Buck Schirner has narrated 37 audiobooks on Listento.it by 34 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 1,371 ratings. The most-rated is The Poet.
Violet Dawn
Summary
Something sinuous in the water brushed against Paige's knee. She jerked her leg away. What was that? She rose to a sitting position, groped around with her left hand. Fine wisps wound themselves around her fingers. Hair? She yanked backward, but the tendrils clung. Something solid bumped her wrist. Paige gasped. With one frantic motion, she shook her arm free, grabbed the side of the hot tub, and heaved herself out. Paige Williams slips into her hot tub in the blackness of night - and finds herself face to face with death. Alone, terrified, fleeing a dark past, Paige must make an unthinkable choice. In Violet Dawn, hurtling events and richly drawn characters collide in a breathless story of murder, the need to belong, and faith's first glimmer. One woman's secrets unleash an entire town's pursuit, and the truth proves as elusive as the killer in their midst.
©2011 Brandilyn Collins (P)2011 Zondervan
Amber Morn
Summary
In book four of the Kanner Lake Series, a Saturday morning celebration at Java Joint coffee shop for the Scenes and Beans bloggers turns into terror when three gunmen burst into the shop, shoot one person, and hold the rest hostage. Their demand: the worlds attention. The stakes: the lives of over a dozen Kanner Lake citizens.
©2008 Brandilyn Collins (P)2009 Zondervan
Off the Grid
Summary
On a sailboat 10 miles off the Florida Keys, Grace MacBride, partner in Monkeewrench Software, thwarts an assassination attempt on retired FBI agent John Smith. A few hours later, in Minneapolis, a 15-year-old girl is found in a vacant lot, her throat slashed. Later that morning, two young men are found in their home a few blocks away, killed execution style. The next morning, three more men are found savagely murdered in the same neighborhood. As Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth struggle to link the crime scenes, they discover that there have been similar murders in other cities across the United States. Piece by piece, evidence accumulates, pointing to a suspect whose identity shocks them to the core, uncovering a motive that puts the entire Midwest on high alert and Monkeewrench in the direct line of fire. Before it’s all over, Grace and her partners, Annie, Roadrunner, and Harley Davidson, find themselves in the middle of a shocking collision of violence on a remote northern Minnesota Indian reservation, fighting for their lives.
©2012 Off the Grid (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Acts of Love
Summary
An odyssey of the heart begins the moment theater director Lucas Cameron discovers a box of letters written to his now-deceased grandmother by her protégé, Jessica Fontaine. Jessica disappeared from the stage years before, following a tragic accident. Through her letters, Lucas comes to fall in love with this passionate, talented woman, and seeks her out - only to find a bitter recluse whose hopes and desires have been crushed by fate.
Although she refuses to return to New York and the life she abandoned, Jessica and Lucas begin a correspondence that strengthens and sustains her. This lifeline helps her to return to the career from which she was cruelly wrenched, and to the man who steadfastly loves and believes in her. One hesitant step at a time, she begins her journey back to her art, and to a life where anything - even love - is possible.
©2008 Judith Michael (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Monkeewrench
Summary
Haunted by a series of horrifying and violent episodes in their past, Grace McBride and the oddball crew of her software company, Monkeewrench, create a computer game where the killer is always caught, where the good guys always win. But their game becomes a nightmare when someone starts duplicating the fictional murders in real life, down to the last detail. By the time the police realize what's happening, three people are dead, and with 17 more murder scenarios available online, there are 17 more potential victims. While the authorities scramble to find the killer in a city paralyzed by fear, the Monkeewrench staff are playing their own game, analyzing victim profiles in a frantic attempt to discover the murderer's next target. In a thriller populated by characters both hilarious and heartbreaking, a rural Wisconsin sheriff, two Minneapolis police detectives, and Grace's gang are all caught in a web of decades-old secrets that could get them all killed.
