Showing results by narrator "Michael Crouch" in All Categories

At first we were almost strangers. But ever since I moved to New York, Amos was the one person I could count on. And together we were there for Poppy. (I mean, what kind of parents leave their kid to be raised by a nanny?) I just didn't expect to fall for him - and I never expected him to leave us.

The Infinite Future is a mind-bending novel that melds two addictive tales in one. In the first, we meet three broken people, joined by an obsession with a forgotten Brazilian science-fiction author named Salgado-MacKenzie. The motley trio sets off to discover his identity, and find his fabled masterpiece. In the second half, Wirkus gives us the lost masterpiece itself - the actual text of The Infinite Future, Salgado-MacKenzie's wonderfully weird magnum opus.

When Adeline, a wealthy art student, chances upon a young man from the Midwest known only as Baby in a shady East Village squat, the two begin a fiery friendship that propels them through a decade of New York life. In the apartments and bars of downtown Manhattan to the infamous nightclub The Limelight, Adeline is Baby's guardian angel, introducing him to a city not yet overrun by gentrification. They live through an era of New York punctuated by the deaths of Warhol, Basquiat, Wojnarowicz, and Tompkins Square Park.

Janie and Micah, Micah and Janie. That's how it's been ever since elementary school, when Janie Vivien moved next door. Janie says Micah is everything she is not. Where Micah is shy, Janie is outgoing. Where Micah loves music, Janie loves art. It's the perfect friendship - as long as no one finds out about it. But then Janie goes missing, and everything Micah thought he knew about his best friend is colored with doubt.

All Alex Dassan needs to do is win second place in the debate team finals. The second place prize is a trip to the Nottingshire Retreat in London, where she'll have a chance to take a class with her writing idol, Mary Noelle Simmons. Alex knows that once she meets Mary, then her life will fall into place and her dreams of becoming a writer will be possible (and less scary). Nothing is going to stand in Alex's way - especially not a dad who's never home and a mom who left to go "find herself" in India.

Pete Milano has always been the class clown and proud of it. What's the point of having friends if you can't make them laugh, right? Even if doing so has the unfortunate side effect of constantly getting him into trouble. But, for once, Pete's tricks have led him to just the right place at just the right time. Now he's about to become famous, because he's been asked to audition for the hottest new movie with the hottest girl costar. But balancing real life with movie life is way harder than it sounds.

For most of Tony Gilbert's life, he has thought of his uncle as "Weird Uncle Charlie". That is, until Uncle Charlie moves in with Tony and his family. Uncle Charlie is still odd, of course - talking about spirits and other supernatural stuff - but he and Tony become fast friends, and Tony ends up having a lot of fun with Uncle Charlie. When Uncle Charlie dies suddenly, Tony is devastated. Then he starts seeing Uncle Charlie everywhere!

On Whidbey Island, the Gray quintuplets are the stuff of legend. Pixie and her brothers have always been bigger and blonder than their neighbors, as if they were birthed from the island itself. Together they serve as an unofficial search-and-rescue team for the island, saving tourists and locals alike from the forces of wind and sea. But when a young boy goes missing, the mysteries start to pile up. While searching for him, they find his mother's dead body instead - and realize that something sinister is in their midst.

He's not asking for much. All Gregor Maravilla wants to do is feed all of the starving children on the planet. So when he's selected to join Camp Save the World, a special summer program for teenage activists from all over the country to champion their cause, Gregor's sure he's on the path to becoming Someone Great. But then a prize is announced. It will be awarded at the end of summer to the activist who shows the most promise in their campaign.

When Theo gets off a bus in Destiny, Florida, he's left behind the only life he's ever known. Now he's got to live with Uncle Chester, a Vietnam War vet and a loner who wants nothing to do with this longlost nephew. Thank goodness for Miss Sister Grandersole's Boarding House and Dance School. The piano that sits in Miss Sister's dance hall calls to Theo. He can't wait to play those ivory keys. When Anabel arrives, things get even more enticing.

