Showing results by narrator "A A Maynard" in All Categories

In Shattered to Shining, nine women and one male domestic violence survivor describe how they were shattered, as their home became a place where physical and sexual violence, emotional and psychological control dominated their lives. Through persistence and courage, they have risen above their situation and come out the other side shining with positivity, strength, commitment, and empathy for others.

“The strait jacket’s canvas held my arms tight. My six-two was horizontal on a stretcher and the two bruisers carried it and my 205 pounds easily down the long corridor. I was confused as modern art, and being in this stupid asylum didn’t help. I was dumped onto a bed, yelling like a fiend. A needle, a stinging sensation in my neck and it was lights out for me. I awoke with a light beaming upon my face. A blade moved upward through the beam of light. And suddenly I was wide awake, thinking: This idiot is about to stab me! Me? I’m Shell Scott private eye and I’m in a lot of trouble...”

In this sequel to Shanji, Yesui is Mei-Lai-Gong, the empress of light, born with the ability to move both light and mass in and out of the place of creation called the gong-shi-jie. Her brother Mengjai, seemingly normal at birth, conceals a power Yesui has not imagined. Working to save a dying planet, they learn that love can be found in strange places; that in an infinite universe, no matter how many powers you have, there is always someone more powerful; and that death is not an ending but a change....

Mando Killion's world was shattered by Santa Anna's brutal invasion of Texas. Scion of a wealthy ranching dynasty, he saw his father die at the Alamo, his mother and brothers murdered, and his beautiful sister taken hostage by a debauched Mexican General. Mando came of age during the most violent days of Texas history, as a hearty band of patriots led by Sam Houston fought a bloody revolution for freedom from tyranny.

On their way to Colorado, Ruff and Dixie Ballou drive their horses through New Mexico. Their intention to quietly drive the horses on through goes well until they find themselves inadvertently involved in a shootout with four outlaws who robbed the banks of a small town in New Mexico. An edgy sheriff and angry townspeople get the Ballou’s involved in a situation they would be more happy to do without. Even more so when they are arrested by the sheriff as robbery suspects.

A mocking Comanche warrior butchered the sable-haired woman in front of Golden Hawk's eyes; then confirmed that his beautiful, golden haired sister Annabelle was still the captive of a brutal Blackfoot chief. Golden Hawk's one man war flamed with fresh fury. No man fought the Indians as fiercely, for he had a terrible blood-score to settle. Along with a wanderer named Bill Williams and a pack of hard-as-nails mountain men, Golden Hawk was ready for action against the most murderous tribes in the West.

J. Harrison Bing after receiving no word from his daughter in nearly a year, went to her home in L.A. only to find she had sold the home and left without a trace. He hired a Los Angeles P. I. named William Carter to track her down and after calling from Vegas, he also disappeared. Now it is Shell Scott's turn. Assuming a simple case of finding a missing person, Shell finds out the hard way that he has bitten into an elephant.

"There was a fire in her eyes that was scorching me - me, who couldn't tell whether a dame wanted to kiss me or kill me! No matter how you look at it, 36-22-35 are magic numbers. They have a real message for me. I'm Shell Scott, the private eye, and I'm very good at figures. You might say I follow them very carefully. I've been following this one for several days and learned her name is Sherry. I hated to think she was mixed in murder. But somebody was planning to send me to my friendly neighborhood mortician and I had to find out who - or die trying."

Hallettsville, Texas was overrun by Yankees and Northern corruption after the Civil War, and ex-Confederate officer Slate Creed lost everything when Yankees stole his home, named him an outlaw and condemned him to die as well... On the run since his home-coming after the Civil War, Slate Creed sees a chance to clear his name. To do so, he must find Quade, the man who helped frame him. The hard part will be getting him back to Texas to tell the tale...especially when a trumped-up charge of murder threatens to put both their necks in the noose.

Mercury’s Crypt is a hero's journey about a young necromancer named Mika. She is chosen to become the next Channeler in her lineage, to take up a ritual that opens the veil between the world of the living and the dead. When Mika performs the ritual, the spirits of the dead begin to possess those from her village. Mika must discover the cause of the possessions. She will have to use the powers of her birthright and journey through the Land of the Dead to save her village.

