunted by his past, has faced relentless challenges since an EMP attack plunged the country into darkness. After navigating a brutal winter to escape Salem, he finds himself in Meadowview, desperately trying to protect his children and guide Holly, an escaped psychiatric patient turned fierce survivor. But as they settle into this new reality, they quickly realize that the greatest battles lie ahead. In this new landscape, old friends and allies converge as familiar faces from the End of Days series join the fight for survival.

The power’s out. And there's only one chance to escape. Grip of Mercy is the riveting fifth book in the After The End post-apocalyptic EMP survival series. If you like characters that jump off the page, spellbinding action, and edge-of-your-seat drama, then you’ll love bestselling author Sam J Fires’s nail-biting thriller.

Who exactly is Danziger? He's a writer of letters for illiterate immigrants on Manhattan's Lower East Side - "a steadfast practitioner of concealing and forgetting" for his clients, and perhaps for himself: He hints at a much worldlier past. What and whoever he really is or has been, he has a seemingly boundless knowledge of the city and its denizens. And he knows much more than the mere identity of the floating corpse.

Meet Cat. He thinks everything has its price. You can pay in gold, or you pay in steel. And for the right price, even the entire Sphere of Worlds can be bought. Ever the merchant, he pays in souls, freeing the Goddess of Darkness in the astral fortress of Pandorum and becoming the archnemesis of the most powerful alliance in all of Sphere. Even as an enormous bounty is placed on his head with hunters trailing his every move, he never wavers. His patron, the God of Shadows, sends Cat to the twilight world of the Hole to find the third of the seven Keys.

Just as Jeremiah Goodbye is set to meet his fate in the electric chair, he is given a second chance at life. With the flip of a coin, he decides to return to his home town of Nowhere, Oklahoma, to settle the score with his twin brother Josiah. But upon his escape, he enters a world he doesn’t recognize—one that has been overtaken by the Dust Bowl. And the gift he once relied on to guide him is as unrecognizable as the path back to Nowhere.