Mike is about to graduate from college and inherit a world much different from the one he was promised. The World Trade Center towers have just fallen, the Beltway Sniper terrorizes the nation's capital, and a polarizing president pushes forward a dubious war. Told in 18 vignettes, Mike's misadventures begin in Washington, DC, and span Brooklyn, Portland, and Austin as he takes up arms with the overeducated, underemployed millennials who surround him.

Aidan and Olivia live in a creaky old house on the edge of a dirty, swampy lake. Craving some excitement, they convince their parents to let them camp out by the lakeshore under a full moon, with only their dog for company. Aidan loves to scare his sister and has plenty of funny tricks up his sleeve for their campout. But the twins are about to find out that the creepy old book that washed ashore, Tales from the Scaremaster, has a mind of its own - and its mind is set on scares beyond Aidan's wildest dreams!

An ancient religion grotesquely modernized, The Purpose, deifies children for their deformities - a beautiful girl with three arms, a brave boy with one eye...the exceptional list goes on. Painted and costumed, they are worshiped on stage. Shy and exposed, they are ridiculed in the streets, often by the same faces. Glorious or repulsive? Gods or freaks? How deep will the identity divide be dredged, and to which side will the truth finally tip?

Grad student Will Dillard has largely buried memories of the summer he spent at a camp intended to "cure" homosexuality. But when he finds out a horror movie based on the camp is hitting theaters, he's forced to face his past - and his role in another camper's death. As he recounts the events surrounding his "failed rehabilitation", Will strikes out on an impromptu road trip back home to Mississippi, eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer.

Jeannie is 19 when the world changes, Kip only 14. The sudden accident that robs them of their mother leaves them adrift, with only their father to guide them. Jeannie seeks escape in work and later marriage to a man whose social connections propel her into an unfamiliar world of wealth and politics. Ill equipped and unprepared, Jeannie finds comfort where she can. Meanwhile Kip's descent into a life of petty crime is halted only when he volunteers for the marines.

When your namesake is Pablo Neruda - the greatest love poet of all time - finding "the one" should be easy. After all, 16-year-old aspiring artist Neruda Diaz has been in love many times before. So it's only a matter of time before someone loves him back. But as Neruda begins to fall faster and harder than ever before, he is blindsided by the complicated nature of love - and art - in more ways than one.

The moment a mysterious boy moves in next door to Sydney and Allyson Tate, both of their lives begin to change in ways that neither of them can ignore. When Allyson meets Graham Copeland, she instantly feels like he's a kindred spirit - shy and awkward like her, someone who has trouble making friends. It's almost impossible to resist having a crush on him.

Laura: a teenage girl struggling to fit into her small, sleepy town in upstate New York, slowly drifting away from reality, into the secret life she inhabits online. Paul: a twentysomething wannabe rock star, back home from NYC, broke and jobless, living with his mother. April: a math teacher with two kids, running her church's vacation Bible school, discontent with another summer planning crafts and regurgitating verses. Ben: a boy stuck at VBS, still adjusting to the presence of his foster brother, DeShawn, a quiet, brooding kid from Brooklyn. Over summer, their paths will collide.

Every year, a boy and his family go camping at Mountain Pond. Usually, they see things like an eagle fishing for his dinner, a salamander with red spots on its back, and chipmunks that come to steal food while the family sits by the campfire. But this year is different. This year, the boy is going into first grade, and his mother is encouraging him to do things on his own, just like his older brother. And the most different thing of all...this year, a tiger comes to the woods.

St. James is an exclusive New England boarding school known for grooming generations of leaders. Ben Weeks is a true insider - his ancestors helped found St. James, his older brother taught him all the slang, and he's just won a national championship in squash. But after 14 long years of waiting, Ben arrives at school only to find that the reality of St. James doesn't quite match up with his imaginings. At the same time, his new roommate, Ahmed Al-Khaled, the son of a fabulously wealthy Emirati sheik, can't navigate the unspoken rules of New England blue bloods.