Showing results by narrator "Joy Nash" in All Categories

Julie knows it’s unusual that a professional wrestler runs a constant commentary on her life that only she can hear. But grief can be awfully funny sometimes. National Book Award nominee Bryan Bliss delivers a thought-provoking, one-of-a-kind novel about how to tread the line between moving on and holding on. Dispatches from Parts Unknown is for fans of David Arnold, Nina LaCour, and You’ve Reached Sam.

If there are two subjects that are universally fascinating and rife with controversy, they are sex and fat. Though our culture is obsessed with both, the two commingling are sometimes seen as offensive, obscene, or even grotesque. Fat people are not viewed as sexual beings. Of course, this perception is far from accurate. Fat people have normal and peculiar sex lives, just like everyone else. A compilation of true stories, cultural references, and narrative commentary, Fat Sex: The Naked Truth tells the honest, and often heroic, heartbreaking, and hilarious experiences of large-size women and men in their romantic, intimate, and sexual relationships.

If you asked seventeen-year-old Cass Williams to describe herself, she’d happily tell you she’s fat, a lesbian, and obsessed with the Tide Wars books. What she won’t tell you—or anyone in her life—is that she’s part of an online Tide Wars roleplay community. Sure, it’s nerdy as hell, but when she’s behind the screen writing scenes as Captain Aresha, she doesn’t have to think about her mother who walked out or how unexpectedly stressful it is dating resident cool girl Taylor Cooper.

Sunny Palmer has returned to Christmas Notch in search of some festive inspiration for her screenplay. Isaac Kelly, former boy band heartthrob and the saddest boy in the music biz, is the latest owner of the town’s historic mansion. What better place to attempt his first holiday album than a snow-covered mansion where he can become a hermit in peace? But after they wake up together in Sunny’s dilapidated motel room after a wild night, Isaac takes a chance and asks her to stay at his place and they make a deal: they will both try to get the other’s creative juices flowing again.

Bridget Bloom’s out-of-this-world voice is the perfect fit for center stage. When Bridget’s admitted to Richard James Academy, a college prep boarding school with a prestigious music program—where heartthrob Duke Ericson attends—all her dreams are on track to come true: leave the hometown where she’s never belonged, fall in love, and launch her Broadway career. But upon arriving at the academy, she learns that due to her low music theory scores, she’s not eligible to perform or earn the sponsorship she needs to afford the tuition.

Faith Herbert can finally admit that she’s not a regular teen — and take advantage of her new flying superpowers. After the chaos of her first semester, Faith just wants to end her senior year in a normal way — enjoying all the hallmarks of graduating high school, like prom, with her best friends Matt and Ches.

In this fun, fresh, fat-positive anthology, fat activist and sex educator Virgie Tovar brings together voices from an often-marginalized community to talk about and celebrate their lives. Hot & Heavy rejects the idea that being thin is best, instead embracing the many fabulous aspects of being fat - building fat-positive spaces, putting together fat-friendly wardrobes, turning society’s rules into personal politics, and creating supportive, inclusive communities.

When aspiring musician Twyla Finch arrives in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1977, the nineteen-year-old Texan is dazzled by the fringe-and-rhinestones country music scene. Live music flows from bars, open mic nights tempt with the chance of stardom, and record label execs seek the next hot new act.

The year is 1945 and the world is at war. Meeting on a London Underground Station for the first time, Kiera Hudson and time traveler Samantha Carter are brought together to take part in a desperate mission deep behind enemy lines. With a friend's life at stake and the help of two mortal enemies, Kiera and Samantha must face a foe more terrifying than either one has battled before. But can vampire and werewolf work as one or is it only a matter of time before Kiera Hudson and Samantha Carter are pushed apart?

When 20-year-old police recruit Kiera Hudson sets off to the remote town of Ripper Falls, in search of her missing brother, her life is changed forever. But when Kiera's life collides into a stranger, she finds herself tangled up in a world unlike anything she has even known.

It's her dream role; she's had the part memorized since she was ten; and she and Roger Morton, who's playing the male lead, definitely had chemistry in the audition. But Aggie isn't just a talented actress, writer, and athlete. She's also the fattest girl in the senior class. What happens after she checks the cast list for the musical will hurl Aggie into an unexpected journey of tears, friendship, jealousy, revenge, Oreos, and lots of lots of theater.

What is the reality of policing in the United States? Do the police keep anyone safe and secure other than the very wealthy? How do recent police killings of young Black people in the United States fit into the historical and global context of anti-blackness? This collection of reports and essays explores police violence against Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities, miscarriages of justice, and failures of token accountability and reform measures.

To call these unsettling times is an understatement: our political leaders are less and less respectable; in the realm of business, cheating, lying, and stealing are hazily defined; and in daily life, rapidly changing technology offers permission to act in ways inconceivable without it. Yet somehow this hasn't quite led to a complete free-for-all - people still draw lines around what is acceptable and what is not. Collinsworth sets out to understand how and why.

Humanity is in the eye of the beholder. But for street-smart detective Amber Payne, it's the eyes that aren't human. Cybernetic implants replaced the organics she lost in the line of duty, and their appearance often causes Amber to doubt her self-worth. Rookie detective Kevin Glass is her partner. And though he may be new, Kevin's unparalleled skill as an elite cyber-surfer makes him an invaluable asset. When Alta Corp contracts the two of them to solve a case of high stakes data theft, they will need every bit of skill, experience, and determination to succeed.

Nella Covington can't believe she's agreed to marry the arrogant Samuel L. du Cannon, even if it's only a marriage of convenience. He needs a mother for his small son, and she needs to keep her beloved childhood home. Will she be able to stand his egotistical attitude? His domineering manner? But Jake is such a darling little boy! And he's already captured her heart. What does she have to lose?

Plagued with strange memory gaps, Charlotte wants her life back, even if someone has to die for her to get it. She has tried so hard to be what Gregory wanted her to be, and yet still he doesn't love her. Pregnant, miserable, and knowing she is being betrayed by the one person she had left to rely on, she promises herself that she will do whatever it takes.

One party. One wild night in her entire life and Faith Car winds up pregnant! What were the odds? And what were the odds that the handsome stranger who'd gotten her pregnant had only made love to her because of a stupid bet! And now he didn't want anything to do with her or the baby that was growing inside her.

A weight-loss clinic in New York City has an offer for you - give them $5,000 and they'll make you as thin as a supermodel. You can eat whatever you want and you'll never gain an ounce. Tempted? Fledgling journalist Karen Sumner would be - if only she had $5,000. When Karen finally walks through the blue and gold doors of The Program, though, she's on the trail of the hottest story of her career.

If Hanna Rockwell isn't married by the time she reaches her 30th birthday, she will lose her home, Rockwell Place, and her entire inheritance. Hanna's mother and brother, who also live at Rockwell Place, are desperately afraid they're going to lose their home and allowance. Their constant nagging at Hanna to find someone to marry has driven her to challenge them. "Start planning the wedding, Mother. And Will, you find the groom. And I'll get married on my 30th birthday!"

Fat Kids is a truly unique work; all other books focusing on children and weight are solely focused on diet and weight loss. This book, with its empathetic point of view, raw emotion, and solid information, is a necessary voice in the literary scene.