Showing results by narrator "Nick Podehl" in All Categories

Boldly go where no geek has gone before! You keep your action figures in their original packaging. Your closets are full of officially licensed Star Wars merchandise. You’re hooked on Elder Scrolls and Metal Gear, but now you’ve discovered an even bigger obsession: the new girl who just moved in down the hall. What’s a geek to do? Take some tips from The Geek’s Guide to Dating. This hilarious primer is jam-packed with cheat codes, walkthroughs, and power-ups for navigating the perils and pitfalls of your love life with ease.

Sebastien Ranes has drifted aimlessly since graduating from high school six months ago. Down on his luck, the 19-year-old is recovering from pneumonia, working a dead-end job, and living in a shabby makeshift bedroom in the basement of his mother and stepfather’s home. Looking to escape his lousy situation, Sebastien robs a local grocery store and makes off with $4,800 - but not without the store’s security cameras spotting him. Driven to a state of panic, Sebastien is hit by a drunk driver.

If Jess Stark really knew what was on the other side of the coffin lid, he might just decide to remain six feet under…. Jess stayed away from Palm Springs for seven years, avoiding his family and the girl who broke his heart. It took a desperate call from his mother to force him home to see his ailing father. As soon as he was back, Jess found himself embroiled in two suspicious deaths, emotional turmoil with his family, and a supernatural secret that involved them all. The best Welcome Home he received? Winding up in an unmarked grave in the middle of the Coachella Desert.

This audiobook focuses on issues specific to high school age kids, ages 14-18. Teens in high school have mainly moved past worrying about puberty and cliques, so stories in this book cover topics of interest to older teens such as sports and clubs, religion and faith, driving, curfews, growing up, self-image and self-acceptance, dating and sex, family relationships, friends, divorce, illness, death, pregnancy, drinking, failure, and preparing for life after high school.

The cards are stacking up against Gabriel James: first there’s Phil, the guy paying the bills for Gabe’s mom (but not leaving his wife). Then there’s Gabe’s new school, filled with kids competing for the Ivies, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street—while Gabe’s just trying to swing enough Cs to graduate.

In a period of just three days, everything changes for young painter Eduardo “Tato” Simmone, who has never sold a painting. During the funeral of Tato’s renowned and beloved mentor, Aníbal Marsotti, Tato meets two people who will determine his fate: a beautiful young woman who may be a vampire and a major dealer of art forgeries. Tato gets caught up investigating the theft of famed Italian figurative painter Amadeo Modigliani’s tombstone, and all signs point to Curitiba, Brazil - Tato’s hometown.

In the tradition of Colson Whitehead's Zone One, a visionary debut novel about shelter, escape, family, violence, and dumpster diving. It's the story of a restless group of young squatters. They've run away from their families and their pasts, questing after knowledge of their most wild selves, roaming the half-empty suburbs of America, occupying the homes of the foreclosed or vacationing, never staying in one place long enough to attract attention while shoplifting beer at the local Speedy Stop.

Genius girl, Bounce, and her two drifter sidekicks, Wiggins and Orange, are holding the Frog hostage. As the stakes grow higher and the guilt and tension mount, Wiggins begins to question his complicity and must choose where his loyalties lie. Not for the faint of heart, Adam Rapp’s mesmerizing narrative told in alternating viewpoints ventures deep into disturbing territory. A powerful, unforgettable story.

Speakeasy manager Clara Woodsen will do anything to save her silent film idol from an untimely death. Even summon a demon. Even bet her soul she can teach his half-human/half-cheetah assistant to foxtrot. But people around town are acting strange. Have Clara's efforts unleashed a zombie plague? Or are her customers just really bad at dancing the Charleston? And can Clara find true happiness with the man of her dreams if she uses her...brains?

To become a demon, you must die in complete and utter despair. Three hundred years ago, Max passed that test with flying colors and joined the afterlife resolving never again to have innocent blood on his hands. Now Max has been given the job of breaking a young witch's family curse. But what she doesn't know, what Max can't bring himself to tell her, is that completing his mission almost certainly means her death.

The United States prides itself on being the world’s melting pot, but during a long, hot summer in coastal North Carolina, three young people will put that theory to the test. A German named Tillmann is vacationing in the States with his girlfriend and corresponding with an African American colleague about the evolution of blues music.

Being yourself can be such a bad idea. For 16-year-old Badi Hessamizadeh, life is a series of humiliations. After withdrawing from public school under mysterious circumstances, Badi enters Magnificat Academy. To make things "easier", his dad has even given him a new name: Bud Hess. Grappling with his Iranian-American identity, clinical depression, bullying, and a barely bottled rage, Bud is an outcast who copes by resorting to small revenges and covert acts of defiance, but the pressures of his home life and the unrequited affection of his new friend, Nikki, prime him for a more dangerous revolution.

A few months after doctors tell him he has only a year to live, a precocious fifteen-year-old from a small town in Virginia has an intense reaction to The Catcher in the Rye. Deriving inspiration from J. D. Salinger’s narrative, Daniel Landon begins to question the intentions and authority of those around him in his own search for identity in the face of death.

Three million dollars, illegal drugs, and a woman with a violent history - what could possibly go wrong? Brian Jeffries is a life insurance agent who's willing to cut corners if he must to sell a policy. It's all fine until the death of a client puts everything he values at risk.

Nomad didn't expect to run into anyone as he perused the city junkyard. He most certainly didn't expect he'd meet anyone like Azrael, an old man shrouded in mystery. Although they've never met, Azrael appears to know a lot about Nomad and his family. How his mother seems to be lost in another world. Nomad knows something isn't right, but when it comes time for Nomad to face the truth, only Azrael can help. This is a short story told at its natural length that you might find yourself listening to twice.

Sometimes your only chance to survive and what you most fear...is to be Inked. Tattoos once were an act of rebellion. Now they decide your destiny the moment the magical Ink settles under your skin. And in a world where Ink controls your fate, Caenum can't escape soon enough. He is ready to run from his family; his best friend, Dreya; and the home he has known just to have a chance at a choice.

Azeril can't remember anything about his life before he came to live as a ward of the Church - except his desire to assassinate wizards. He's become the Church's most cunning weapon. By day, Az hides in plain sight as a student, with only his beloved obsidian knife as a reminder of who he is.

Dave Harris is a scientist living aboard the Alley, a military space station where he carries out hyperfield experiments. The technology to harvest energy from hyperspace saved humanity from extinction thirty years ago, and Dave’s research is at the cutting edge of hyperfield technology. Just as Dave’s experiments make progress, an accident engulfs the Alley in a whirlwind of chaos and mysterious forces, leading Dave to a disturbing discovery: His work has uncovered the energy behind psychic powers...

Walker shouldn’t be so surprised to find Jesus standing in the middle of his bedroom. After all, he prayed for whoever was up there to help his mom, who hasn’t stopped crying since Noah died, two months ago. But since when have prayers actually been answered? And since when has Jesus been so...irreverent? As astounding as Jesus’ sudden appearance is, it’s going to take more than divine intervention for Walker to come to terms with his brother’s death. Why would God take 17-year-old Noah when half of the residents in his mom’s nursing home are waiting to die?

Rubion Federation ship HMS Belsus visits a 300-year-old colony planet, and discovers a society near revolution against the rule of a "transfigured being" known as Toth. Commander Michael Queal's crew and ship are immediately threatened by Toth and his followers, including a host of strange bioengineered creatures unique to the planet. Only a banished people on a remote island are willing to aid Queal in his fight to bring freedom to the colony, and allow him to survive the wrath of a monstrous, unbalanced dictator. But help sometimes comes from unexpected directions!