Showing results by narrator "Jesse Vilinsky" in All Categories

From severe flooding in Louisiana to wildfires in the Pacific Northwest to melting permafrost in Alaska, catastrophic climate events are occurring more frequently—and severely—than ever. And these events are having a direct impact on the lives (and futures) of young people and their families.

As an autistic scholarship student at the prestigious Webber Academy in New York City, Waverly is used to masking to fit in—in more ways than one. While her classmates are the children of the one percent, Waverly is getting by on tutoring gigs and the generosity of the school’s charming and enigmatic dean. So when her tutoring student and resident “it girl” asks Waverly to attend the school’s annual fundraising Masquerade disguised as her, Waverly jumps at the chance—especially once she finds out that Ash, the dean’s daughter and her secret ex-girlfriend, will be there.

When Nina decides to take a radio-broadcasting class her senior year, she expects it to be a walk in the park. Instead, it's a complete disaster. The members of Nina's haphazardly formed radio team have approximately nothing in common. And to maximize the awkwardness, her group includes Jamie, a childhood friend she'd hoped to basically avoid for the rest of her life.

Sylvi Quine, the best rig driver on Layce, has braved the dangers of the Shiv Road to save her friend and learned the truth of her power over Winter. Now, she’s joined the rebels working to take down the Majority. Her magic could change the course of their fight, and she agrees to meet the king of Paradyia to offer an exchange: the healing powers of the Pool of Begynd for his army.

Vampires and merpeople, angels and demons—the stories in this anthology imagine worlds where the only thing more powerful than the supernatural, is love. A girl in a graveyard goes on an unexpected date, a shipwrecked sailor makes a connection on a forbidden island, a piano melody summons a soul mate. Creatures of folktales and legend, of land and sea, of centuries past and life after life, all wrapped into one spellbinding compendium. Once you sink into its story, it’ll never let you go.

Twelve-year-old Melanie has been in foster care her whole life, moving from home to home—unloved and unwanted. And although she has found relative contentment with her current foster parents, Melanie harbors a secret that, if discovered, would blow her world apart. Someone talks to Melanie, a presence no one else can see or hear, and this presence has a message for her: Something bad is about to happen.

Sixteen-year-old Sierra has been so caught up in her own world of saving animal test subjects and her father's disappearance, she hasn't paid much attention. When she finally finds his location, she and her friend set off on a covert interplanetary mission to rescue him, and she begins to see the corruption firsthand. Discovering that her father has been on the front lines secretly trying to save human test subjects inspires her to join a revolution. But she is afraid of the collateral damage of hurting the people she loves.

Noah’s Rainy Day combines classic Liv Bergen irreverence and brainpower with an unflinching look at the darkest of human motivations, all while a whirlpool of increasingly terrifying events threatens to engulf Liv and Noah both in one final rainy day....

Since absorbing the power of the Life Tree, everything has changed. Scarlett is queen of a realm that until a few weeks ago she didn't even know existed and has more magic than she ever thought possible. But she worries it still isn't enough to protect those she cares about or to find a way to bring Raith, who had sacrificed himself to save his mother, back. With a looming war against a new enemy no one knows much about, Scarlett and Kaelem must find as many allies as they can.

Francie is a reluctant Maid of Honor, for several reasons. The first is that her friend Serena has terrible taste in men. Previous fiancés have included a storm-chaser, a shaman and a kamikaze base-jumper. This is the closest a wedding has come to happening, and it's to a UFO-chaser. The second is that, as a result, the wedding is being held in New Mexico. In Roswell. During the UFO festival.

The third Liv Bergen mystery picks up right where the second one left off: the murder of Liv’s sister-in-law has been solved, but an older rancher has been bludgeoned to death in a style eerily reminiscent of a long-inactive killer known only as the Crooked Man. FBI agent Streeter Pierce, still on assignment in Sturgis, South Dakota, must now turn his sights on tracking down the killer, who happens to be his nemesis from 10 years earlier. Pierce doesn’t complain, though; he’s falling in love with Liv Bergen and works to recruit her for the FBI’s training camp in Quantico.

