Showing results by publisher "Tantor Audio" in Difficult Situations

Everyone else in the tiny town of Enfield, Texas, calls fall football season, but for the 43 members of the Fighting Enfield Marching Band, it's contest season. And for new saxophonist Anna James, it's her first chance to prove herself as the great musician she's trying hard to be.

Seventeen-year-old Pavol has watched his country's freedoms disappear in the wake of the Soviet Union's invasion. He's seen his own dreams disappear too. In a desperate, fatal act of protest against the oppressive new government, he sets himself on fire in public, hoping to motivate others to fight for change.

Sarah O'Brien is only alive because of the pact she and her brother made twelve years ago—James will protect her from their violent father if she promises never to leave him. For years, she's watched James destroy his life to save hers. If all he asks for in return is her affection, she'll give it freely.

Marty Sullivan's life ends, basically, when her parents enroll her in a private high school. A private, Catholic, girls-only high school. Meanwhile, at their local public school, her best friend, Jimmy, comes out of the closet and finds himself a boyfriend and a new group of friends.

Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist - and to convince her music teacher he wants her the way she wants him. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins, the first step on her path toward med school and a career as a surgeon. But one thing could wreck their carefully planned futures: a genetic test for Huntington's, a rare degenerative disease that slowly steals control of the body and mind.

Anais tries her hardest to protect Bronwyn from the shadows of Hillwoods. She follows her own rituals to avoid any unnecessary attention—and if she can just get Bronwyn to stop asking questions, she can protect her too. The less Bronwyn pays attention to Hillwoods, the less Hillwoods will pay attention to Bronwyn. She doesn't get that the lore is, well, truth. History. Pain. The living aren't the only ones who seek retribution when they're wronged. But when Bronwyn does more exploring than she should, they are both in for danger they couldn't expect.

Len is a loner teen photographer haunted by a past that's stagnated her work and left her terrified she's losing her mind. Sage is a high school volleyball star desperate to find a way around her sudden medical disqualification. Both girls need college scholarships. After a chance encounter, the two develop an unlikely friendship that enables them to begin facing their inner demons.

Centuries after a miracle vanquished Tresttato's monsters and turned the soldiers fighting them to stone, Milo lovingly tends to the statues of those who protected the city. Raised with devout templars and scholars, autistic temple ward Milo wants nothing more than to be accepted into their ranks. When his prayers admiring her heroic sacrifice accidentally free Gia from stone, she wakes with a fury to kill the man Milo owes his life to, Primo Sanct Ennio.

It's his senior year, and Will Shea has conned his way into one of the country's most elite prep schools. But he soon runs into Andrea, a fellow con artist. With the school not big enough for the both of them, they make a bet that whoever can con Brandt Rush, the richest, most privileged student in the school, out of $50,000 gets to stay at the school. Will starts setting up his con (an online poker scam) with his uncle, who's one of the best grifters in the business, and with the unwanted help of his father.

Amy Larsen has spent every summer with her cousin Ben and their best friend Teddy in River Run, Kentucky, loving country life and welcoming the break from her intensive ambitions and overbearing mother—until the summer she and Teddy confront the changing feelings and simmering sexual tension growing between them, destroying the threesome's friendship in a dramatic face-off. One year later, Amy returns to River Run dreading what she might find. But when Teddy's sister disappears, Amy, Ben, and Teddy agree to put aside their differences to search for her.

Graduation was supposed to be a relief. Except Quinn can't avoid the barrage of well-intentioned questions about her college plans. Why does no one understand that it's hard for her to think about the future - or feel as if she even deserves one - when her best friend is dead? Spending the summer with her aunt on the Jersey shore may just be the fresh start Quinn so desperately needs. And when she meets Malcolm, a musician with his own haunted past, she starts to believe in second chances. Can Quinn find love while finding herself?

Saving the whales has been Coriander Cabot and her best friend Ella's dream since elementary school. But when tragedy strikes, Cor is left to complete the list of things they wanted to accomplish before college alone, including a marine biology internship on Cape Cod.

Now that Cheyenne's murderer has been revealed and Reed knows the truth about who's been stalking her, she's ready to leave the heartache and turmoil of last semester behind. And what better way to recover than a five-star Caribbean vacation? Reed is reunited with former Billings Girls Kiran and Taylor, and she and her friends take over the exclusive island. They spend their days tanning on white-sand beaches and their nights partying on 60-foot yachts. It's heaven on earth.

Hattie Larken doesn't know if she's ever been real in her life. A compulsive liar with a quick-witted response to everything, she's willing to skate through high school until she can graduate and escape it all: the monotony of this town, the guilt of everything that happened with her dad, and the debt that her mom's dealing with that she feels responsible for. But then Hattie finds out she's dying. Apparently, she was exposed to a parasite because of a mistake her mom's company made. And she's not the only one.

It's been six months since Sarah's mom died. Three months since her dad fell apart. Sarah has left her fine arts boarding school to take care of her dad and her little brother, and now she's trying to hold everything together at home while adjusting to the local public high school. With her dad's drinking and spending getting out of control, Sarah struggles to make sure that the bills are paid, that her brother is fed and safe, that her dad's grief won't crush them all. She has no time for art, unless she's cranking out a piece to sell online for some grocery money.

Charlie likes to stand out. She's a vlogger and actress promoting her first movie at SupaCon, and this is her chance to show fans she's over her public breakup with co-star Reese Ryan. When Internet-famous cool-girl actress Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie's long-time crush on her isn't as one-sided as she thought. Taylor likes to blend in. Her brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there's one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with her best guy friend Jamie - no matter how much she may secretly want it to.

Adam gave up everything for a new chance at life. Now with a cutting-edge digital mind, he is smarter, faster, better than a normal teen. But this new life isn't free. He's indebted to the government program that gave him this ability - and freedom comes at a price. Adam and his teammates, the six Pioneers, swore to defend humanity against Sigma, the most ruthless artificial intelligence program ever designed.

To Daya Wijesinghe, a bruise is a mixture of comfort and control. Since her parents died in an accident she survived, bruises have become a way to keep her pain on the surface of her skin so she doesn't need to deal with the ache deep in her heart. So when chance and circumstances bring her to a roller-derby bout, Daya is hooked. Yes, the rules are confusing and the sport seems to require the kind of teamwork and human interaction Daya generally avoids. But the opportunities to bruise are countless.

After Philly teenager Alexis Duncan is injured in a gang shooting, her dreams of a college scholarship and pro basketball career vanish in an instant. To avoid becoming another Black teen trapped in her poverty-stricken neighborhood, she shifts her focus to the school's STEM team. Academics have never been her thing, but Alexis is motivated by Aamani Chakrabarti, the new Indian student who becomes her friend (and crush?). Alexis begins to see herself as so much more than an athlete. But as her future starts to reform, Alexis's own doubts and old loyalties pull her back into harm's way.

Hope Chambers has a major problem. She's spent the entirety of her four years of high school focusing on being perfect—perfect grades, perfect extracurriculars, perfect essays—to the point that she forgot to get a life. And now she's perfectly boring. She's got exactly two weeks before her admissions interview for MIT to spice up her life and get a personality, dammit. And she knows exactly who can help her: soccer star and Mr. Popularity himself, Landon Watkins.