An Irish horror adventure set in the unknown forests of Galway, where humans are kept under observation by screaming creatures, from debut author A. M. Shine.

Using exclusive access to key insiders, Shane Harris charts the rise of America's surveillance state over the past twenty-five years and highlights a dangerous paradox: Our government's strategy has made it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on the rest of us. Our surveillance state was born in the brain of Admiral John Poindexter in 1983. Poindexter, Reagan's National Security Advisor, realized that the United States might have prevented the terrorist massacre of 241 Marines in Beirut if only intelligence agencies had been able to analyze in real time data they had on the attackers. Poindexter poured government know-how and funds into his dream-a system that would sift reams of data for signs of terrorist activity. Decades later, that elusive dream still captivates Washington. After the 2001 attacks, Poindexter returned to government with a controversial program, called Total Information Awareness, to detect the next attack. Today it is a secretly funded operation that can gather personal information on every American and millions of others worldwide. But Poindexter's dream has also become America's nightmare. Despite billions of dollars spent on this digital quest since the Reagan era, we still can't discern future threats in the vast data cloud that surrounds us all. But the government can now spy on its citizens with an ease that was impossible-and illegal-just a few years ago. Drawing on unprecedented access to the people who pioneered this high-tech spycraft, Harris shows how it has shifted from the province of right- wing technocrats to a cornerstone of the Obama administration's war on terror. Harris puts us behind the scenes and in front of the screens where twenty-first-century spycraft was born. We witness Poindexter quietly working from the private sector to get government to buy in to his programs in the early nineties. We see an army major agonize as he carries out an order to delete the vast database he's gathered on possible terror cells-and on thousands of innocent Americans-months before 9/11. We follow General Mike Hayden as he persuades the Bush administration to secretly monitor Americans based on a flawed interpretation of the law. After Congress publicly bans the Total Information Awareness program in 2003, we watch as it is covertly shifted to a "black op," which protects it from public scrutiny. When the next crisis comes, our government will inevitably crack down on civil liberties, but it will be no better able to identify new dangers. This is the outcome of a dream first hatched almost three decades ago, and The Watchers is an engrossing, unnerving wake-up call.

Leading scholars explore the tradition, rooted in Genesis 6, of “the Watchers,” mysterious heavenly beings who became the focus of rich cosmological and theological speculation in early Judaism. Chapters trace the development of the Watchers through the Enoch literature, Jubilees, and other early Jewish and Christian writings.

The author of this book was driven by a vision that God so impressed upon him, that he was compelled to understand its interpretation and purpose. Contained herein, is a detailed account of the ancient Watchers, during the early times of earth's co-habitation with mankind. As such, we are finally given a meticulously clear account of the origin of not simply the sin nature, but the vehicle of the perversion and wickedness that we have inherited in our lives today. By way of a rebellion that was diabolical in nature, this wickedness was brought to the earthly plane, by a group of fallen angels from the angelic realm, who in their righteous state, were called Holy Watchers. These angelic hosts were created by God Himself, to act as protectors and guardians of mankind, in accordance with the Creator's purpose; however, there was a group of these Watchers (fallen angels) who left their heavenly abode, and their responsibility for which they were created, as protectorates for humanity, and were driven from Heaven by their own compulsion of lust for the beautiful women of the earth. The result has been catastrophic to mankind! The offspring of these "fallen angels" became the Giants in the land; the Nephilim, who brought forth such a vile and perverse nature of evil into the earth that God, the Father of Creation, was forced to bring His judgments upon the evil Watchers and their offspring. In the meantime, (even since the flood), the effect of this rebellious nature upon the earth, has been to defile mankind and everything aligned with goodness and truth . . . And mankind is still contending with this evil to this day.

After the banishment from Eden, Satan works to deceive the sons of Seth, the Sons of Heaven, also called the Watchers, into desiring the beautiful women among the descendants of Cain. The 200 male Watchers, led by Smazz covet the daughters of Cain, descending into debauchery and taking the women as their wives, producing giants, monsters of all kinds and human abominations called the Nephilim. When God covers the earth with floodwaters, the Sons of Heaven are taken in by Lucifer and become the fallen angels. Meanwhile, the remaining Watchers on Mt. Hermon, have also been changed following the great flood, their body structure and DNA permanently altered by God. Led by angel princes, these new Watchers are divided into twenty clans and instructed to worship and serve Adonai but forbidden to have contact with humans for the first twenty millennia. After that period, they venture into the world populated by millions of people to find and rid the earth of the Nephilim, doing battle and risking their lives in the process. In this fantasy novel, a group of beings blessed by God must make their way through the world and rid it of the creatures known as Nephilim in order to keep Gods creation safe.

Rebellious and unhappy at being shipped off to live with strange kinfolk in the mountains of West Virginia, a young boy is drawn into an ancient conflict that moves back and forth in time.

Just below the surface among the family of God lives another family tree--one traced in spirit, invisible and ageless, known as the Watchers. For two thousand years they've seen beyond the veil separating this world from the next, passing on their gift through a lineage mostly overlooked. Throughout history they've scouted the borders of the supernatural frontier, but now their survival hangs by a thread. And their fate lies in the hands of a young woman, her would-be killer, and a mystery they must solve. . . . "Congratulations. You just reached my own little corner of cyberspace. Who am I? Abby Sherman, that's who. Who are you? And why are you checking me out? Drop me a few pixels, and let's find out!" With that innocent invitation, Abby Sherman unwittingly steps in the crosshairs of history, and thus begins her harrowing tale--taking her from ocean-front Malibu to the streets of London, the jungles in West Africa, the Temple Mount, Jerusalem, and to the very gates of heaven itself! A sneak preview of eternity becomes her one-way ticket to danger--and discovery. . . . Two lives collide in a globe-circling adventure involving both peril and discovery: Abby, a young woman whose visions of heaven turn her into a Web-celebrity; and Dylan, a troubled young man sent by an ancient foe to silence her. From California beachfronts to Nigerian rain forests to Jerusalem and back again, The Watchers is high-octane blends of action, mystery, and spiritual battle spanning centuries. A woman's awe-inspiring vision launches her on a quest through distant lands and ancient history, face-to-face with eternity and into the arms of a family line on the brink of annihilation . . . A man who is hired to exterminate her discovers the folly of blind loyalty, then learns how to wage war in a realm he never believed had existed . . . An extraordinary saga of the unseen war against evil, the reality of the supernatural, and the transforming power of forgiveness.