Showing results by narrator "Laurie Catherine Winkel" in All Categories

The End is Coming. An extinction-level asteroid is cannonballing toward Earth. In humanity’s final hours, a lucky few earn a one-way ticket to the brand-new, ultra-immersive, fantasy-based VRMMORPG, Viridian Gate Online. Making that leap of faith might mean survival, but it comes with a steep price tag: “Travelers” will forever be stranded as digital avatars inside a fantastical world filled with vicious monsters, all-powerful AIs, and cutthroat players. Let the games begin....

Accidentally married to a human stallion. And I can't even remember our wedding. It's awkward, okay? I didn't plan on waking up hitched to Hubby of the Century. Or one little misadventure erasing every memory of us. No sweet nothings. No ugly cry vows. No flipping honeymoon. But every time I see Flint Calum, I wonder. How did I get so lucky? Let's forget all six-foot-something of his oh-so-bad superdad self. His flashing eyes and SEAL-perfected whip of a body aren't why I'm dizzy.

Michelle has been figuring out what her life is like now that the demon has been killed, and Sylvia and Varro are dead. Even the clans of witches trying to attract her to their way of life have backed off and given her a chance to grieve. Her relationship with Elron is stronger than ever, but there are things left unsaid. On the way to her parents' wedding, the delicate calm she’d been living in is broken. Witches are out for her blood, her family is caught in the crossfire, and friendships are threatened.

As reward for stopping a serial killer and restoring the Kingdom of Vlachia to its rightful ruler, Dragozin Hector and his queen dragon, Karalti, have earned a noble title, a castle, and land of their own. There’s only one problem – it’s occupied. By a freaking elder vampire. Not only has the vampire unleashed the blight of undeath across the land, but Hector's nemesis is on the warpath. His mission? To steal Karalti, kill a god, and use their combined power to become the Insane God-Emperor of Archemi.

I was a just normal guy until the night the cherry blossoms bloomed, the night that Grace appeared on my doorstep. A failed sci-fi writer, a gamer, but a normal guy nonetheless. Grace was everything I was not - a psychic shifter, beautiful beyond my wildest imagination, a government conspiracy waiting to be unraveled. And that was before the second superpowered woman showed up to kill us both.

Book 3 left us on a cliffhanger, when in the middle of a superpower-infused battle with the CBGs, Mother took control of Dorian Gray’s mind and had her teleport Gideon and an unconscious Stella to the middle of nowhere in an empty Nevada desert. Well, nearly empty. It turns out that "the middle of nowhere" happens to be the home of a man Gideon has never met, but who is inextricably tied to his fate.

Ryan has died, been reborn as a dungeon core, defeated a necromancer, and made a number of friends along the way. Life, well un-life, is good. However, everything changed when the demons attacked. With his dungeon town in danger and cultists scheming in the shadows, Ryan must decide whether to draw upon the darker side of his own nature - unlocking powers far greater than anything he has accessed before. Something his new dungeon fairy seems suspiciously excited about.

Séverin and his team members might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but victory came at a terrible cost—one that still haunts all of them. Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long-lost artefact rumoured to grant its possessor the power of God. Their hunt lures them far from Paris and into the icy heart of Russia, where crystalline ice animals stalk forgotten mansions, broken goddesses carry deadly secrets, and a string of unsolved murders makes the crew question whether an ancient myth is a myth after all.

He could have been way worse off. Sure, Daniel was stuck in-game as the local bard of a quaint village, but people were nice, the quests juicy, and the lore intriguing. Even so, with the mob on the look-out, Daniel would soon find himself sorely tested to avoid detection.

Akio Prince is one of the best in the world at a dying art. He’s put a lifetime of martial arts training to work in the arena, dueling with pulsing resin blades and glowing carbon fiber for the masses. But winning championships is small consolation while his city is taken over by the Hachinin, ruthless criminals spreading corruption, violence, and debauchery across the east.

Success beyond my wildest dreams? Too bad I wasn't able to fully enjoy it. No time to sit back and watch the fame roll in when you're being hunted by superpowereds and a private military force. Still, everything was going according to plan. Grace, Veronique, and I were headed south. Our target? The secret government facilities scattered across the country. The second installment of Mutants in the Making was nearing completion, ready to be published any day now. Things were tense, but all was well. I wish they would have stayed that way....

Jynn Devhro used to be Earth's lowest-ranked Hunter, one of a breed of enhanced humans trained to fight the monsters terrorizing what's left of mankind. Through rigorous training and death-defying encounters with monsters—along with the help of the vengeance-seeking System grafted onto her soul—she has secretly leveled up, leaving her public ranking untouched. Now, her razor-sharp kindjal at her side, Jynn's ready for battle. But just when things seem to be looking up, it all comes crashing down.

Gabby Mendoza just wants to be a normal teenage girl. Unfortunately, she's facing some serious obstacles in the "normal" department. For one, she's living out the zombie apocalypse in an underground bunker. Second, she's been raised by her crazy ex-CIA uncle to be a petite zombie-killing machine. And third - she's not entirely human.

Things are about to get sticky...I might as well permanently add the label "Ex" to my name. I'm an Ex-Mr. Universe. Ex-Mr. Olympus. An Ex-Hollywood Stuntman. But no one from my small hometown cares anything about that. They only care that I'm the ex-boyfriend to the beloved Mayor's daughter, Elaina Dyker. And now, t10 years later, I'm back, helping my siblings run my mother's bakery while she takes on chemotherapy treatments. What should have been a routine cupcake delivery turns into utter chaos when the bachelorette party thinks I'm a stripper.

For us, it was a literal knock, with two men standing in crisply pressed uniforms. They had news. News that gutted us to the core - the death of our loved ones, a brother and two husbands - in combat zones. The thing about those moments is that it's almost inconceivable that they can happen to you. That is, until they do.

Gideon and the ladies continue their uphill battle against Mercsecure, and along the way, bust even more super ladies out of The New Mexico Facility high-security research lab to join the fight, including the speedy, motor-mouthed Michelle.

Sometimes the world is a very dark place. You know the magic is still out there, but it feels distant or displaced. Voices in the Darkness is an attempt to create a link, to bring some of those voices together in a single work of art. Six award-winning authors lent their talent to this work. The stories are unique and dark, filled with wonder and emotion.

Re •sent •ment: The act of hating - no, f--king loathing Dean Collins. (Yes, I'm well aware that's not the actual definition, but it might as well be....) It's been 10 years since we've seen each other, and the feelings are still as strong. I'm not going to bore you with all the details of how our love was once intoxicating, consuming, and perfect. Because it was...until it wasn't. I've been fine without him. I haven't missed his cruelty, his coldness, and his spite. And after the ugliest breakup in the history of breakups, I forced myself to move on.

In the aftermath of the Civil War so many people struggled to put their lives back together. Iris Sands travels from Virginia to Texas as a mail-order bride. When she arrives in Sweet Water she finds that the man who sent for her died. The Union Soldiers thought her to be a new saloon girl and thought to get to her first before she started working. Lex Willis and ex-Confederate Soldier was about to leave town when he saw Iris being tossed back and forth by the soldiers. He puts a stop to it and takes her to the Eastman Ranch. He swore never to marry but Iris makes him rethink his vow.

Seventeen-year old Ellen never wanted a holiday. What is there to do in a mining town in the northernmost corner of Sweden, with no one but her brother Simon for company; a boy with Asperger’s who cares for nothing but collecting plants and solving crime mysteries? Nothing, that is, until the siblings stumble onto a horrifying crime scene that brings them knee-deep into a generations-long conflict between the townspeople and the native Sami.