Showing results by narrator "Taylor Meskimen" in All Categories

Betty, Veronica, Cheryl, and the rest of the River Vixens are heading out of town for the weekend on a cheerleading retreat. So Archie, Jughead, and the rest of the guys decide to have a poker night at La Bonne Nuit. But a storm causes the power to go out, and the speakeasy goes into lockdown. When the lights come back on, all of the cash is gone. The thief has to be someone the guys know - but who?

Twelve-year-old Lark Heron-Finch is steeling herself to spend the summer on Swallowtail Island off the shores of Lake Erie. It’s the first time that she and her sister will have seen the old house since their mom passed away. And while her stepfather and his boys are okay, the island’s always been full of happy memories—and now everything is different. When Nadine, a close family friend, tells Lark about a tragic boat accident that happened off the coast many years before, Lark's enthralled with the story.

In the world of speculative fiction… Your favorite authors… Have selected best new voices of the year.

What is the right way to handle an abusive partner? An unexpected pregnancy? A toxic friendship? Chronic unemployment? Gender dysphoria? A family member going to war? A disability? Anger? Loneliness? Finding themselves in disempowering, frightening, or otherwise unendurable circumstances, the girls, women, and non-binary characters in Maria Adelmann's stories look for ways to free themselves into new lives or, at the very least, new states of feeling.

Hannah Ashton wakes up to silence. The entire city around her is empty, except for one other person: Leo Sterling. Leo might be the hottest boy ever (and not just because he's the only one left), but he's also too charming, too selfish, and too devastating for his own good, let alone Hannah's.

The story begins: Young lovers, anxious to connect, agree to a first date, thinking outside of the box. At 17 years old, James and Amelia can feel the rest of their lives beginning. They have got this summer and this summer alone to experience the extraordinary. But they didn’t expect to find it in a house at the bottom of a lake. The house is cold and dark, but it’s also their own.

Four girls are forced to spend the summer together when their moms reunite at their childhood lake house. Always-sunny Skyler is a softball star who’s hiding how bad her joint pain has gotten. Always-stormy Scarlett, Skyler’s twin, would much rather be hanging out with her boyfriend back home. Amelia Grace just wants to escape her conservative stepdad after he caught her kissing a girl. And homeschooled social-media star Ellie is just excited at the chance to make some friends IRL.

Recorder has no family, no friends, and no name. Donated to the Consortium before birth, her sole purpose is to maintain and verify the records. A neural implant and drone ensure compliance, punishing for displays of bias. Suddenly cut off from controlling technology, Recorder tastes what it means to be human. But if the Consortium discovers her feelings, everyone she knows will be in danger.

Bailey and Vanessa shared everything: laughter, secrets, and packets of Pop Rocks to ward off bad days. But that all changed the night Vanessa left Bailey’s, headed for home, and ended up swerving off a cliff nowhere near her house. Now Bailey, who thought she knew Vanessa better than anyone in the world, is left with a million unanswered questions, and the only person with answers is gone.

Locklyn Adair thought that finding the Sea Enchantress would lift her family’s curse. But the ramifications of her desire for a tail reach further than she could ever have dreamed. Now the entire Undersea Realm is in peril, as Circe, armed with the locket capable of controlling the Loch Ness monster, journeys to the North Sea in pursuit of revenge.

Calista, Zoe, Holly, and Denise were inseparable best friends when they spent their summers together at sleepaway camp. But after an unexplained tragedy forced the camp to close, the girls drifted apart.

After high school graduation, Mia Peters faces a summer full of painful goodbyes. Songwriting is her only solace. Everyone she knows is moving on, including Britt, her biggest supporter … and kind-of-sort-of girlfriend. Britt keeps pushing Mia to go bigger and do better than their small town, but Mia can’t imagine a life beyond Sunset Cove. Besides, she refuses to follow in the footsteps of her late mother—country music star Tori Rose—who abandoned her family to pursue her dream, leaving Mia and her two grandmothers alone.

In one week, Maude will be dead. At least, that’s what she wants everyone to think. After years of research, Maude has decided to fake her own death. She’s figured out the how, the when, the where, and who will help her unsuspectingly. The why is complex: revenge, partly. Her terrible parents deserve this. But there’s also 'l’appel du vide,' the call of the void, that beckons her toward a new life where she will be tied to no one, free and adrift. Then Frankie, a step-cousin she barely knows, figures out what she’s plotting, and the plan seems like it’s ruined.

Luxe Revelle, star of her family’s fantastical show, knows the splendor is just an illusion. With Prohibition threatening their livelihood, her family struggles to make a living, watering down champagne and patching holes in their sequined costumes. So when the son of Charmant’s wealthiest family makes her an offer—everything the Revelles need to stay in business, in exchange for posing as his girl and helping him become mayor—she can’t refuse.

We wait in lines around the block for scoops of cookie dough. We photograph every meal. We visit selfie performance spaces and leave lucrative jobs to become farmers and craft brewers. Why? What are we really hungry for? In Hungry, Eve Turow-Paul provides a guided tour through the stranger corners of today's global food and lifestyle culture. How are 21st-century innovations and pressures are redefining people's needs and desires? How does "foodie" culture, along with other lifestyle trends, provide an answer to our rising rates of stress, loneliness, anxiety, and depression?

Locklyn Adair has never fit in. The legs she inherited as a result of her great-great-grandmother’s curse make it impossible for her to belong under the sea. When her niece is also born without a tail, Locklyn is determined to save her from similar rejection by sending her to the only place in the Undersea Realm where legs are acceptable—the Lost Island of Atlantis.

Everyone knows it's tough having a long-distance relationship - especially when your boyfriend is as sizzlingly hot as Noah Flynn. Elle's thrilled her bad-boy-turned-good has made it into Harvard, but being stuck back in California isn't much fun without him. So there's only one thing for it...a road trip to visit!

While exploring, True finds the new kid, Kyler, playing tenderly with a litter of newborn kittens in an old barn. Kyler knocked out Dakota Sullivan’s tooth during a fight and has a reputation of being a bully, so True waits until he’s gone before approaching the kittens. The smallest kitten, the runt of the litter, looks sickly and has been abandoned by the mama cat. True names her Teacup; she knows exactly how it feels to not have a mom around when you need her most. As Teacup’s health worsens, True attempts to nurse the cat back to health by herself.

From a distance, Claudia Castro has it all: a famous family, a trust fund, thousands of Instagram followers, and a spot in NYU’s freshman class. But look closer, and things are messier: Her parents are separating, she’s just been humiliated by a sleazy documentary, and her sister is about to have a baby with a man she barely knows. Claudia starts the school year resolved to find a path toward something positive, maybe even meaningful - and then one drunken night everything changes.

In this genre-defying story from Lygia Day Peñaflor, four teens befriend their favorite YA novelist, only to find their deepest, darkest secrets in the pages of her next book - with devastating consequences. Miri Tan loved the book Undertow like it was a living being. So when she and her friends went to a book signing to hear the author, Fatima Ro, they concocted a plan to get close to her. Told as a series of interviews, journal entries, and segments from the book within the book - this gripping story of a fictional scandal will keep you on the edge of your seat.