Showing results by narrator "Lauren Ezzo" in All Categories

Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she’s been chosen to participate in an exclusive program that includes an all-expenses-paid trip to France and a chance to explore the hidden underground Palais du Papillon, or Palace of the Butterfly. Along with four other gifted teenagers, Anouk will be one of the first people to set foot in the palace in more than two hundred years. But the expedition is not all it seems.

In the twenty-first century, we meet Verity Frazier, a disillusioned history professor who sets out to prove that the artist responsible for the illuminated artwork in Christine de Pizan’s medieval manuscripts was a remarkable woman named Anastasia. As Anastasia’s story unfolds against the exquisitely-rendered medieval backdrop of moral disaster, political intrigue, and extraordinary creativity, Verity finds her career on the brink of collapse by her efforts to uncover evidence of the lost artist’s existence.

For as long as she can remember, Kugy has loved to write. Whimsical stories are her passion, along with letters full of secret longings that she folds into paper boats and sets out to sea. Now that she's older, she dreams of following her heart and becoming a true teller of tales, but she decides to get a "real job" instead and forget all about Keenan, the guy who makes her feel as if she's living in one of her own fairy tales.

Cologne, 1351: Elisabeth and Stephen Hardenstein are twins, but they could not be more different. While Elisabeth is inspired by the family business, absorbing everything her father shows her about the cloth trade, Stephen enjoys a leisurely life and pays little attention to their father's teachings. Elisabeth recognizes her true vocation as a tradeswoman, and though the odds are stacked against her, she pursues her passion.

Meet nine courageous young adults who have lived in the United States with a secret for much of their lives: they are not U.S. citizens. They came from Colombia, Mexico, Ghana, Independent Samoa, and Korea. They came seeking education, fleeing violence, and escaping poverty. All have heartbreaking and hopeful stories about leaving their homelands and starting a new life in America. And all are weary of living in the shadows.

Set on the high prairies of Montana, in small towns scattered across vast landscapes, the distances in Broken Field are both insurmountable and deeply internalized. Life is dusty and hard, and men are judged by their labor. Women have to be tougher yet. That’s what sixteen-year-old Josie Frehse learns as she struggles to meet the expectations of her community while fumbling with her own desires.

Studded with the real love letters between a young Theodore Roosevelt and Boston beauty Alice Lee―many of them never before published―If a Poem Could Live and Breathe makes vivid what many historians believe to be the pivotal years that made the future president into the man of action that defined his political life, and cemented his legacy.

Princess Charis Willowthorn is the dutiful sword of Calera. Raised to be ruthless and cunning, her only goal is to hold her war-torn kingdom together long enough to find a path toward peace with their ancient foe Montevallo, even if the cost is her own heart. When violence erupts in the castle itself, nearly killing the queen, Charis must assume her mother’s duties and manage both the war and her kingdom. But as an unseen enemy begins sinking Calera’s ships, Charis realizes a threat much greater than Montevallo is coming for her people. So she forms a plan.

Four girls. One unforgettable July. Britta is the bubbly drama queen. Meredith is the overachiever. Kate is the reluctant socialite. Spider is the quiet intellectual. When these four very different young women stay together for a month in the mountains, they discover that sometimes getting away from it all can only bring you back to whom you really are.

The fantastic has always been at the edges of Heather O’Neill’s work.In Daydreams of Angels, O’Neill’s first collection of short stories, she gives free rein to her imaginative gifts. In “Swan Lake for Beginners”, generations of Nureyev clones live out their lives in a grand Soviet experiment. In “The Holy Dove Parade”, a teenage cult follower writes a letter to explain the motivation behind her crime. And in another tale, a grandmother reveals where babies come from: the beach, where young mothers-to-be hunt for infants in the surf.

