BLACKSTONE AUDIO - Key Persons
Adam Binder has lost what matters most to him. Having finally learned the true identity of the warlock preying on his family, what was supposed to be a final confrontation with the fiend instead became a trap that sent Adam's beloved Vicente into the realm of the dead, where none living are meant to be.
Bound by debt, oath, and love, Adam blazes his own trail into the underworld to get Vicente back, and to end the threat of the warlock once and for all. But the road to hell is paved with far more than good intentions. Demons are hungry, and ghosts are relentless, and what awaits Adam in the underworld is nothing he is prepared to face.
If that weren't enough, Adam has one more thing he must do if he and Vicente are to return to the world of the living: find the lost heart of Death herself.
Adam Binder has the Sight. It's a power that runs in his bloodline: the ability to see beyond this world and into another, a realm of magic populated by elves, gnomes, and spirits of every kind. But for much of Adam's life, that power has been a curse, hindering friendships, worrying his backwoods family, and fueling his abusive father's rage.
Years after his brother, Bobby, had him committed to a psych ward, Adam is ready to come to grips with who he is, to live his life on his terms, to find love, and maybe even use his magic to do some good. Hoping to track down his missing father, Adam follows a trail of cursed artifacts to Denver, only to discover that an ancient and horrifying spirit has taken possession of Bobby's wife.
It isn't long before Adam becomes the spirit's next target. To survive the confrontation, save his sister-in-law, and learn the truth about his father, Adam will have to risk bargaining with very dangerous beings … including his first love.
Al Roker is known to over thirty million viewers each week for his work on NBC's Today show, a role that has earned him thirteen Emmy Awards. Among his numerous books are the New York Times bestseller Don't Make Me Stop This Car!: Adventures in Fatherhood and the bestselling Al Roker's Big Bad Book of Barbecue. The Morning Show Murders marked his first foray into fiction. Al resides in Manhattan with his wife, ABC News and 20/20 coanchor Deborah Roberts, and has two daughters and a son.
Alethea Kontis is the New York Times bestselling co-author of Sherrilyn Kenyon's The Dark-Hunter Companion, and the author of two picture books.She was a student of science fiction greats Andre Norton and Orson Scott Card, and has worked in a number of book-related jobs. She lives in Virginia.
Andi Arndt is a professional voice actor, the winner of a 2017 Audie Award for Best Romance, and winner of two Earphones Awards.
Billy Blessing, owner of the popular Manhattan restaurant Blessing's Bistro, is a regular contributor on the morning news show, Wake Up, America! Now he's creating a fresh cooking competition show, but finds himself clashing with Rudy Gallagher, the executive producer. Things get heated in the newsroom, and after exchanging some sharp words, both Billy and Rudy walk away feeling burned.
Next thing he knows, Rudy is found dead in his luxury apartment, and Billy is the prime suspect. Determined to clear his name, Billy begins his own investigation, only to discover things are much more complicated than he ever imagined. Unsavory characters start coming out of the woodwork, and before long he stumbles into the crosshairs of an international assassin.
Job Titles:
- Author
- Founder and CEO of Heroic Public Benefit Corporation
Brian Johnson is the Founder and CEO of Heroic Public Benefit Corporation. He's 50% philosopher, 50% CEO, and 101% committed to helping create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by the year 2051. As a Founder/CEO he's raised $25M+, made crowdfunding history, and built and sold two social platforms. As a philosopher/teacher, he's helped millions of people from around the world, trained 10,000+ Heroic Coaches from 100+ countries and created a protocol that science says changes lives. He lives in the country outside Austin, Texas, with his wife, Alexandra, and their two kids, Emerson and Eleanor.
Cassandra Campbell has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and the prestigious Odyssey Award for narration. She was been named a "Best Voice" by AudioFile magazine and in 2018 was inducted in Audible's inaugural Narrator Hall of Fame.
Charles Todd is a pen name used by the American authors Caroline (1934-2021) and Charles Todd, a mother-and-son writing team who write the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries and the Bess Crawford mysteries, as well as stand-alone novels. Their novel Proof of Guilt was a New York Times bestseller, and A Test of Wills was named one of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association's 100 favorite mysteries of the 20th Century and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year selection. Their novels have won the Agatha Award, the Barry Award, and the Anthony Award, as well as being finalists for several other awards. Charles is continuing the series.
Cindy Kay is a Chinese Thai American narrator and educator who grew up in the California Bay Area and lives in the Rockies. Her work has been described as listening to a "cozy best friend." She narrates fiction and nonfiction, and has studied Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, and Japanese.
