Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Literature & Fiction

All 15-year-old Kelly McAllister wants to do after high school graduation is attend art school. Academic work isn't important to her. When she studies at the library with her friends, she sometimes talks so much the librarian kicks her out. After her teacher pressures her to start working on her current events paper, Kelly decides she has to take the assignment seriously. The only trouble is she can't think of a topic - until she discovers Mr. Weems, a homeless Vietnam vet who spends his days in the library.

Seventeen-year-old Peter Blankman is a math genius. He also suffers from devastating panic attacks. Pete gets through each day with the help of his mother - a famous scientist - and his beloved twin sister, Bel. But when his mom is nearly assassinated in front of his eyes and Bel disappears, Pete finds himself on the run. Dragged into a world where state and family secrets intertwine, Pete must use his extraordinary analytical skills to find his missing sister and track down the people who attacked his mother. But his greatest battle will be with the enemy he's fought his entire life: the constant terror that threatens to overwhelm him.

Myers is at his clever best in this witty and action-packed, coming-of-age story of a teenager's summer during the Harlem Renaissance and his run-ins with famous gangsters, writers, and musicians. It's 1925 and Mark Purvis is a 16-year-old with a summer to kill. He'd rather jam with his jazz band (they need the practice), but is urged by his parents to get a job. As an assistant at The Crisis, a magazine for the "new Negro", Mark rubs shoulders with Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen.

But one Alt, Chester "Chilly" Beckett, did not celebrate; his eyes have been opened to the truth. Luka's corpse is dragged away, but Chester remains determined to find out what is going on in the Laboratory on the 65th floor. There, he finds three subjects tortured in an attempt to extract a regeneration formula... and one of the subjects is, impossibly, a face he never thought he'd seen again. A bold escape sets in motion a race against time as Happy's plans to release planet-eating nano-bots into the world draw nearer.

Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, in the 1930s, Benjy Puterman and Tommy Anspach have always done everything together. It never mattered that Benjy was Jewish and Tommy was of German heritage. But as Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party come to power in Germany and war brews in Europe, everything changes. Tommy is sent to Camp Nordland, a Nazi youth camp for German Americans, where he quickly learns that Jews are the enemy.

As if her parents' divorce and sister's departure for college weren't bad enough, 14-year-old Ricky Bloom has just been diagnosed with a life-changing chronic illness. Her days consist of cursing everyone out, skipping school - which has become a nightmare - daydreaming about her crush, Julio, and trying to keep her parents from realizing just how bad things are. But she can't keep her ruse up forever.

Simone Thibodeaux is about to switch things up. Check her life: It’s sealed in a boy-proof container. Her Haitian immigrant parents send Simone to an all-girls high school and enforce strict no-dating rules. As for prom? Simone is allowed to go on one condition: Her parents will select her date (a boy from a nice Haitian-immigrant family, obviously). Simone is desperate to avoid the setup - especially since she has a serious crush on another boy. It’s time to take action.

Sometimes Fitz would look at himself in the mirror, an expression of pathetic eagerness on his face. He was a dog in the pound, wanting to be adopted. He'd smile. What father wouldn't want this boy? Fifteen-year-old Fitzgerald - Fitz, to his friends - has just learned that his father, whom he's never met, who supports him but is not a part of his life, is living nearby. Fitz begins to follow him, watch him, study him, and on an otherwise ordinary May morning, he executes a plan to force his father, at gunpoint, to be with him. Over the course of one spring day, Fitz and his father become real to one another.

Bina has never forgotten the time she and her mother ran away from home. Her mother promised they would hitchhike to the city to escape Bina's cruel father and start over. But before they could even leave town, Bina had a new stepfather, two new stepsisters, and a humming sense of betrayal pulling apart the bond with her mother - a bond Bina thought was unbreakable. Eight years later, after too many lies and with trouble on her heels, Bina finds herself on the side of the road again, the city of her dreams calling for her.

Yasir has always felt he was meant for more…he has no idea how much. A native son of the Island Republic of Kindara, he is ripped from his homeland as a small boy, escaping an invasion that decimated his family. For the past decade, he has been living with his uncle in the small town of Oakwood Grove, Georgia, while dealing with life as an outsider—in more ways than one. All that would change over the course of a few weeks, thanks to a series of unfortunate incidents that brings Yasir into the spotlight.

