Showing results by narrator "Michael Crouch" in All Categories

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.

When a bullying incident sends 12-year-old Nico Holland over the edge of a cliff into the icy waters of Still Cove, where no one ever goes, friends Tyler and Ella - and even 'cool kid' Opal - rush to his rescue...only to discover an island hidden in the swirling mists below. Shrouded by dense trees and murky tides, the island appears uninhabited, although the kids can't quite shake the feeling that something about it is off.

Cole Weston - former friend, former boyfriend - has become dangerous, erratic. Something needs to be done. Getting rid of Cole is practically a public service. So high school seniors Holly Morse, Grayson Hobbs, Logan Bailey, and Meeka Miller devise a plan. Kill Cole. Bury him in the woods behind Meeka's house. Bury him deep, deep in the ground along with four old cell phones, wiped except for their video confession as insurance that no one will ever betray the group.

Twelve-year-old Mikey Pruitt - president, founder, and CEO of Anything, Inc. - has always been an entrepreneur at heart. Inspired by his grandfather Pap Pruitt, who successfully ran all sorts of businesses from a car wash to a roadside peanut stand, Mikey is still looking for his million-dollar idea. It isn't until kid drag queen Coco Caliente, Mistress of Madness and Mayhem (aka eighth grader Julian Vasquez) walks into his office (aka his family's storage/laundry room) looking for an agent that Mikey thinks he's finally found his million-dollar idea!

After an imminent yet unnamed danger forces people across Colorado to leave their homes, a group of kids including an aspiring filmmaker and a budding journalist find themselves in the same evacuation camp. As they cope with the aftermath of having their world upended, they grow curious about the mysterious threat.

Brilliant but awkward Bernard Gawain is thrilled his crush, Bridget Matsumoto, has been cast as the leading lady, and he will be playing her hero. But this dream come true unravels when his domineering mother becomes the class substitute teacher and the film's tyrannical director.

In the spring of 1970, Harvard psychologist Terry Canyon is introduced to Peter, a quiet kid from a wealthy family who has been suspended from ninth grade for stripping off his clothes in algebra class. When Terry asks Peter why he did it, the boy explains that he was trying to “shock myself awake”. It turns out that Peter believes he is a 65-year-old man who went to sleep in his home in New York in the year 2020 and woke up in his childhood bedroom 50 years earlier.

Throughout this striking debut collection, we meet characters who have lied, who have sometimes created elaborate falsehoods, and who now must cope with the way that those deceptions eat at the very fabric of their lives and relationships. In the title story, the narrator, desperate to save a love affair on the rocks, hires an actor to play a friend he invented in order to seem less lonely, after his boyfriend catches on to his compulsion for lying and demands to know this friend is real.

Rumor Mora fears two things: hellhounds too strong for him to kill, and failure. Jude Welton has two dreams: for humans to stop killing monsters and for his strange abilities to vanish. But in no reality should a boy raised to love monsters fall for a boy raised to kill them. Nyx Llorca keeps two secrets: the moon speaks to her, and she's in love with her best friend. Braeden Tennant wants two things: to get out from his mother's shadow, and to unlearn his colony's darkest secret. To save everyone they love, they'll both have to commit treason.

Puppies Hocus and Pocus are still waiting to be adopted from the Shelter for Slightly Magical Pets. Even though Hocus can see two minutes into the future and Pocus can turn bad feelings into bubbles (which he eats!), nobody seems to want them. This could be because the two keep causing mischief so they won’t be separated. When Jinx the witch uses a “spell for home” potion to help a color-changing tortoise find his match, the puppies know what to do: sneak both their hairs into the mixture to ensure they get adopted together.

On a walk around the neighborhood delivering potions with their magical family, puppies Hocus and Pocus discover that the wizard next door, Jade, has a new pet—a dragon named Bye-Bye. Hocus is excited! She loves making new friends and thinks Bye-Bye’s wings and fire breath are cool. But Pocus is afraid. He already has five friends, which feels like a lot. Plus Bye-Bye might eat them! Right? When Hocus bounds into Bye-Bye’s yard wanting to play, the dragon shies away, then chases her off. Could it be that Bye-Bye isn’t scary—she’s scared? How can the puppies help?

When their mom leaves, Reed must care for his sister who has a life-threatening condition—even if that means breaking the law. A tender and sparkling story about family, trust, and the lengths we will go to for the ones we love.

Pesha and Fen have shouldered the grief, pain, and fear for the people they love for as long as they can remember. Fen as his sister’s protector and handler, and Pesha as his brother’s trusted right hand. Neither has given thought to their own happiness, because a life of crisis only allows for chaos. Contentment is an affliction neither can afford. When Pesha embarks on a desperate, risky journey to a homeland he’s never been to, in a final attempt to save his dying sister, Fen doesn’t hesitate to come along to help the man he’s been slowly falling in love with.

Dawn Decker is an American everywoman and the salt to her husband Wyatt’s sweet, media-friendly charm on their Tennessee-based home renovation reality TV show, The Perfect Home. While Dawn bristles at the trappings of their D-list celebrity status, Wyatt hungers for greater fame. The couple also faces infertility issues stemming from Wyatt’s low sperm count. He secretly orders experimental fertility drugs, and they conceive, but his personality takes a dark turn—he becomes moody, withdrawn, and even cruel.

In her second story collection, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as beloved for her short fiction as she is for her novels. In these dazzling stories, she conjures up characters so real that they seem like old friends, laying bare the moments when their long held beliefs are overturned.

THE TERRIBLES HAVE BEEN CHALLENGED to a game of CREEPOBALL, a sport that is played by all monsters on Creep's Cove Island (just don't ask them how to play it—nobody knows ALL the rules!). Their rivals? A horde of relentless, fierce, low-down GNOMES. Can THE TERRIBLES defeat these Gnomes without anyone DISAPPEARING into an ALTERNATE DIMENSION? Why are you asking me?

From the critically acclaimed author of The Adventures of a South Pole Pig comes a heartwarming middle grade animal adventure story about Frank, the odd one out in a family of ducks, who discovers both his courage and unique identity as he braves the unknown to save his family from an invading fox.

A meteorite carrying an alien virus of unknown origin falls to Earth off the US coast. Three boys find fragments washed ashore and sell them online, unknowingly spreading the contagion around the US. One of the fragments comes to the town of Stark’s Hill, Colorado. When exposed to this virus, human beings turn into flesh-eating zombies, or as Ben Michaels and his small group of allies come to call them "the Changed".

The secrets of Bellwound’s lineage and lifelong love have led him away from a once quiet life and into the Dark Beyond, the realm where Lucifer and his Fallen Stars were imprisoned. The once sacred land has turned into a luscious prison, riddled with mystery, guarded by the judged goddess Romiria. The arrival of Lucifer’s son disrupts an ancient order, stirring chaos in this doomed paradise. While the Dark Beyond is shaken by Bellwound’s presence, Lucifer and his servants plot against mortals and the Creator with an army of Shadows.

It was supposed to be an ordinary day at the pool, but when lifeguard Nick hesitates during a rescue, seventeen-year-old December uses her gift of foreknowledge to save the drowning man instead. The action comes at a cost. Not only will Nick and December fall in love, but she also sees thathis life is now at risk. The other problem? They’re basically strangers.