David R. Slayton (he/him) grew up in Guthrie, Oklahoma, where finding fantasy novels was pretty challenging and finding fantasy novels with diverse characters was downright impossible. Now he lives in Denver, Colorado, and writes the books he always wanted to read. His debut, White Trash Warlock, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. In 2015, David founded Trick or Read, an initiative to give out books along with candy to children on Halloween as well as uplift lesser-known authors or those from marginalized backgrounds. David is a regular speaker and panelist at fan cons and writing conferences. Find him online at www.DavidRSlayton.com.
Dick Lochte is the author of many popular crime novels, including the award-winning Sleeping Dog, named one of the "100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century" by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. His crime-fiction column ran for nearly a decade in the Los Angeles Times and earned him the 2003 Ellen Nehr Award for Excellence in Mystery Reviewing. He lives in Southern California.
Elka Ray is the author of the mystery Divorce Is Murder, set in her hometown of Victoria, BC, Canada. A joint UK/Canadian citizen, Elka has spent two decades living as an expat in Vietnam, working as a journalist, researcher, copy editor, and communications consultant. She lives by the beach with her husband and three children. A Friend Indeed is her first foray into psychological suspense. To learn more about Elka and her work, visit www.elkaray.com or connect with her on Instagram @elka.ray.
Emily Woo Zeller is an artist, actor, dancer, choreographer, and voice artist who has won Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration in 2018. She began her voice-over career by voicing animation in Asia. AudioFile magazine named her one of the Best Voices of 2013 for her work in Gulp. Other awards include the 2009 Tristen Award for Best Actress as Sally Bowles in Cabaret and the 2006 Roselyn E. Schneider Prize for Creative Achievement.
Eva Kaminsky is a New York-based actor and audiobook narrator with over 150 titles to her credit. She trained at Boston University and has acted in numerous productions on television and film, including Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Happyish, Ugly Betty, ER, Numbers, Law & Order, and others.
Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker looking for a total escape from her busy life, books an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming. When she arrives at the idyllic getaway, she's pleased to find that the owner is a handsome man by the name of Calvin Wells-and he's eager to introduce her to his easygoing way of life. But there are things Grace discovers that she's not too pleased about: A lack of cell phone service. A missing woman. And a feeling that something isn't right with the ranch.
Despite her uneasiness, the two bond and start to fall for one another. However, as her departure date nears, things change for the worse. What began as a playful romance soon turns into a complicated web of lies. Grace grows wary of Calvin as his infatuation for her seems to have morphed to obsession. Calvin fears that Grace is hiding something from him-including her reason for staying at his ranch to begin with. Vacation flings typically end in heartbreak, but for Grace and Calvin, it'll be far more destructive.
Henry Herz has authored twelve picture books. His children's short stories have been published in Highlights for Children, Ladybug magazine, and in anthologies for Albert Whitman & Co. Henry also writes adult science fiction and fantasy short stories. He holds a BS in engineering from Cornell, an MS in engineering from George Washington University, and an MA in political science from Georgetown.
Isaac Frost is an assassin. Raised in the Graveyard of the cruel and mysterious Undertaker, he has mastered the deadly art of the knife and the skill of survival, together with scores of others just like him-young men taken from their families to become the most infamous killers throughout the realms of elves and humans. But Isaac is unique: a single drop of another's blood can confer upon him the knowledge and power of friend and foe alike.
After crossing paths with the elf queen Argent, Isaac is sent to a strange magical school for wayward practitioners in the hopes that he can learn where he-and his unusual talent-fit in the world. Isaac is charmed by the school's chaotic nature and finds himself unexpectedly drawn to Vran, a Sea Elf haunted by secret knowledge.
But Vran isn't the only one with secrets, and Isaac's arrival is no accident. The Undertaker has charged him with infiltrating the school for the purpose of destroying it utterly, and his future rests on completing his mission-before the Undertaker takes matters into his own hands.
Lissa Price lives in the foothills of southern California with her husband and the occasional deer.
Matt Costello is an award-winning and bestselling writer who has worked in a myriad of genres and medias. His novels, spanning genres, have been published all around the world, and his classic horror novel, Beneath Still Waters, was made into a film by Lionsgate. His novel Vacation was a major release from Macmillan, who also released the sequel, Home, as well as his epic sci-fi novel Star Road. He has also written and designed dozens of award-winning and bestselling games including The 7th Guest, G-Force, Aladdin, Just Cause, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Matt has also written episodes and created TV formats for PBS, Disney, SyFy, and the BBC. He consults on story, creativity, games, and multiplatform projects around the world.