Golden Hawk's beautiful sister Annabelle had been kidnapped by a Comanche band, and Hawk knew all too well what was being done to her. Even more maddening was his discovery that she was being passed from hand to hand as he pursued her abductors. The Comanches, the Blackfoot, and then a mammoth mountain man named Gar Trimm, all in turn took possession of her as Golden Hawk battled the cruelest odds of nature and man to free Annabelle and wreak a revenge that made death sweet...

As Hawk watched the Blackfoot warriors attack their Bannock Indian enemies, he was shocked at what he saw. The Blackfoot were attacking not in the helter-skelter Indian manner, but with an organized military precision that could make them the most powerful fighting force in the West. Then Hawk saw the reason why. Mounted on a horse beside the Blackfoot chief, Spotted Pony, was a white man with a cavalry sabre raised high in the air to order the Blackfoot charge. It was James Cantrell.

"The grizzly stepped back, caught Hawk with his left paw, and flung him aside like a piece of carrion. Hawk landed heavily on his back, managing somehow to hang on to the bowie knife. Dazed, bleeding from his wounds, he stared up at the slavering, bleeding jaws of the huge grizzly, no longer confident that he or his bowie could do anything more than irritate the monster. Rearing up onto his hind legs, the bear uttered a fearsome roar, then came down hard and shambled forward to finish off Hawk...."

It started when a gravely injured trapper named Pete Foxwell stumbled into Hawk's cabin. Before he died, he showed Hawk a bagful of gold coins, and told him about a hidden hoard of them. But he didn't say where. Hawk should have buried those coins with Pete's corpse, but instead he spent them on supplies and let slip the story of the treasure waiting to be found. Suddenly Hawk found himself the most wanted man in the West as a band of sea-going land pirates decided they would nail his hide and grab the gold....

Golden Hawk. Half white man, half Comanche. Mountain man. Pathfinder. Wagon master. Army scout. A legend in his own time. An awesome nemesis to his ememies. But a bulwark and a haven to those facing the terrors of that raw, savage land. Perhaps this is why Kathleen MacLennan was so anxious to convince Hawk to act as guide for her wagon train. It's destination lay straight through Indian country where a murderous horde of Bannock Indians were attacking and killing wagon train immigrants.

Golden Hawk hires out to lead a band of tenderfeet through a maze of mountains and dead-end gullies ruled by the proud Blackfoot nation. To complicate matters, the great Blackfoot warrior chief Black Feather has vowed to take Golden Hawk's scalp. Further bloodying the waters is a raging tribal war in which Golden Hawk has to take sides and take lives, while a mountain man named Elias Hogwood proves a white man can be as savage as a redskin and twice as treacherous....

Astronauts Jim Parker and Michael Murphy, aboard the space shuttle Charger II, were wrapping up a routine mission. Just prior to re-entry, they encountered a mysterious cloud bank in space and were never heard from again. Two years later, a metal box was unearthed at a construction site in St. Louis. In it was a previously unknown, yet apparently authentic, journal of the historic Lewis and Clark expedition: written by astronaut Jim Parker. Did Parker and Murphy alter history, or save it?

Where do you go when you've gone too far? That's the question Neil Van Ness faces as his carefully constructed life unravels before his eyes. The first blow comes with the discovery of his wife's affair, betraying and devastating both a friendship and a marriage. The second comes from a news report on TV when Neil learns he's the target of a nationwide manhunt by the FBI for the murder of his parents 15 years ago - a crime he didn't commit.

In the wake of disaster, the surviving members of the Ballou family sought a new beginning on the Texas Frontier. A minister and his family become their traveling companions. Tragedy strikes when the minister and his young daughter are attacked by rattlesnakes and severely bitten. Their lives depend on the only medical attention available, that of a Comanche medicine man. And it is up to Ruff to persuade the reluctant Comanches to give them aid.

Ruff Ballou and his sister Dixie journeyed west with trouble at their heels. But luck is on their side in Rum River, New Mexico, where they race one of their champion thoroughbreds to victory. A rich man’s greed pits their good fortune against Ruff's life and they must take up a money-making challenge to capture Blue Bullet, the legendary stallion that no man has yet tamed. But their worst enemy is time. A bounty has been placed on Blue Bullet, dead or alive, and savage killers are out to collect that reward.