In a small logging town in northern California, young Emma Rose Finnis was born and died. Now, no one remembers her hardworking life and her grand dreams - but she remembers. She remembers everything. Emma Rose is still here, one hundred years after her death...and she doesn't plan on leaving. But when a determined hunter arrives with instructions to "clean" Emma Rose out of her haunt, the stately Lambry mansion, death suddenly isn't the worst fate imaginable.

When her sister Lila and brother-in-law Gray are killed in a tragic accident, Bella is named as guardian to her two young nephews. Then she discovers that she's expected to co-parent with Gray's best friend, and grief turns to shock. Noah has always driven her crazy, and Bella's sure the arrogant, handsome Navy SEAL is the last person she wants to share a life with.

The desolate canyons of Alcoro - and the people desperate enough to hide there - couldn’t be more different from the opulent glass palace and lush forests of Moquoia. But the harsh desert and gleaming court are linked through their past, present, and future: a history of abductions in the desert to power Moquoia’s quarries and factories and a bleak, inhumane future built on the sweat and sacrifice of these bond laborers.

With no ID for his pet, an agitated young man shows up at Cassie's Comfy Cats claiming his house has burned down and he needs to board his big brown cat, Ayesha. But after a bath washes dye out of the cat's coat and reveals beautiful spots, Cassie suspects the exotic-looking feline may, in fact, be a valuable Bengal show cat, possibly stolen. At the same time, there are rumored sightings of a wild cat in the hills of Chadwick, New Jersey. Could there be a connection?

Rose Berman is losing her mind. At least, that’s what everyone at school seems to think. Plagued by panic attacks that started after her mother’s death, Rose is the target of frequent teasing and rumors. But when the star quarterback takes it too far, the school’s tattooed, cigarette-smoking time bomb―Elliott King―steps in and punches him in the face. Rose’s therapist recommends she try out a sport to manage her anxiety. She can’t help but think of Elliott―maybe if she could punch like him, she’d feel safer and stronger.

To Charles Fort, with Love is award-winning fantasist Caitlín R. Kiernan’s third collection of short fiction, a haunting parade of the terrible things which may lie beyond the boundaries of science, the minds which may exist beyond psychology, and the forbidden places which will never be located in any orthodox globe. A deceptively even dozen, this collection includes Kiernan’s celebrated stories “Onion” and “Andromeda Among the Stones”, as well as a number of more obscure pieces.

The end of the world comes home. Emily Ristler is six weeks pregnant when the beginning of the end blows up her utopian dream. Moving out to a peaceful subdivision beyond the city limits should have put her beyond the reaches of life’s insanity; a waterfront paradise to start a family. But with Cole caught in the heart of the city during a mysterious phenomenon that has devolved man into a primal predator with a single urge - Kill! - Emily must hold the home front until he returns.

Leigh Ramos—a woman on the run from her ex-boyfriend and the dangerous life she left behind—is starting over in Hawaii with a new name and hopes to leave her past behind her. She’s doing okay. A new job. Great friends. And a love interest in her new boss. But something seems off. The itch to run is back and the island seems to be rejecting her at every turn. There’s a darkness looming on the island and it seems that the only thing that will save them is a sacrifice that will cost a little bit of something from everyone.

With accessible, concise explanations of the features and causes of climate change as well as pieces urging an intersectional approach to environmental justice, this book is the handbook for the emerging youth climate movement. Using a feminist, indigenous, antiracist, internationalist lens, the book paints a picture of a world in climate crisis and presents bold, courageous ideas for how to save it. Featuring introductions from leading climate activists, No Planet B is essential listening for everyone fighting for a Green New Deal and more.

With daring realism and stunning imagination, the author of Geek Love, Katherine Dunn, takes us on a journey into the mind of a feisty, adventurous adolescent named Jean "Dutch" Gillis. Dutch goes "trucking" from Portland, Oregon, to Los Angeles on a quest in search of herself, which, like the river trek of Deliverance, is filled with discoveries and sudden violence. With boyish-looking Dutch is her friend Heydorf, a shadowy character who has his own secrets to hide.