"There's a real power to the way he uses the language and how he draws pictures in your mind." -Ron Moore "You see Ellison's unswerving social conscience throughout his fiction and critical essays…forcefully and eloquently-and at some length-lamenting the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment and railing against the scourge of misogynistic ‘knife-kill' films." -RogerEbert.com "The words-there is an attention to the words. There is an attention to the sound of the words. You're reading them in your head, and they sing." -Neil Gaiman "The spellbinding quality of a great nonstop talker, with a cultural warehouse for a mind." -New York Review of Books "Feisty, furious, yet extraordinarily kind and generous; Harlan Ellison was one of a kind." -Leonard Maltin
Nora Brown teaches high school English and lives a quiet life in Seattle with her husband and six-year-old daughter. But one November day, moments after dismissing her class, a girl's face appears above the students' desks-"a wild numinous face with startling blue eyes, a face floating on top of shapeless drapes of purples and blues where arms and legs should have been. Terror rushes through Nora's body-the kind of raw terror you feel when there's no way out, when every cell in your body, your entire body, is on fire-when you think you might die."
Twenty-four hours later, while on Thanksgiving vacation, the face appears again. Shaken and unsteady, Nora meets with neurologists and eventually, a psychiatrist. As the story progresses, a terrible secret is discovered-a secret that pushes Nora toward an even deeper psychological breakdown.
Job Titles:
- Author
- Author of the Tools, Who Was Featured in the Netflix Documentary Called Stutz, Wrote the Foreword to the Book.
He says: "What Brian has developed is much more than a bunch of coping mechanisms for the over-stressed modern person; although that would be an improvement for most of us. He's developed a training program for the soul.
Phil Stutz, MD, the author of The Tools, who was featured in the Netflix documentary called Stutz, wrote the foreword to the book.
Phil Stutz graduated from City College in New York and received his MD from New York University. He worked as a prison psychiatrist on Rikers Island and then in private practice in New York before moving his practice to Los Angeles in 1982.
Rick Bleiweiss has been a successful musician, songwriter, music producer, and record company executive. He has worked as a social activist and journalist and is currently a publishing executive. His novel Pignon Scorbion & the Barbershop Detectives was selected as an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense, as well as being chosen as one of the year's Best New Debut Mystery Novels by Publishers Weekly. Rick lives in Gig Harbor, Washington, and is at work on his next Pignon Scorbion novel. Follow him and Scorbion at RickBleiweiss.com.
Scott Sigler is a popular podcaster and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and their dog.
Stacia Deutsch is the author of more than fifty children's books, including the award-winning chapter book series Blast to the Past. She also wrote the tween novel Mean Ghouls, as well as books for the Nancy Drew, Clue Crew, and The Boxcar Children series. Stacia has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for the novelizations of the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Smurfs movies. Visit her website at: www.StaciaDeutsch.com
Stephanie Németh-Parker is a SAG-AFTRA audiobook narrator, voiceover artist, and actress with over thirty years of experience. With a voice that has been described as warm and soothing, her versatility and adeptness with accents has enabled her to work on a multitude of projects.
Job Titles:
- Author
- Author of the Ninja 's Oath
Tori Eldridge is the author of The Ninja's Oath, book four in the Lily Wong thriller series-nominated for the Anthony, Lefty, and Macavity Awards, winner of the 2021 Crimson Scribe Best Book of the Year-and the Brazilian dark fantasy Dance among the Flames. Her shorter works appear in numerous anthologies. A former actress, singer, and dancer on Broadway, television, and film, Tori holds a fifth-degree black belt in To-Shin Do ninja martial arts. ToriEldridge.com.
Vikas Adam is a classically trained actor with numerous credits in stage, film, commercials, and television, in addition to his over two hundred recorded audiobooks. His narrations have garnered numerous awards and nominations, including AudioFile Earphones Awards, various Best of the Year lists, and the prestigious Audie Award. He was an inaugural inductee into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame.
Ward Larsen is a USA Today bestselling author and seven-time winner of the Florida Book Award. His work has been nominated for both the Edgar and Macavity Awards. He is a former US Air Force fighter pilot who flew combat in Operation Desert Storm. He also served as a federal law enforcement officer and is a trained aircraft accident investigator. His first thriller, The Perfect Assassin, is being adapted into a major motion picture by Amber Entertainment.
William Kent Krueger is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels, including nineteen acclaimed books in the Cork O'Conner mystery series that have won the Anthony and Dilys awards. His stand-alone novel, Ordinary Grace, won the Edgar, Anthony, Dilys, Barry, and Macavity awards. Learn more at WilliamKentKrueger.com.
Zura Johnson is a classically trained stage actor. She has performed in stages from her childhood home in California to the East coast, and all the way to Singapore. She has now worked in theater and as a voice actor for more than twenty years. She holds an MFA from the Old Globe Theatre and the University of San Diego.