Showing results by narrator "Pete" in All Categories

I learned very early on that every life matters—no life is insignificant, most especially not my own mother’s, whose life was cruelly slain. I vowed to do what I can so that no one has to feel as if they’re nothing at all when they lose their loved ones. So when I’m forced into a marriage with Dominic Luca—the man next in line to be the head of the biggest crime family in all of New York—the ring he puts on my finger is a gun to my head with his finger on the trigger.

From Lydia Millet—“the American writer with the funniest, wisest grasp on how we fool ourselves” (Chicago Tribune)—comes an inventive new collection of short fiction. Atavists follows a group of families, couples, and loners in their collisions, confessions, and conflicts in a post-pandemic America of artificially lush lawns, beauty salons, tech-bro mansions, assisted-living facilities, big-box stores, gastropubs, college campuses, and medieval role-playing festivals.

Our lives are full of challenges, and too often we struggle to find the answers. Meaning and purpose get lost in the light speed of everyday life, and we often seek guidance from the wrong people. The truth is, we cannot avoid the impact of leadership in our lives, and it is up to us to seek out and become better leaders. Noble Leadership is a movement designed to help us identify our inherent leadership capabilities, find purpose, seek awareness, strive for growth, and promote the well-being of all people.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture.

Johari Yasir has no interest in returning to her homeland to marry a man she's never met - at least, not without sowing some wild oats first. And when a handsome charmer offers to whisk her away in his private plane, she impulsively accepts. Rasheed Valdemon is shocked that his bride-to-be would fly off with someone she barely knows - even though he's the one doing the asking. More surprising is his hunger for this lovely, rebellious woman. Yet what will happen when she realizes she's been seduced by the man who's destined to be her husband?

A story of love, liars and secrets . . . Shady, sexy, suspicious - perfect summer holiday reading' The Times, 2026 Must-Read round-up Shay was no longer in the cult, but still, it made her wedding guests nervous that she was bringing them to an island . . . On a remote island off the coast of...

Feeling like a failure can be pretty exhausting. But chasing after an ever-elusive “success” in money, power, influence, and accolades? That’s even more so. Thankfully there is a better way. In Stop Trying to Be Successful, Pete Portal invites you to recognize the beauty and complexity of the world we live in and to redefine success, choosing love over efficiency, depth over volume and real friendship over cold transactions. It is time for us to remember that true success is not about what we have but about how we live.

In Wildlife Wars, Terry Grosz serves up fascinating stories - alternately hair-raising, hilarious, and heart-wrenching - from his 30-year struggle to protect wildlife in America. A natural storyteller, Grosz writes about the remarkable characters he met - on both sides of the law - as he matched wits with elk poachers, salmon snaggers, commercial-market duck hunters, and a host of other law-breakers. Best of all, though, these stories are so remarkably entertaining you won't want to put them down.

Nick Vandal faces his greatest challenge yet in the Risen Tower, a place of trials and floors designed to test the survivors' limits. As Nick and his new companions battle through casino mazes—and relentless hordes—they uncover the truth behind the Admin's grand design. Hidden enemies within the survivors' ranks plot to sabotage their progress, and success is far from guaranteed. Nick must use every resource, including his knowledge of the future, to navigate the challenges and forge alliances necessary to reach the top.

As the holidays settle in around Houston, Texas, young Austin has but one wish - for a Christmas Daddy. When his mother, Felicia Madaris, learns of his wish, she turns to childhood-rival-turned-family-friend, Trask Maxwell, to help fulfill her young son’s wish. But soon, Felicia realizes that its not just Austin’s Christmas wish that is coming true….

Albertina Zimmerman, known affectionately as “Oma” by her loving grandson, Bernard, was an endless source of fascination and narrator of true stories, whose protagonists were leading figures from music, politics, and the Viennese opera.

This quiet suburban street looks like a normal New York suburb but Lutz family who were the main characters in The Amityville Horror book went through hell in their newly purchased dream home. The said house has a tragic history and Lutz family supposedly experienced it first hand. Yes, it was confirmed that the book featured plenty of false accounts and recollections, but it helped put Amityville on the map and the story soon became well-known throughout the United States and the rest of the world.

Josh Malerman is a master weaver of stories-and in this spine-chilling collection he spins five twisted tales from the shadows of the human soul: A sister tells her little brother that "Half the House Is Haunted" with a presence that only she can see, but is it her own mind that is haunted? In "Argyle," a dying man confesses to crimes he never committed, and reveals long-kept secrets far more sinister than murder. A tourist takes the ultimate trip to outer space in "Jupiter Drop," but the real journey is into his own dark past.

World-renowned sport psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais and Super Bowl-winning NFL Coach Pete Carroll, authors of Compete to Create, team up again for an intimate conversation about the psychology of sport and high performance. If you’ve ever wondered what makes Coach Carroll, known for his optimism and unconventional strategies, tick, here’s your chance to find out. In Finding Your Best, Dr. Gervais and Coach Carroll, who have worked together for almost a decade, explore some of the key tools and principles they use in their work with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.

Every president started out as a kid! Forget the legends, tall tales, and historic achievements - before they were presidents, the future leaders of the United States had regular-kid problems just like you. John F. Kennedy hated his big brother. Lyndon Johnson pulled pranks in class. Barack Obama was bothered by bullies. And Bill Clinton was crazy clumsy (he once broke his leg jumping rope). Kid Presidents tells all of their stories and more in these hilarious biographies. History has never been this much fun!

In a time when people believed flying was impossible, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier proved that the sky wasn’t the limit. When most thought horseback was the only way to race, Bertha and Karl Benz fired up their engines. From the invention of the bicycle and the passenger steam locomotive to the first liquid-fuel propelled rocket and industrial robot, inventors across the world have redefined travel. Informative and celebratory, this collective biography tells the story of the experiments, failures, and successes of visionaries who changed the way the world moves. 

Summer 1944: Yugoslavia is locked in a war within a war. In addition to fighting the German occupation, warring factions battle each other. Hundreds of Allied airmen have been shot down over this volatile region, among them American lieutenant Bill Bogdonavich. Though grateful to the locals who are risking their lives to shelter and protect him from German troops, Bogdonavich dreams of the impossible: escape.   

The near-meltdown of Fukushima, the upheavals in the Middle East, the BP oil rig explosion, and the looming reality of global warming have reminded the president and all U.S. citizens that nothing has more impact on our lives than the supply of and demand for energy. Its procurement dominates our economy and foreign policy more than any other factor. But the "energy question" is more confusing, contentious, and complicated than ever before.

We are all indebted to Carl Watner for uncovering an unknown work by the great Lysander Spooner, one that managed to escape the editor of Spooner’s Collected Works. Both the title and the substance of “Vices are not Crimes” highlight the unique role that morality and moral principle had for Spooner among the anarchists and libertarians of his day. For Spooner was the last of the great natural-rights theorists among anarchists, classical liberals, or moral theorists generally.

It has been a decade since Keanu was rescued from the clutches of a madman intent on enslaving the realm. Nearly sixteen years of age, Keanu and his friends seek to recover from the trauma of their childhood, but war is brewing, and pain has just begun.