Showing results by narrator "Simon Vance" in All Categories

In the most dangerous district of the city, the Fifth Ward, Rem and Torval have been perfecting their good cop, bad cop routine while protecting residents from drug-dealing orcs, mind-controlling elves, uncooperative mages, and humans being typical humans. But when a perplexing case of arson leads to a series of gruesome, unsolvable murders, the two partners must challenge their own assumptions and loyalties if they are to preserve their partnership, wrest justice from the chaos, and keep their ward from tearing itself apart.

Martin Luther started a reformation movement that revolutionized Europe in the 16th century. His far-reaching reforms of theological understanding and church practices radically modified both church and society in Europe and beyond. Paulson's introduction to Luther's thought, coupled with illustrations, provides an engaging introduction to Luther's multifaceted self and the ideas that catapulted him to fame.

"If a fable is a legendary story of supernatural happenings," Mr. Swann says, "or a narration intended to enforce a useful truth, then these four are fables - which shouldn't be confused with fairy tales targeted only for children. These, then, are tales for kind and loving people of all ages." These fables came to Ingo Swann as a gift from a part of himself: He awoke four mornings in a row and literally had to write them.

A watchman of the Yenara City guard has gone missing. The culprit could be any of the usual suspects: drug-dealing orcs, mind-controlling elves, uncooperative mages, or humans being typical humans. It's up to two reluctant partners - Rem, a hungover miscreant who joins the Watch to pay off his bail, and Torval, a maul-wielding dwarf who's highly unimpressed with the untrained and weaponless Rem - to uncover the truth and catch the murderer loose in their fair city.

Berlin, 27 February 1933. A month after Hitler's inauguration as Chancellor of Germany, the Reichstag parliament building is set ablaze. The Nazis use the torching to justify a campaign of terror against their political opponents. John Russell's recent separation from his wife threatens his right to reside in Germany and any meaningful relationship with his six-year-old son Paul. He has just secured work as a crime reporter for a Berlin newspaper, and the crimes which he has to report are increasingly entangled in the wider nightmare engulfing Germany.

Prepare to experience paradise... No author in history has more material in print than Charles Spurgeon. Today, more than a century after his death, countless people continue to have a passion for this London preacher, and more and more discover him every day. Some of Spurgeon’s most powerful sermons were those he preached on Heaven.

In this brilliantly analytical yet personal book, nondemocratic societies are put under a microscope to reveal the mechanics of tyranny that sustain them. In exposing the inner workings of a "fear society", the authors explain why democracy is not beyond any nation's reach, why it is essential for our security, and why there is much that can be done to promote it around the world.

A timely and revelatory new biography of Queen Elizabeth (and her family) exploring how the Windsors have evolved and thrived as the modern world has changed around them. In 2021, the Queen Elizabeth II finally appears to be at ease in the modern world, helped by the new generation of Windsors. But through Irving’s unique insight there emerges a more fragile institution, whose extraordinarily dutiful matriarch has managed to persevere with dignity, yet in doing so made a Faustian pact with the media.

Malouf's fable engraves the epic themes of the Trojan war onto a perfect miniature. David Malouf shines new light on Homer’s Iliad, adding twists and reflections as well as flashes of earthy humour to surprise and enchant. In this exquisite gem of a novel, Achilles is maddened by grief at the death of his friend Patroclus. From the walls of Troy, King Priam watches the body of his son, Hector, being dragged behind Achilles’ chariot.

After the death of his brother, Warren Lewis lived at The Kilns in Oxford, edited his famous brother's letters, and did a little writing of his own. Then he got a letter from a stranger on the far side of the world. Over the years that followed, he and Blanche Biggs, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, shared a vibrant correspondence. These conversations encompassed their views on faith, their politics, their humor, the legacy of C. S. Lewis, and their own trials and longings.

The fate of empire is to crumble from within. Duke Oliver Wellesley and the Priestess Samantha unmasked and destroyed a cabal of sorcerers planning an incredible sacrifice. But preventing the horrific bloodshed left lingering questions, and new attacks close to home prove the danger is not over. Oliver must choose between his responsibilities to his family and the Crown, and seeking answers over the far horizon. As he struggles with the weight of expectation, he discovers new powers and an ancient magic that has been long forgotten.

A scientist and gentleman inventor in industrialized Victorian England claims to have irrefutable proof that time is not simply a concept - it's a whole other dimension. When he reveals the prototype of a time-traveling machine to his peers, he's met with skepticism at first...until he returns one week later, disheveled, bloody, and with a fantastic story to tell.

When Detective Dirk Dilly gets a call from Holly, a young girl whose pet cat has gone missing, the dragon ends up with not only a new case to solve, but also a self-appointed partner-in-solving-crime. And it turns out that Holly's cat is just the beginning! As the pair hunts for clues, Dirk spots other dragons flying over the city - and not the good kind. Dirk has a hunch they might just be involved, but will he and Holly be able prevent further cat-astrophe before it's too late? 

The Plague Forge delivers an unbeatable combination of knockout action and kick-ass characters as the secrets to the ultimate alien mystery from The Darwin Elevator and The Exodus Towers are about to be unraveled.

Thousands have been captivated by the spiritual themes that underlie Tolkien's imaginative fiction. In Finding God in The Hobbit, Jim Ware indulges readers with an exploration of the spiritual significance of J. R. R. Tolkien's famous children's classic. As they are acquainted with Tolkien's message of transcendent truth, readers will see how God is mysteriously at work even in everyday moments. A reflection summarizes each chapter's main insight.

Season Tickets to a Crime Carnival: A woman's scream pierced the silence, and the tent erupted into chaos. I grabbed Watson's coat to steady myself as the audience swarmed down the platform and towards the exits. I could scarcely believe the reaction.

James Hook is a child who only wants to grow up. When he meets Peter Pan, a boy who loves to pretend and is intent on never becoming a man, James decides he could try being a child - at least briefly. James joins Peter Pan on a holiday to Neverland, a place of adventure created by children's dreams, but Neverland is not for the faint of heart. Soon James finds himself longing for home, determined that he is destined to be a man. But Peter refuses to take him back, leaving James trapped in a world just beyond the one he loves. A world where children are to never grow up.

Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his detective stories, he also wrote other short stories which are masterpieces of mystery and suspense. In some of the stories, a supressed uneasiness gradually builds up and evolves into sheer terror; in others, the story line unexpectedly changes and comes to an unlikely conclusion. In "The Beetle-Hunter", a beginning doctor is employed on a strange errand to a coleopterist.

Everyone deplores narcissism, especially in others. The vain are by turns annoying or absurd, offending us whether they are blissfully oblivious or proudly aware of their behavior. But are narcissism and vanity really as bad as they seem? Can we avoid them even if we try? In Mirror, Mirror, Simon Blackburn, the author of such best-selling philosophy books as Think, Being Good, and Lust, says that narcissism, vanity, pride, and self-esteem are more complex than they first appear and have innumerable good and bad forms.

One hundred years ago Christians read Charles Sheldon's In His Steps with runaway enthusiasm. Sheldon's story traces the account of the fictional Reverend Maxwell who challenges himself and his congregation to constantly ask, "What would Jesus do?" This question puts all of life's circumstances in a new light. Those characters in Sheldon's book who take the challenge of this question seriously live dramatically changed lives.