Showing results by narrator "Michael Troy" in All Categories

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success.

After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there's no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust. Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

A great primal power has risen. The Queen of Flesh and Fire has become the Primal of Blood and Bone—the true Primal of Life and Death. And the battle Casteel, Poppy, and their allies have been fighting has only just begun. Gods are awakening across Iliseeum and the mortal realm, readying for the war to come. But when Poppy falls into stasis, Cas faces the very real possibility that the dire, unexpected consequences of what she is becoming could take her away from him.

Poppy never dreamed she would find the love she's found with Prince Casteel. She wants to revel in her happiness but first they must free his brother and find hers. It's a dangerous mission and one with far-reaching consequences neither dreamed of. Because Poppy is the Chosen, the Blessed. The true ruler of Atlantia. She carries the blood of the King of Gods within her. By right the crown and the kingdom are hers.

When the body of a night watchman is found sprawled in the shadow of a rare 19th-Dynasty mummy case, panic ensues. For no one doubts that the guard's untimely demise is the work of an ancient Egyptian curse. No one, that is, except that tart-tongued Victorian Egyptologist, Amelia Peabody, whose remarkable talent for criminal investigation has frustrated villains from London to Cairo.

Beaten, drugged, and tied, I sink beneath the surface. Water invades my mouth. It seeps down my throat and fills my lungs until breathing becomes a desperate memory. My only hope are the three men who know the evil of my attacker. If I make it through this, we can’t fail again. A murderer needs to be found. Caleb needs to pay for what he did to me. He has another woman held hostage, bound, and gagged. But she’s not the only one. There are others who will befall the same fate as me if Caleb and his friends aren’t stopped.

At the edge of a grave, one man lies dead. Another flees, leaving behind a trail of destruction and heartbreak. In the middle, I’m left with a sister I didn’t know I had and three men I’m falling hopelessly in love with. But new threats endanger our happiness at every turn. Secrets hide in corners and evil lurks in the darkness. Caleb won’t stop until one of us is dead. Until my rebel heart beats for the final time. Or until I rip his out.

"You may now kiss your bride". They were the last words my mother heard before she collapsed on the church steps, poison ending her pitifully short life. When her new husband dies minutes later, all eyes turn to me. There are whispers. Accusations. The verdict is split. I murdered them both. Or I'm the next to die.

In the Wild-West wilderness of the Frontier, a sheriff has been tasked with escorting the captured servant of the vampire Nobility to the authorities in the Capital. Unfortunately, the stagecoach route they must follow crosses into the territory of the servant’s master, the dread Duke Sinistre!

Abandoned by her allies, the Republic of Venice holds out as the last beacon of resistance against the hobgoblin armies. Armed with new weapons the Southern Horde drives upon the floating city by land and sea. The Northern Horde drives deep into the heart of Europa and all fall before it. The Horde is vast beyond measure. Assassin daggers lurk in every shadow. Necrotic evil seeps and infects.

It's 1892, and Amelia and her now-husband Radcliffe Emerson have settled down in Victorian England after their escapade in Egypt. They're raising their young son Ramses and everything seems normal–until they are approached by a damsel in distress. Lady Baskerville's husband, Sir Henry, has died after uncovering what might be a royal tomb in Luxor. Despite rumors of a curse haunting all those involved with the dig, Amelia and Radcliffe proceed to Egypt and realize that Sir Henry did not die a natural death.

When Dr. Watson returns to London from a weekend seminar, he finds hat Sherlock Holmes has been arrested. Inspector Lestrade refers Watson to a questionable psychiatric hospital where Holmes is jailed for mental incapacity.

"A Report to an Academy" (German: "Ein Bericht für eine Akademie") is a short story by Franz Kafka, written and published in 1917. In the story, an ape named Red Peter, who has learned to behave like a human, presents to an academy the story of how he effected his transformation. The story was first published by Martin Buber in the German monthly Der Jude, along with another of Kafka's stories, "Jackals and Arabs" ("Schakale und Araber"). The story appeared again in a 1919 collection titled Ein Landarzt (A Country Doctor).

The Odradek is an imaginary creature that appears in the short story "The Concerns of a Family Man" by Franz Kafka . The physical description of the Odradek shows it as a flat, star-shaped spool of thread, with the addition of a few other appendages. Later in the story, Kafka gives the Odradek more human characteristics, being able to stand on two legs and speak. The narrator even gets to have a few conversations with the Odradek, during which the creature's nomadic and possibly immortal nature is emphasized.

In the Year 2889 is an 1889 short story published under the name of Jules Verne, but now believed to be mainly the work of his son Michel Verne, based on his father's ideas. Little though they seem to think of it, the people of this twenty-ninth century live continually in fairyland. Surfeited as they are with marvels, they are indifferent in presence of each new marvel.

When Dr. Watson returns to London from a weekend seminar, he finds hat Sherlock Holmes has been arrested. Inspector Lestrade refers Watson to a questionable psychiatric hospital where Holmes is jailed for mental incapacity.

"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is relayed by an unnamed narrator who endeavors to convince the reader of his sanity while simultaneously describing a murder he committed. The victim was an old man with a filmy "vulture-eye", as the narrator calls it. The narrator emphasizes the careful calculation of the murder, and he hides the body by dismembering it, and hiding it under the floorboards.

"The Masque of the Red Death", originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy" (1842), is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death, by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, hosts a masquerade ball within seven rooms of the abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure disguised as a Red Death victim enters and makes his way through each of the rooms.

When Dr. Watson returns to London from a weekend seminar, he finds hat Sherlock Holmes has been arrested. Inspector Lestrade refers Watson to a questionable psychiatric hospital where Holmes is jailed for mental incapacity.

"The Terrible Old Man" is a very short short story (less than 1200 words) by H. P. Lovecraft, written on January 28, 1920, and first published in the Tryout, an amateur press publication, in July 1921. It is notable as the first story to make use of Lovecraft's imaginary New England setting, introducing the fictional town of Kingsport. Plot: A strange old man, "so old that no one can remember when he was young, and so taciturn that few know his real name," lives alone in an ancient house on Water Street in the town of Kingsport.