Showing results by narrator "Gareth Richards" in All Categories

Cara Cooper’s third Christmas starts out as the best she’s ever known. As the daughter of a kitchen maid, she’s just old enough to be really excited. When a kind stranger appears and takes Cara to a beautiful house filled with toys and Christmas treats of every description, she is thrilled. Little does the toddler know that the kind stranger, Edna, has an ulterior motive. Now kidnapped, Cara’s life is set on a collision course with tragedy.

Olive Wickes knew a better life once. Before their old master died, her family lived in comfortable servants' quarters beside a garden where birdsong echoed through the day. But the new young master turned them out, and now Olive, her parents, and her five-year-old brother Jimmy are struggling to get by. In their cold and desolate tenement, Olive sings to Jimmy about the birds of the garden, trying to cling on to hope.

Welcome to Earth. We know so much about our home planet, yet so very little. From the ancient astronomers who sought to figure out our place among the stars to the modern-day scientists studying the deepest oceans to those who looking for life on other planets. In this anthology resides 18 stories of discovery and daring that exhibit the spirit of adventure that has led explorers to risk their lives trying to discover the mysteries and secrets of Earth.

There are stories here that explore the mythology of Zeus and the personalities in myth, as well as urban fantasy and fantasy stories that explore our understanding of leadership. The science fiction worlds range from splendidly alien to profoundly human to mixes of each as authors present their visions of what life might be like on Jupiter’s moons.

After the Crown Prince of Ponderia starts behaving strangely, his best friend Pettic discovers that the prince has been replaced by a doppelganger, and the real prince kidnapped. Unable to accept the loss of his friend, Prince Torren, nor the cruel impostor to become the new king, Pettic sets on a quest to rescue his friend. After he sees the fake prince meet a mysterious man, Pettic discovers that the prince has been imprisoned in another plane of existence. With the help of Blundo, the court magician, Pettic finds out that the only way to enter this another world are four keys.

Humans have countless dirty tricks up their sleeves. It’s a good thing Spicy the goblin is a fast learner. He’ll need every wile and skill to survive what’s coming. Two pirate crews know about the dragon Fath’s presence in the secluded delta village, and both will go to any length to recover the bomb recipe Alma and Blades stole. Spicy will have to race to be the first to catch the thieves, all while deciding who among the gangs of criminals he can trust. His journey will take him deeper into the heart of the world of humanity.

Who are you when you dream? Rick isn't sure anymore.... Is he Rick, living in the here and now? Working a boring job, married to Cath. Or is he Dan, living 600 years and half a galaxy away? Exploring an alien planet with Vanessa by his side. Two worlds, one man. While he's awake in one place, he's asleep in the other. Simple enough, until people from Dan's world start turning up in Rick's life. Confusing? But then it gets worse. Dan is accused of a crime he didn't commit. Ricks wife leaves him and both realities are falling apart. Which life is real? Will either go back to how it was?

Mars. The Red Planet. Bringer of war, the God of war itself. The planet that gave birth to the modern era of science fiction when H.G. Wells gazed upon the red light in the night sky and envisioned an army gathering upon its plains to invade our world. These are the stories of Mars. Stories of adventure, conflict, and war.

From the thought-provoking whimsical, the horrifying “what if”, and the wonderfully macabre to the downright terrifying--Joe Pasquale delivers a dozen tales guaranteed to have the listener glancing over their shoulder as nighttime approaches, and those long, dark shadows begin to creep in.

Spicy the goblin is the first creature Fath the dragon has trusted in generations. Now the dragon’s apprentice, Spicy has a chance to learn lore hidden away from human and goblin-kind alike. But Spicy has a dilemma. Five children were kidnapped from his village, along with his best friend Rime. Saving them means bringing the dragon and Hog, the ever-hungry troll, with him on an unplanned detour. His journey will lead them into lands where few of his kind have ever gone.

Xing Ping turned into an angel after taking a leap of faith. He'd always been one of the most evil, vile, and contemptible people from his Sect. Every year, he pillaged, raided, and took anything he pleased including as many women as he could get his hands on...It turned out that angels weren't good because they wanted to be, and as Xing Ping began his adventure he'd have to learn to live with being an angel and deal with the thousands of woman who were reserved especially for him.

Artists in every era and medium have depicted Neptune as a tempestuous god with ever-changing moods, so it’s fitting that his anthology follows suit. In these sections, you’ll find stories by turns heroic, comic, pensive, absurd, uplifting, and ambiguous. They also reflect different conceptions of what it means to be “related to Neptune”, as this volume was intended to be. Some anchor themselves in mythology, while others focus on the planet, and still others are weird amalgams of Neptunian themes.

Every 1,000 years a beast rises from the lava-filled volcano of Mytherios. Emerging from a portal left open by The Dark Goblin, her fiery wings beat against the sky as her fury is unleashed on the world. The perfect life Jake and his girlfriend Cassie knew is forever changed the day a strange shadow swooped overhead. Farm animals go missing. Property is scorched. All by a creature once rumored to be myth. Embarking on the adventure of a lifetime, Jake and Cassie vow to take down the creature comprised of fire and brimstone. Can they defeat the ancient beast?

Sol, the center of our solar system, the very reason why we exist at all. These are the stories of our Sun, stories of nobility and righteousness. Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Sol, and experience the compelling world of science fiction anthology.

Catherine and her friends are enjoying a girly evening together at home when lightning strikes. The girls embark to see the damage the strike had caused.... However, their worst fears come true when something much darker and much more powerful has landed in their quiet little town. The evil right-hand man of Lord Dromos, Ratifi has left the underworld of Mytherios to claim souls for his master, so they can rule all of the dimensions.

In a land plagued by war, King Dorvin and Queen Shiara are expecting their first child. They are excited until the good fairies tell of a prophecy – that their daughter is the key to winning the war against the Shadow tribes. To protect her, mages of the kingdom create a tower to keep her and her guardian hidden until her 18th birthday.

Heaven's Gate was a video game Alfred didn't intentionally join. In fact, it wasn't technically a video game. Alfred had somehow ended up on a planet millions of miles away from Earth, but with dungeons, hot girls, and strange creatures appearing at every turn...It almost seemed like a normal world until he discovered that in the planet, Heaven's Gate, your dreams could come true if you were brave enough to enter into the hardest dungeons.

Explore the deadly elegance of finance's hidden powerhouse. The Money Formula takes you inside the engine room of the global economy to explore the little-understood world of quantitative finance, and show how the future of our economy rests on the backs of this all-but-impenetrable industry. This book traces the development of financial derivatives from bonds to credit default swaps, and shows how mathematical formulas went beyond pricing to expand their use to the point where they dwarfed the real economy.

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Paul Slack takes a global approach to explore the historical and social impact of plague over the centuries, looking at the ways in which it has been interpreted and the powerful images it has left behind in art and literature.

The zealot army is coming. The winter raid has earned the goblins an enemy they can’t hope to beat. Eris, the leader of a reclusive goblin village, promises he can deliver them. But as Spicy and Thistle soon discover, this charismatic newcomer is maneuvering goblins and men alike towards a disastrous showdown.