Showing results by narrator "Eddie Lopez" in All Categories

What drives someone to keep reaching for all that glitters, no matter the price? It’s easy to believe that more is better: more acclaim, more control, more wealth. But when dreams are fueled by greed, they can quickly twist into nightmares. These six propulsive short stories explore what happens when the true cost of ambition comes due.

Rachel has orchestrated the perfect plan to win back her husband’s attention. A bloody handprint. Signs of a struggle. And a disappearance staged by Rachel herself. He’ll follow the clues, rescue her, and feel needed again. But when Jake doesn’t come looking, Rachel realizes that their marriage has turned darker than she thought.

Navy Lieutenant Podkayne, daughter of Ray Garcia-Strickland, is tired of her job as Martian consul in California - and Earth’s oppressive gravity. So she’s okay with getting called back to Mars, even if it’s because her great-grandmother is sick and being put into suspended animation. After a family reunion, Podkayne’s next port of call is Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, where she can finally realize her dream of being a singer. But just when her life seems to be improving for the better, disaster strikes and Podkayne is put into her own state of suspension.

Today, a vast majority of us live under the economic system called capitalism―it touches almost every aspect of our lives, and most people alive have never known another. Yet, a cursory look at the world around us reveals that things can't stay this way forever: an economy built on infinite...

Twelve-year-old Trish can solve tough math problems and throw a mean fastball. But because of her mom’s new job, she’s now facing a summer trying to make friends all over again in a new town. That isn’t an easy thing to do. But at her first baseball practice, Trish realizes one of her teammates is Ben, the sixth-grade math prodigy she beat in the spring Math Puzzler Championships. When a mysterious booklet of math puzzles claiming to reveal the “ultimate answer” arrives in her mailbox, Trish and Ben start to get closer and solve the puzzles together.

It’s spring break in the Outer Banks, and the islands are swarming with rich tourists. The last thing JJ and John B want to do is spend their week watching Kooks in action, so they plan a fishing getaway to the notoriously dangerous Frying Pan Shoals - nicknamed “Graveyard of the Atlantic” for good reason. Turns out they aren’t the only adventure-seekers at sea. Soon after they set sail, the friends run into the captivating Savannah, who hitches a ride aboard the HMS Pogue when the weather worsens and her boyfriend leaves her stranded.

Noc, leader of the assassins of Cruor, may have broken the curse that's kept him trapped for so many years, but the dark magic won't be denied. If he doesn't kill Leena—the girl he can't live without—then his own life will be given as payment. To make matters worse, the truth of his past has fallen into the hands of his enemies, threatening everyone he's ever loved. And their time is running out.

An imaginative, moving collection of stories infused with the magic and enigma of the human condition and drenched in Texas heat, from the best-selling author of We Burn Daylight. Encounters with Unexpected Animals takes readers deep into the heart of bestselling author Bret Anthony Johnston’s...

The fearless Alatriste is hired to infiltrate a convent and rescue a young girl forced to serve as a powerful priest’s concubine. The girl’s father is barred from legal recourse as the priest threatens to reveal that the man’s family is “not of pure blood” and is, in fact, of Jewish descent—which will all but destroy the family name. As Alatriste struggles to save the young hostage from being burned at the stake, he soon finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a conspiracy that leads all the way to the heart of the Spanish Inquisition.

Jane’s father is far from perfect. But his sudden death brings crushing grief. As Jane grapples with her pain, life delivers another blow: a stack of letters pointing to a secret life. A life her father shared with another woman…who may have had his child. Across the country, sixteen-year-old Adam is self-destructing. His adoptive parents never intended to show him the unsigned letters from his birth mother, but he is desperate for answers, even if they hurt. Jane and Adam are on a collision course, but not for the reasons we might suspect.

As Chinese and US spacecraft compete to be the first to land on Mars, a former astronaut, his cousin, and four teens from Florida decide to take matters into their own hands. If they can quickly build their own space-worthy ship using scrap metal, appliances, and power tools, they have a chance to come from behind - thanks to an inventive new power source that can propel them to the Red Planet within three days. No guts, no glory.

It doesn’t matter that Ray Garcia-Strickland’s father was one of the first men on Mars. The now overdeveloped planet has lost its hip factor, its luxurious hotels - like the one Ray’s father manages - overrun with gravity-dependent tourists from Earth. Ray is over the Red Planet. Soon he gets his own chance at interplanetary adventure when an unknown object hits Earth and causes a massive tsunami. Ray heads back to Florida to help family and friends who’ve survived the devastation - and soon learns the so-called natural disaster could have unnatural consequences.

“Middle Spoon subverts the ordinary novel with intelligence and vulnerability. . . . Varela has made a sly, analytical opera of the heart.” —Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less and Less Is Lost “A rollicking delight! . . . Varela asks provocative questions about the shape of family and the...

Considered “perhaps the most important American play of this century” by The Daily Telegraph, the Tony Award-winning Best Play has arrived on Audible. Based on Howards End by E.M. Forster, The Inheritance takes place in New York City decades after the AIDS epidemic. Eric Glass is a political activist engaged to his writer boyfriend, Toby Darling. When two strangers enter their lives—an older man and a younger one—their futures suddenly become uncertain as they begin to chart divergent paths.

New Year's Eve, 1975: Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, founders of the visceral realist movement in poetry, leave Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala. Their quest: to track down the obscure, vanished poet Cesárea Tinajero. A violent showdown in the Sonora desert turns search to flight; twenty...

When 17-year-old Hunter Gifford wakes up in the hospital on the night of homecoming, he’s shocked to learn he and his girlfriend, Chloe Summers, have been in a terrible car accident. Hunter has no memory of the crash, and his shock turns to horror when he is told Chloe’s blood has been found in the car, but she has disappeared. Back at school, his fellow students taunt him, and his former best friend starts making a true-crime documentary about the case—one that points the finger directly at Hunter.

Ramón López was born along the US–Mexico border but is determined to get out and embrace the American dream—and he’s not sure whether his complicated family is a help or a hindrance. As the son of immigrants, as Ramón grows, his admiration for his entrepreneurial father sours as he watches his dad’s dreams of success wither on the vine. Ramón’s mother is constantly preoccupied with his younger brother, who struggles with intellectual disabilities. And the outside world is rife with danger and temptations threatening to distract Ramón from his dreams of making it to New York.

When a boarding school opens in a once-condemned Victorian manor buried in the woods of New Hampshire, Austen-loving Lorena Navarro enrolls in hopes of finding her own Mr. Darcy. Instead, she stumbles across a coffin and accidentally awakens the world’s last vampire. After hibernating for nearly three centuries, William Pride is desperate to find his family―and clueless about the modern world. Relying on Lorena for more than just blood, he enrolls at the school to catch up on all he’s missed.

Coach John Wooden's teams won 10 NCAA men's basketball championships at UCLA, and Sporting News magazine named him the greatest coach of all time. Decades after he retired, and now after his passing, his wisdom capsulized so clearly in his famous. Pyramid of Success continues to guide new generations of athletes, coaches, and people of all walks of life. In The Greatest Coach Ever, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes features 40 tributes to him from athletes, coaches, and other influential leaders.

On the surface, everything seems perfect for high school senior Ireland Raine. She’s intelligent and artistically talented, and her natural beauty and quiet charm are enviable. However, Ireland harbors a secret she’ll guard at any cost—she’s homeless. When her crush, Kal Ellis, invites her on a date, she seizes the opportunity. Ireland has never had a boyfriend before, and Kal is not just a guitarist for the local band, he’s also an artist. Their connection is instantaneous, and he suggests they collaborate on the school mural.