©2004 P. J. Tracy (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Abduction
Summary
Ben Brice lives alone in the New Mexico wilderness, where he battles memories of Vietnam with oceans of Jim Beam. Miles away in Texas, his estranged son, John, an Internet geek turned billionaire, half watches his daughter Gracie’s soccer game while conducting business on his cell phone. When her mother, Elizabeth, arrives, the coach reports that her uncle has already collected Gracie. But Gracie has no uncle - she was kidnapped.
From international best-selling author Mark Gimenez comes a terrifying child-in-jeopardy thriller in which dark family secrets make the finding of 10-year-old Gracie Brice more uncertain with every passing minute. And so begins a furious race against time to save Gracie from unknown kidnappers. With the FBI camped out in the Brice mansion, the family offers a reward of $25 million.
Somehow, Ben and John Brice must find Gracie before it is too late. As the story unfolds with riveting twists and turns, the listener discovers that behind the kidnapping is an extraordinary government plot that could change the course of American history.
©2007 Mark Gimenez (P)2007 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Count Your Blessings - 101 Stories of Gratitude, Fortitude, and Silver Linings
Summary
This follow-on audiobook to Tough Times, Tough People continues Chicken Soup for the Soul’s focus on inspiration and hope in these difficult times. These inspirational stories remind us that each day holds something to be thankful for - whether it is having the sun shine or having food on the table. Power outages and storms, health scares and illnesses, job woes and financial insecurities, housing challenges and family worries test us all. But there is always a silver lining. The simple pleasures of family, home, health, and inexpensive good times are described. These stories of optimism, faith, and strength will make a great start to 2010.
©2008 Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Dead Zero
Summary
Who killed Whiskey 2-2? And why won’t it stay dead? A marine sniper team on a mission in tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Whiskey 2-2 is ambushed by professionals using the latest high-tech shooting gear. Badly wounded, the team’s sole survivor, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka “the Cruise Missile”, is determined to finish his job. He almost succeeds when a mystery blast terminates his enterprise, leaving a 30-foot crater where a building used to be — and where Sergeant Cruz was meant to be hiding. Months pass. Ray’s target, an Afghan warlord named Ibrahim Zarzi, sometimes called “The Beheader”, becomes an American asset in the region and beyond, beloved by State, the Administration, and the Agency. He arrives in Washington for consecration as Our Man in Kabul. But so does a mysterious radio transmission, in last year’s code. It’s from Whiskey 2-2: MISSION WILL BE COMPLETED. CONFIDENCE IS HIGH. Is Ray Cruz back? Has he gone rogue, is he insane, or just insanely angry? Will he succeed, though his antagonists now include the CIA, the FBI, and the same crew of bad boys that nearly killed him in Zabol province? Not to mention Bob Lee Swagger and a beautiful CIA agent named Susan Okada who gives Swagger more than just a patriotic reason to take the case. Swagger, the legendary hero of seven of Hunter’s novels, is recruited by the FBI to stop the Cruise Missile from reaching his target. The problem is that the more Swagger learns about what happened in Zabol, the more he questions the U.S. government’s support of Zarzi and the more he identifies with Cruz as hunter instead of prey. With its hallmark accuracy on modern killing technologies, Dead Zero features an older, more contemplative Swagger, but never lets up on the razor-sharp dialogue, vivid characterizations, extraordinary action scenes, and dazzling prose that define Hunter’s landmark series.
©2010 Stephen Hunter (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Zen and Now
Summary
In 1968, Robert Pirsig and his son, Chris, made the cross-country motorcycle trip that was the basis for
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book that has inspired generations with its searching personal and philosophical narrative.
After rereading the book at the onset of middle age, reporter Mark Richardson tuned up his old Suzuki dirt bike and became a "Pirsig Pilgrim", one of the legions of fans who regularly retrace the author's route from Minneapolis to San Francisco.
Richardson, like Pirsig before him, traveled the lonely roads of the American West, where he encountered many of the same people and places that inspired Pirsig. Richardson also corresponded with the reclusive author and his legendary editor, James Landis, and uncovered new details about Pirsig's mental illness, his unhappy celebrity, and his struggle to put his life together after the brutal murder of his son in 1979.
