Showing results by narrator "Julia Whelan" in All Categories

Running from a hazy past, mother and daughter tread lightly, checking in and out of hotel rooms, leaving all luggage and collected mementos behind when the mother knows they must run again. They make friends with no one and enemies with some. They are singular — a “Moon Unit”. Hotel workers place bets on whether the strange chain-smoking lady stole that beautiful girl away from her real mother, but to the Moon Unit the hotel people don’t matter.

In this hopeful, humorous, and astonishingly deft debut, Allison Winn Scotch explores what happens when a young woman thinks she's lost everything that matters' and ends up discovering what's truly important. This is a novel that will leave you taking stock of what's important in your own life . . . and never letting it go.

Philippa Fisher is feeling lonely. She misses her fairy godsister, Daisy. But while on vacation with her parents, she befriends a local girl named Robyn. Though she’s excited to have a friend again, Philippa can’t help but feel that there’s something strange about Robyn and her father. Meanwhile, Daisy, who is hard at work on a new mission, misses Philippa as well, so she decides to break the rules to visit her friend. Though the girls are happy to be reunited, things soon begin to go horribly wrong with Daisy’s assignment.

Inertia, force, mass, gravity, velocity, acceleration...cause and effect. Liz Emerson doesn't understand any of it. But I do. I understand how we fall. Where we fall. Why we fall. I understand her sadness and loneliness and silence, her shattered heart. It doesn't have to bethis way, does it? It wasn't always this way, was it? Stay alive, Liz Emerson, stay alive.

Elissa Schappell's book delves into the lives of an eclectic cast of archetypal female characters including the high school slut, the party girl, the reluctant mother, and the anorexic daughter, twisting our pre-conceived notions of who these women are, offering surprising revelations into the nature of female identity, and how it evolves.

Charles Wallace Murry is old enough to start school, but his sister, Meg, and their friend Calvin know he isn't cut out for school on Earth - Meg worries that he'll be more misunderstood than ever. Luckily, with the help of the three celestial creatures - Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which - there is another place where Charles Wallace can get his education: Intergalactic P.S. 3, a public school in a completely different galaxy.

What do you do with your last day on Earth? There are 27 hours and 15 minutes left until a meteor strikes North America, and for Emerson and everyone else who didn't leave, the world will end. But Emerson's world already ended when she ran away from home last year. Since then she has lived on the streets, relying on her wits and her friend, Vince, to help her find places to sleep and food to eat.

The summer before she was set to head out of state to pursue her MFA, 26-year-old Cole Cohen submitted herself to a battery of tests. For as long as she could remember, she'd struggled with a series of learning disabilities that made it nearly impossible to judge time and space - standing at a crosswalk, she couldn't tell you if an oncoming car would arrive in 10 seconds or 30; if you asked her to let you know when 10 minutes had passed, she might notify you in a minute or an hour.

So many secrets are buried within these compound walls. I used to be one of those secrets. After returning to the Diotech compound and undergoing an experimental new memory alteration, Seraphina is now a loyal, obedient servant to Dr. Alixter and the powerful company that created her. Happy and in love with Kaelen, another scientifically-enhanced human designed to be her perfect match, Sera's history with a boy named Zen is just a distant memory from a rebellious past she longs to forget.

The Storys are the envy of their neighbours: owners of the largest property on their East Coast island, they are rich, beautiful and close. Until it all falls apart. The four children are suddenly dropped by their mother with a single sentence: you know what you did. They never hear from her again. Years later, when 18-year-old cousins Aubrey, Milly and Jonah Story receive a mysterious invitation to spend the summer at their grandmother's resort, they have no choice but to follow their curiosity and meet the woman who's been such an enigma their entire lives.

As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable, but their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend. Villa Aestas in Orvieto is breath-taking, but it has a dark past: in 1974 it was rented by a notorious rockstar, who was joined by up-and-coming musician Pierce Sheldon and his girlfriend, Mari. By the end of the holiday Pierce is dead, and Mari goes on to write one of the greatest horror novels of all time.

His classmates may consider him a nerd, but Benedict Pendleton knows he's destined for great things. All he has to do is find a worthy girlfriend, and his social station will be secured. Sure, Benedict is different - but that's what he likes about himself. Pen Lupo is sick and tired of hiding who she is. On the outside Pen is popular, quiet, and deferential to her boyfriend. On the inside, however, Pen is honest, opinionated - and not sure that she's quite like other girls.

At the age of 29, Hannah Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived in six different cities and held countless jobs since graduating college. On the heels of leaving another city, Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles and takes up residence with her best friend, Gabby. Shortly after, Hannah goes out to a bar one night with Gabby and meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan.

Plucked from the Mark Twain archives at the University of California, Berkeley, Twain's notes now form the foundation of a fairy tale picked up over a century later. With only Twain's fragmentary script and a story that stops partway as his guide, author Philip Stead has written a tale that imagines what might have been if Twain had fully realized this work. This is a story that reaches through time and brings us the debut children's book of America's most legendary writer, envisioned by one of today's most important names in children's literature.

Tess da Costa is a saint - a hand-to-god miracle-producing saint. At least that's what the people in her hometown of New Avon, Massachusetts, seem to believe. And when Tess suddenly and tragically passes away, her small city begins feverishly petitioning the Pope to make Tess' sainthood official. Tess' mother is ecstatic over the fervor while her sister Callie, the one who knew Tess best, is disgusted - overcome with the feeling that her sister is being stolen from her all over again.

Joanna and Leo seem to have the perfect relationship. Two adorable children, a beautiful house in a chic area of Connecticut - they have the kind of life people envy. Then Piper moves to town. Piper is young, attractive, flirtatious. It’s almost no wonder Leo is tempted away. Devastated, Joanna starts digging into Piper’s past and discovers some very disturbing secrets - not least that Piper’s previous two husbands ended up dead. But Piper dismisses Joanna’s fears for her family as paranoia. Who is telling the truth?

Sixteen-year-old Glenn Morgan has lived next to the Rift her entire life and has no idea of what might be on the other side of it. Glenn's only friend, Kevin, insists the fence holds back a world of monsters and witchcraft, but magic isn't for Glenn. She has enough problems with reality: Glenn's mother disappeared when she was six, and soon after, she lost her scientist father to his all-consuming work on his mysterious Project. Glenn buries herself in her studies and dreams about the day she can escape.

In the city of Yuan, the blind Princess Isra is raised to be a human sacrifice. Her death will ensure her city's vitality. In the desert, a mutant beast named Gem fights to save his people, known as the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that together they can return balance to their worlds. When Gem is captured for trying to steal Yuan's enchanted roses, he becomes a prisoner of the city. Isra enlists his help, and soon begins to care for him - and to question everything she has been brought up to believe.

Twelve-year-old Caitlin lives alone with her mother - a docker at the local container port - in subsidized housing next to an airport in Seattle. Each day, while she waits to be picked up after school, Caitlin visits the local aquarium to study the fish. Gazing at the creatures within the watery depths, Caitlin accesses a shimmering universe beyond her own.

Already addicted to the pharmaceutical drug that keeps her body from decomposing, Bryn has to stop a secretive group of rich and powerful investors from eliminating the existing Returné addicts altogether. To ensure their plan to launch a new military-grade strain of nanotech, the investors' undead assassin - who just happens to be the ex-wife of Bryn's lover Patrick - is on the hunt for anyone that stands in their way.