In a world gone wrong, heroes and villains are not always easy to distinguish and every individual has the ability to contribute something powerful. In this stunning collection of original and rediscovered stories of tragedy and hope, the stars are a diverse group of students, street kids, good girls, kidnappers, and child laborers pitted against their environments, their governments, differing cultures, and sometimes one another as they seek answers in their dystopian worlds.

How far will she go to uncover the truth? Singer Roxy Raines vanished from the tiny resort of Sandown thirty years ago, and now seventeen-year-old Mona Perry is on the hunt for answers. The island’s locals refuse to talk about it, dismissing Roxy as a teenage runaway. But Mona can’t let it go—her favorite singer deserves justice, and Mona will stop at nothing to share her findings on her crime podcast, How to Disappear. The only problem is, she just has this one hot summer to get to the bottom of Roxy’s disappearance, and the islanders don’t want to give up their secrets.

Most dragontongues don’t live long enough to learn from their mistakes. Lotte Meer is luckier than most, surviving long enough to communicate with the fierce, sullen, and temperamental dragons who are not above enjoying a human as a light snack. And she has the scars to prove it. Now a massive, foul-tempered dragon has taken over the town of Morwassen's Pass, taking the citizens hostage.

Gael Brennan is about to have his heart broken when his first big relationship crumbles on the heels of his parents' painful separation. Love intervenes with the intention of setting things right - but she doesn't anticipate the intrusion of her dreaded nemesis: the Rebound. Love's plans for Gael are sidetracked by Cara, Gael's hot-sauce-wielding "dream girl". The more Love meddles, the further Gael drifts from the one girl who can help him mend his heart.

A Vietnamese mermaid caught between two worlds. A siren who falls for Poseidon’s son. A boy secretly pining for the merboy who saved him years ago. A storm that brings humans and mermaids together. Generations of family secrets and pain. Find all these and more in this gripping new collection that will reel you in from the very first word! Welcome to an ocean of hurt, fear, confusion, rage, hope, humor, discovery, and love in its many forms.

Will is a 17-year-old on the cusp of freedom—freedom from providing and caring for their abusive, addicted mother, freedom from their small town with an even smaller mindset, and freedom from having to hide who they truly are. When their mother dies months before their 18th birthday, Will is granted this freedom earlier than expected. They begin to dream of escaping to the big city of Baltimore, of dating the magnetic and gorgeous Julian, and of living, unencumbered and free.

A year has passed since the fall of Lightspire. The Inquisitor Miles Hampstedt has usurped the throne and rules Noveris with a blood-soaked iron fist. Tilla and her friends have become hardened rebels in the Unbroken, a band of guerrilla fighters hiding out in the fringes of the kingdom. Tilla is plagued with doubt and regret; Lyriana struggles with the burdens of being a fugitive queen; Zell atones for his guilt by killing for the cause. And even as they all fight, they know their cause is doomed, that with every passing day, Miles' power grows, his army of bloodmages spreading.

Raised among the ruins of a conquered mountain nation, Maren dreams only of sharing a quiet life with her girlfriend Kaia - until the day Kaia is abducted by the Aurati, prophetic agents of the emperor, and forced to join their ranks. Desperate to save her, Maren hatches a plan to steal one of the emperor's coveted dragons and storm the Aurati stronghold.

Seventeen-year-old Edgar Poe counts down the days until he can escape his foster family - the wealthy Allans of Richmond, Virginia. He hungers for his upcoming life as a student at the prestigious new university, almost as much as he longs to marry his beloved Elmira Royster. However, on the brink of his departure, all his plans go awry when a macabre Muse named Lenore appears to him. Muses are frightful creatures that lead Artists down a path of ruin and disgrace, and no respectable person could possibly understand or accept them.

A frank novel combining realistic teenage dialogue and biting comedy, Hero-Type addresses many questions on the minds of contemporary teens. After rescuing a classmate, otherwise unremarkable Kevin Ross is hailed as a hero. But then he commits a shocking act that destroys his new popularity and threatens to reveal a dark secret.