Published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Pirsig's trip, Zen and Now is an intellectual adventure, a meditation on the values of a classic book, and an inquiry into its relevance to the complex and bewildering world we inhabit today.
©2008 Mark Richardson (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Dead Zero
Summary
Who killed Whiskey 2-2? And why won’t it stay dead?
A marine sniper team on a mission in tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Whiskey 2-2 is ambushed by professionals using the latest high-tech shooting gear. Badly wounded, the team’s sole survivor, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka “the Cruise Missile”, is determined to finish his job. He almost succeeds when a mystery blast terminates his enterprise, leaving a 30-foot crater where a building used to be — and where Sergeant Cruz was meant to be hiding.
Months pass. Ray’s target, an Afghan warlord named Ibrahim Zarzi, sometimes called “The Beheader”, becomes an American asset in the region and beyond, beloved by State, the Administration, and the Agency. He arrives in Washington for consecration as Our Man in Kabul. But so does a mysterious radio transmission, in last year’s code. It’s from Whiskey 2-2: MISSION WILL BE COMPLETED. CONFIDENCE IS HIGH.
Is Ray Cruz back? Has he gone rogue, is he insane, or just insanely angry? Will he succeed, though his antagonists now include the CIA, the FBI, and the same crew of bad boys that nearly killed him in Zabol province? Not to mention Bob Lee Swagger and a beautiful CIA agent named Susan Okada who gives Swagger more than just a patriotic reason to take the case.
Swagger, the legendary hero of seven of Hunter’s novels, is recruited by the FBI to stop the Cruise Missile from reaching his target. The problem is that the more Swagger learns about what happened in Zabol, the more he questions the U.S. government’s support of Zarzi and the more he identifies with Cruz as hunter instead of prey.
With its hallmark accuracy on modern killing technologies, Dead Zero features an older, more contemplative Swagger, but never lets up on the razor-sharp dialogue, vivid characterizations, extraordinary action scenes, and dazzling prose that define Hunter’s landmark series.
©2010 Stephen Hunter (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Dead Run
Summary
Monkeewrench founders Grace McBride and Annie Belinsky, along with Deputy Sharon Mueller, are driving from Minneapolis to Green Bay, where they believe a new serial killer is just warming up. Unfortunately, their car breaks down deep in the northern woods, far away from civilization and cell towers. A walk through the forest leads them to the crossroads town of Four Corners, where they had hoped to find a landline and a mechanic, but instead find...absolutely nothing. Something terrible has happened in Four Corners, and the complete absence of life and severed phone lines in every building make it impossible to get help. Grace, her senses honed by a lifetime of justifiable paranoia, sees the sinister in every detail, and her intuition barely saves all three of them when they witness a horrifying double murder. Grace, Annie, and Sharon are suddenly running for their lives, while the rest of the Monkeewrench crew, along with Minneapolis cops Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth, strike out on a blind search to find them.
©2006 P.J. Tracy (P)2005 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
In Search of Tiger
Summary
Tom Callahan has written the seminal book on golfing great Tiger Woods. Woods, who has gone out of his way to protect his privacy, has never allowed himself to get close enough to a writer to be properly examined on the page. Callahan, commonly regarded as one of the best all-round sports writers in the country, has followed Tiger around the world of golf for more than seven years, enjoying a certain access to the man and his family. He even went so far as to travel to Vietnam to learn the fate of the South Vietnamese soldier who was Earl Wood's best friend during the war - and his son's namesake. Tiger is 20 years old when the book opens and 27 when it closes. During those years, Callahan covered Woods at all the Majors, including the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the British Open, culminating in Tiger's heart-stopping race to make history by clinching the string of Majors affectionately nicknamed the Tiger Slam. Along the way, Tom Callahan hears from everyone who is anyone in the world of Tiger Woods, including Phil Mickelson, Jack Nicklaus, David Duval, Butch Harmon, Ernie Els, and, of course, Tiger's rather ubiquitous mother and father. As much as we learn about Tiger - how he sees himself in relation to the courses he plays on and the players he has learned from and competed with - we also enjoy a bird's-eye view of golf as it is now with Tiger on the scene, and as it was for centuries before.
