Showing results by narrator "Vikas Adams" in All Categories

After foiling the Quarnon's plans and killing his arch enemy, Jack is now being hunted. To keep his friends safe, Jack heads to the mysterious Isle of Maga; a place filled with poisonous mana, deadly beasts and an army of undead minotaurs.

Victory comes at a price. Mare Barrow learned this all too well when Cal's betrayal nearly destroyed her. Now determined to protect her heart - and secure freedom for Reds and newbloods like her - Mare resolves to overthrow the kingdom of Norta once and for all...starting with the crown on Maven's head. But no battle is won alone, and before the Reds may rise as one, Mare must side with the boy who broke her heart in order to defeat the boy who almost broke her. Cal's powerful Silver allies, alongside Mare and the Scarlet Guard, prove a formidable force.

All legends are born of truths. And just as much lies. These are mine. Judge me for what you will. But you will hear my story first. I buried the village of Ampur under a mountain of ice and snow. Then I killed their god. I've stolen old magics and been cursed for it. I started a war with those that walked before mankind and lost the princess I loved, and wanted to save. I've called lightning and bound fire. I am legend. And I am a monster.

Emma has always lived her life according to a plan. But after turning down her boyfriend’s proposal, everything starts to crumble. In an effort to save the one thing she cares about - her job - she must recruit her colleague, Rishi, to be on her development team...only she may or may not have received the position he was promised. (She did.)

A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, author of Matrix and The Vaster Wilds, and series editor Heidi Pitlor. Lauren Groff—bestselling author, three-time National Book Award finalist, and “one of our finest living writers” (New York Times)—selects twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published in 2023.

Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely—an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor—has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.

This is how Emmanuel Carrère, the magnetic journalist, novelist, filmmaker, and chameleon, describes his subject: "Limonov is not a fictional character. There. I know him. He has been a young punk in Ukraine, the idol of the Soviet underground; a bum, then a multimillionaire's butler in Manhattan; a fashionable writer in Paris; a lost soldier in the Balkans; and now, in the fantastic shambles of postcommunism, the elderly but charismatic leader of a party of young desperadoes."

Jack and the rest of the Misfits have just finished rescuing the professors at Darkthorn Academy and prevented the dragons from being used to start a war. However, Quarnon, the group led by the Dixons, seems to have full control of the Westdrift Empire, which makes Jack and the rest of the Misfits enemy number one. Needing a place to hide and wanting to rebuild Darkthorn Academy into the school it was meant to be, Jack and the Misfits travel to the remote gnomish regions of the Ancient Lands to the Valley of Eagles and the village of Kusharna.

An archangel of immeasurable power, cast from heaven, arrives to threaten all that our heroes know and care about. Only an unlikely combination of former enemies can stop him, and send him back to where he belongs. Can these desperate forces come together in time to save the kingdom, or will the world fall under the Binder’s brutal rule?

In Drawn, a mysterious little boy has begun appearing in the paintings of an artist who can't remember ever actually seeing him. A partially blind, disfigured agoraphobic who suffers crippling panic attacks if he even tries to leave his apartment is forced out by an unseen entity. A lonely widower begins to suffer terrifying nightmares that his long-missing, presumed-dead son is still alive and in mortal danger. A young runaway realizes that a man he thought was his traveling companion is actually his captor...and a predator.

On a road trip through Africa, two English people - Bobby, a civil servant with a guilty appetite for African boys; and Linda, a supercilious "compound wife" - are driving back to their enclave after a stay in the capital. But in between lies the landscape of an unnamed country whose squalor and ethnic bloodletting suggest Idi Amin's Uganda. And the farther Naipaul's protagonists travel into it, the more they find themselves crossing the line that separates privileged outsiders from horrified victims.

It’s the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East-Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world - Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, the future bright. So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut by a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in Better to Have Gone.

Discover the man behind the chocolate bar! Milton Hershey’s life was filled with invention and innovation. As a young man, he was not afraid to dream big and work hard. Eventually, he learned the secret to mass-producing milk chocolate and the recipe that gave it a longer, more stable shelf life. He founded a school for those who didn’t have access to a good education and an entire town for his employees. Both his chocolate empire and his great personal legacy live on today.

David Metcalf is trying to survive after the lights went out and the aircraft circling the Dallas and Forth Worth metro area fell to earth. With nothing to stop the firestorm that ensues, the city and neighboring suburbs burn. The conflagration is only one part of the problem; people are running out of water and food and willing to kill their fellow man to get it. David needs to find someplace safe where he can protect his family, but he discovers that there are things at play behind the scenes to keep the misery going.

Eleven masters of suspense - Kelly Barnhill, Michael Buckley, Adam Gidwitz, Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown, Claire Legrand, Nikki Loftin, Daniel José Older, Dav Pilkey, R. L. Stine, and Rita Williams-Garcia - have come together to bring you a bone-chilling collection of original ghost stories, perfect for sharing around the campfire, listening under the covers with a flashlight, and scaring your friends' pants off.

A decade ago, Azaan, a rebellious teenager with dreams of becoming an actor, was exiled from Redding, California to a religious academy in Egypt by his imam father. His crime? Getting caught kissing Madison, the girlfriend he isn’t supposed to have. But while letting his family believe he is studying to become a preacher, Azaan ditched school and embarked on an acting career. Given that he has minimal contact and nonexistent plans to return home, he figured no one would ever know.

A spellbinding work of literature, Latitudes of Longing follows the interconnected lives of characters searching for true intimacy. The novel sweeps across India, from an island, to a valley, a city, and a snow desert, to tell a love story of epic proportions. We follow a scientist who studies trees and a clairvoyant who speaks to them; a geologist working to end futile wars over a glacier; octogenarian lovers; a mother struggling to free her revolutionary son; a yeti who seeks human companionship; a turtle who transforms first into a boat and then a woman.

Three men search for some version of home; their lives move inexorably toward a reckoning that will draw them all together. For Farouk, family is all. He has protected his wife and daughter as best he can from the war and hatred that has torn Syria apart. If they stay, they will lose their freedom. Lampy is distracted; he has too much going on in his small town life in Ireland. He has the city girl for a bit of fun, but she's not Chloe. The game was always the lifeblood coursing through John's veins: manipulating people for his enjoyment. But it was never enough.

Selena Montez, the “aristocrat whisperer,” needs to complete one last job before she can leave New York City. After a disastrous experience with another socialite family, she needs this account to be a win. Even if Henry pulls her guard down with his authenticity and kindness—this has to be just business. But as she and Henry grow closer, her secret connection to high society starts to catch up to her. That, paired with an attraction they can’t fight, means Selena herself might be the greatest threat to Henry’s reputation.

Nobody has written so powerfully of the relationship between and within India and the Western middle classes than Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. In this selection of stories, chosen by her surviving family, her ability to tenderly and humorously view the situations faced by three (sometimes interacting) cultures - European, post-Independence Indian, and American - is never more acute.