Showing results by author "Michael Scott" in Literature & Fiction

After untold centuries of absence, the evil Ancients have returned. Their magic appears unstoppable and their hunger for conquest is insatiable. To protect the country of Nia, Duchess Nadea and Scholar Paug make a desperate journey to find a human legend: a man known to have destroyed these Ancient foes with a powerful army. But legends can lie. When Paug and Nadea revive their hero from sleep, his virtue is far from clear. Is he really their savior or their destroyer?

Villains take center stage in this collection of 19 dark and magical stories. Listeners will be cheering for all the wrong heroes as some of the most fearsome, devious, and brutal antagonists perform savage deeds towards wicked ends. And why not? These characters are the champions of their own stories - evil is a matter of perspective. Contributors also include Mark Adler, Bradley P. Beaulieu, E.V. Morrigan, Peter Orullian, Matthew Ward, Kaaron Warren, Deborah A. Wolf, and Janny Wurts.

The country of Nia has fallen to the Ancients and circumstances are grim for the humans. Kaiyer must return to the broken castle to save his friends, reconcile his past, and find a way to break the hold that the enemy agents have over the country.

Narrated with warmth and wit, this compilation brings to life a series of tales that resonate with love, romance, the perils and Joys of Alcohol and Christmas Spirits of many kinds both fun and scary. In these accounts of the heart-warming, the funny, the dramatic and the sad, the traditions and culture of a disappearing rural Irish Christmas are brought to life with a magic that will warm winter days and delight anyone who believes in the spirit of Christmas.

Jessmei thought she had escaped. But the Elvens know that her protector is gone. They will not rest until she has been found, captured, and made to serve their agenda. Can the beautiful princess navigate this political web and restore her kingdom?

The Empress almost has control of the world she was promised and soon her enemies will not be able to thwart her. There is just one man keeping her from her prize: Kaiyer.

We’ve all had them, those special dates with someone brand new, someone who just might be the yin to our yang, that vital missing piece of our lonely heart… So goes the eternal gamble, the endless game of romance roulette, in which we earnestly wear our hearts upon our sleeves in the thin hope of discovering our soulmate and lay bare our inner selves to find all-elusive true love.

Imagine: a fantasy world, but not one based on medieval/Dark Ages European culture and myth, but rather on the tropes of the spaghetti Western and Chinese Wuxia. Add steampunk elements. Mix well.

In the early days of the Roman Empire, the noble Etruscan civilization in Italy is waning, Vesi, a young Etruscan noblewoman, is violated by a renegade supernatural being. Outcast then from Etruria, Vesi bears Horatrim, a child who carries inexplicable knowledge and grows to manhood in only six years. But a savage Roman attack leaves Vesi unresponsive and Horatrim homeless and vulnerable, and he travels to Rome where his talents confound powerful businessman Propertius, who arranges to adopt Horatrim as a son, changing his name to Horatius.

Poetry can capture the imagination in a few short lines but narrative verse or poetry takes the form of telling a story, whether it be simple or complex in a longer form. Among the most ancient forms of poetry, it has widespread roots through almost every culture. In Volume 4 we bring you the classics 'The Eve of St Agnes' by John Keats; 'Flodden' by Sir Walter Scott; 'The Ballad of Agincourt' by Michael Drayton; 'Tam O'Shanter' by Robert Burns; and 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' by Robert Browning.

Michael Scott (30 October 1789 - 7 November 1835) was a Scottish author and autobiographer who wrote under the pseudonym Tom Cringle. Scott was born in Scotland at Cowlairs, near Glasgow, the son of a Glasgow merchant. THE CAPTURE OF THE COTTON SHIP: The northwester still continued, with a clear blue sky, without a cloud overhead by day, and a bright, cold moon by night. It blew so hard for the three succeeding days, that we could not carry more than close-reefed topsails to it, and a reefed foresail.

In a refugee shanty town on the outskirts of a vast and opulent imperial capital city, an insidious sect of demon worshippers, the Cult of Ebon, began to prey upon the Gathered, a diaspora of peoples displaced from their nations in the aftermath of a mad tyrant's ceaseless wars of conquest long ago. Unwilling to overlook these heinous crimes against a vulnerable, underserved populace, Constable Lukarde Alfans began an investigation that brought him far too close to the truth, leading him to become the cult's next target.

Studying ancient sites on a backwater planet, Archaeologist Nosuma Okande finds more of them than The Institute has on record...On her first day, she digs up an odd statuette, and after she receives death threats, the Institute sends Nosuma to another excavation site. There, she unearths a second artifact and later the same night, stumbles upon a strange ceremony in the village square. Not deterred by this, Nosuma decides to unearth the mysteries the planet holds. But as a deeper truth slowly emerges, can she untangle the enigmatic past of an edifice abandoned?

An engineered virus that attacks the brain leaks from a research lab and spreads quickly, causing infected people to go into psychotic rage. Before almost anyone knows what is happening, a well-armed America is terrorized by a pandemic of violence. Kanetha Wilson—friend of the first victim—is first to recognize that something is not as it seems. She inspires a small cadre of scientists and others into a breakneck, lonely, and lawless mission to identify and stop the murder plague.

Nash Baxter is a liar. He's the famous skeptic who rides his motorcycle across the country debunking hauntings everywhere he goes. Yet he knows ghosts are real - suffering remnants of the departed, held fast to this world, and tormented by demons. Hell, it seems, exists all across the land, side-by-side with the living world. Nash has the power to see into that Hell and destroy the demons by a force of will. But sometimes demons fight back...When they do, they possess Nash and force him to commit murder.

One by one, three ancient talismans disappear. After Columba Riverford’s induction to the Hall of Swords, the sacred sword Genesyx is stolen and Columba is accused of its theft. Meanwhile, Aridisia Myric obtains membership to the Crypt of Scrolls, and the One Scroll Canodex vanishes. Soon after, the One Stone Luxullian disappears and Baron Marl Gneiss’ access to the Vault of Stones is denied. Banished, the three embark on a quest to recover the artifacts and restore their names.

On a distant planet, xenobiologist Janine Meriwether finds herself haunted by a recurring dream: being dragged to her death by the Nartressan seaweed. Soon, she learns of three others - a traumatized emergency responder, a troubled seafood mogul, and a high-priced escort - who share the same nightmare.

"When Poppy Wainwright's grandmother dies, she travels from her home in Arkansas to live with her grandmother's older sister, Sookie, in Savannah, Georgia. 'Your Grandma Lainey was a self-righteous nit-wit,' Sookie tells Poppy upon their first meeting, 'and if I had the gumption, I'd drive myself up to Mountain Home and spit on her freshly dug grave.' Sookie is everything Poppy's grandmother was not: atheistic, slovenly, suspicious, prone to vendettas, and completely lacking any verbal filter." (Kirkus Reviews)

Banished in disgrace, former Detective Constable Lukarde Alfans endured a dangerous journey to a faraway, forbidden land, experiencing harrowing trauma, torment, and treachery. He arrived in Westport, a city on the western coast of the Freewilds, at the behest of a missive sent by a wizened old knight of the Castillands, and of the promise of a new hope for justice to prevail. Lukarde found himself in a city beset by corruption, imperiled by the machinations of the same dread cult that destroyed his life and sent him into exile.

Dread and terror reign in the Freewilds. The streets of Westport are littered with signs of woe and dismay, of fear and defeat. The Watchers have turned a blind eye to the plight of the people for too long, forsaking the helpless gentry, leaving them prey to monsters and madmen.