©2004 Tom Callahan (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
One Breath Away
Summary
In the midst of a sudden spring snowstorm, an unknown man armed with a gun walks into an elementary school classroom. Outside the school, the town of Broken Branch watches and waits.
Officer Meg Barrett holds the responsibility for the town’s children in her hands. Will Thwaite, reluctantly entrusted with the care of his two grandchildren by the daughter who left home years earlier, stands by helplessly and wonders if he has failed his child again. Trapped in her classroom, Evelyn Oliver watches for an opportunity to rescue the children in her care. And 13-year-old Augie Baker, already struggling with the aftermath of a terrible accident that has brought her to Broken Branch, will risk her own safety to protect her little brother.
As tension mounts with each passing minute, the hidden fears and grudges of the small town are revealed as the people of Broken Branch race to uncover the identity of the stranger who holds their children hostage.
©2012 Heather Gudenkauf (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Shoot to Thrill
Summary
It begins with a floater. When Minneapolis homicide cops Rolseth and Magozzi are called to a derelict stretch of the Mississippi River, they see a bride, facedown, dead in the water. And when the Monkeewrench crew – computer geeks who made a fortune on games, now assisting the cops with special anticrime software – are invited by the FBI to investigate a series of murder videos posted to the Web, it’s not long before the group discovers the frightening link between the unlucky bride and the latest, most horrific use of the Internet yet. Using their skills to scour the Net to prevent more killings, the team must race against the clock…before it’s too late.
©2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.; 2010 P. J. Tracy (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Taking Lottie Home
Summary
An Elegant Story of Love Given, Love Returned, and Love Remembered When Foster Lanier and Ben Phelps are released from a professional baseball team in 1904, it is the only experience they have in common until they meet a runaway - a girl-woman named Lottie Parker - on a train that takes them from Augusta, Georgia, and away from their dreams of greatness. Foster will marry her and father her son. Ben will escort her home. And Lottie will change the lives of everyone she meets from the day she runs away until she finally finds the place where she belongs. The story of Lottie reveals the life of a rare woman who never completely loses the innocence of her dreams - although she leaves home as a prostitute and works the girlie tent in a traveling carnival. Her marriage to Foster and the birth of her son are part of her dream. Having Ben care for her following Foster's death, being accepted into the home of Margaret Phelps, Ben's mother, and meeting Arthur Ledford, the father of Ben's fiancee, are fragments of the dream as well.
©2004 Terry Kay (P)2004 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Man from Stone Creek
Summary
There was trouble in Haven, Arizona, and Ranger Sam O'Ballivan was determined to sort it all out. Badge and gun hidden, he arrived posing as the new schoolteacher, and his first order of business was to bring the rough ranchers' children under control. To that end, he called on Maddie Chancelor, the local postmistress, whose younger brother was in firm need of discipline. Sam wasn't sure what to expect - but it was definitely not this graceful woman whose prim, proper stance was so at odds with the fire in her eyes. Working undercover to capture a dangerous band of rustlers and train robbers was a job that had always kept him apart from other people. He was a man with his heart firmly in check - until Maddie. Now she was unwittingly tempting him down a path he swore he'd never travel.
©2006 Brilliance Audio, Inc. (P)2006 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Uncle Tom's Cabin (AmazonClassics Edition)
Summary
When a Kentucky farmer is forced to sell two slaves to a plantation owner, it becomes a turning point in the lives of both slaves. For Eliza, it's one of escape - a harrowing flight north with her young son. For Uncle Tom, sent down the Mississippi River, it's a more certain fate, as he struggles to survive against the brutal exploitation of his traders. As the single most popular novel of its era, Stowe's volatile work of protest fiction fueled the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. The book personalized the plight of slavery in a way that political speeches and newspapers could not. Stowe's humanistic approach ignited a national argument, one credited by historians as a key contributor to the outbreak of the Civil War. Revised edition: Previously published as Uncle Tom's Cabin, this edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.
Public Domain (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.