Once an amateur sleuth, Liv “Boots” Bergen has now found her footing as an official FBI agent. It should be Liv’s dream career - she’s working closely with a bureau legend, Agent Streeter Pierce, as well as the exotic Agent Jack Linwood, with whom she shares a growing romance. Liv has proven to be an adept agent, and the whole office has been moved to a brand new, state-of-the-art facility in central Denver. And yet, doubt plagues her. Liv is tormented by the knowledge that her work with the FBI could endanger her extended family.

One wave: that’s all it takes for the rest of Mae and Hannah Winters’ lives to change. When a tsunami strikes the island where their parents are vacationing, it soon becomes clear that their mom and dad are never coming home. Forced to move to Boston from sunny California for the rest of their senior year, each girl struggles with secrets their parents’ death has brought to light, and with their uncertainty about the future. Instead of bringing them closer, it feels like the wave has torn the sisters apart.

Lydia hasn’t felt comfortable in her own skin since the boys at her school started commenting on the way she looks in her uniform. Her cousin and friends think she should be flattered, but the boys - and sometimes her mom’s boyfriend, Jeremy - make Lydia uncomfortable and confused. Even more confusing is when Jeremy hovers too close and hugs a little too long. Then her mom surprises her by buying a dilapidated house in their neighborhood. Lydia hopes to find a little bit of magic in their new home.

Grace Welles is stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, where her method of survival is a strict, self-imposed loneliness. And it works. Her crap attitude keeps people away because without friends, there are fewer to lose. But when she accidentally saves the new kid, Wade Scholfield, from being beaten up, everything about her precariously balanced loner world collapses and, in order to find her footing again, she has no choice but to discover a completely new way to exist.

Jessica Hagedorn's edgy and entertaining new novel centers on the lives of two women who are neighbors in Manhattan's West Village. Mimi Smith is a filmmaker of low-budget slasher movies in search of new material. Her neighbor Eleanor Delacroix is a legendary writer of erotic fiction, now nearing eighty and addicted to cocaine and gin. Their personal and artistic lives begin to collide in unexpected ways.

Liv has been forced to take a leave of absence from her job at the FBI following the tragic death of her love, Jack Linwood. She finds herself back home in Rapid City, South Dakota, far from her closest friend and colleague, Streeter Pierce, and her trusted dog, Beulah. Struggling with the risks and pressures of her career and the nostalgia of home, a heartbroken Liv questions whether or not she has made the right choices in life. As if that weren’t enough, she finds herself sitting in a bar staring up into the faces of the bizarre wax heads of the infamous citizens of of Deadwood.

All her life, 17-year-old Chessie has had recurring dreams about a little white farmhouse. Quaint? Not quite. The house is the site of the unsolved murders of Villisca, Iowa, where eight people were slaughtered in 1912. With her parents on the verge of divorce, Chessie is stuck spending the summer with her grandparents in Villisca - right across the street from the axe murder house.

As she painfully emerges from her grief, Liv comes face-to-face with two facts: She did not truly love Jack, and she does love her long-time colleague and mentor Streeter Pierce. But she wonders if she can find the courage to let him know or just how much longer she can hide her feelings. As Streeter and Liv are drawn together and a tender relationship begins, a gritty and often shocking set of events is unraveling around them. While fans of the series have long waited to know the truth about his past, Streeter’s honest revelations lead to nothing but fear and his worst nightmare.

Wealthy participants in the "companionship" program choose to upload their consciousness before dying, so they can stay in the custody of their families. The less fortunate are rented out to strangers upon their death, but all companions become the intellectual property of Metis Corporation, creating a new class of people - a command-driven product-class without legal rights or true free will. Sixteen-year-old Lilac is one of the less fortunate. But when she realizes she’s able to defy commands, she throws off the shackles of servitude and runs away.