Showing results by narrator "Emily Beresford" in All Categories

Dorothy spent most of her life doing the right thing. Now, widowed and with a cancer diagnosis, she’s ready to cut loose in the world of PIVOT. After learning magic and defending a caravan from a set of elves with a seriously overblown sense of superiority, Dotty had only one request: In her next game, she wanted to be uglier. So, she’s an orc now, tusks and all. And when she finds out that a group of dragons have been posing as gods to prey on orc villages, she is not going to stand for that...even if it means giving a legendary orc shaman the dressing down of his life.

Dotty’s cancer is progressing, and the world of PIVOT is one of the only things that helps her avoid the pain. With her children’s help, the PIVOT team has made her an avatar that looks just like her younger self, and Dotty is now serving as an envoy to help keep the nations of PIVOT from turning on one another.

Despite the familiar limitations many User Experience teams face—budget and time constraints, lack of formal authority—UX practitioners are uniquely poised to provide strategic value to product organizations. This case study describes how we developed “Creative Bursts” to prove that our organization could look to its UX team for innovation leadership.

When Anna Williams lands a spot on the Vacation Bride reality show, she's hoping to give her sick father a break from the Milwaukee winter, not win a rich husband. Which is good, because the hunky maintenance man whose broad shoulders and clear blue eyes have caught her attention is neither rich nor part of the contest, is he?

Sadie may seem like the typical girl next door - except she isn't. At age eight, when she finds Mommy in the bathtub, floating in a pool of blood, Sadie becomes obsessed with murder. Sadie's Guide to Catching Killers is the prekill to Sadie the Sadist: X-tremely Black Humor/Horror, delving into Sadie's bizarre childhood to unravel what makes her the psycho we know and love.

When Chelsea Manning was arrested in May 2010 for leaking massive amounts of classified Army and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, she was almost immediately profiled by the mainstream press as a troubled person. Insurgent Truth argues for seeing Manning's example differently: as an act of what the book terms "outsider truth-telling." Bringing Manning's truth-telling into conversation with democratic, feminist, and queer theory, the book argues that outsider truth-tellers such as Manning tell or enact unsettling truths from a position of social illegibility.

Tomi Reyes is a documentary filmmaker who moonlights as a receptionist to pay the bills. It’s an easy gig - until she gets promoted, and her somewhat interesting life goes totally insane. For starters, her new boss, Scott Martin, morphs from nice guy to creepy dictator in the space of five seconds. Then, the bodies of her friends start turning up in their refrigerators. Tomi may suspect Scott, but all of the evidence is pointing to her! She’s wondering what to pack for prison, when a childhood pal Nicholas “Nickels” Turino is the (very hot) FBI agent assigned to the case.

Growing up on the tropical paradise of St. John, Ellie Green had three goals: study ecology, save the planet, and marry Ryan Andersen, the dreamy older boy who hung out at the Paradise Resort next door. Ten years later, Ellie's college plans are in ruins and the planet isn't saved, but she still has a chance to marry Ryan. All she has to do is help him bulldoze her childhood home and build an island-destroying casino.

Speakeasy manager Clara Woodsen will do anything to save her silent film idol from an untimely death. Even summon a demon. Even bet her soul she can teach his half-human/half-cheetah assistant to foxtrot. But people around town are acting strange. Have Clara's efforts unleashed a zombie plague? Or are her customers just really bad at dancing the Charleston? And can Clara find true happiness with the man of her dreams if she uses her...brains?

A young woman who fears sleeping. An AI on the brink of discovery. A government agent seeking what’s hidden. Who will end up healed, hidden, or found? The final chapter closed. For now....

After his first adventure with tiny, floating balls of spite and chaos - or, “faeries”, as they called themselves - Ben didn’t think the world could get more upside down. He was wrong. Now ensconced in the city of Heffog, he’s still learning how to work his body again…and figuring out that he is in one of the most miserable, corrupt places that ever existed.

If you were dying of cancer, would you risk entering a game that saved you from pain, even if you chanced dying early? Dorothy Hunt is not willing to go out with a whimper, but rather a bang. The main problem? Not all of her family will support her decision. This time, she gets to choose a body that isn't pretty, isn't bound by the social customs of her family and generation. "Make me ugly." Unused to video games and fighting cancer, Dorothy Hunt is focused on providing the scientists something they can't acquire without her. Data on an older human who is about to die.

You probably know my name, Lori Jarret. If not my name, you probably know my image and my dance. You've probably seen it on YouTube. It seems like everyone has. My four million dollar happy dance is what most of you think of when you hear my name. I'd like to tell you a little of the before and after of that silly dance and not just the senseless and terrible pain and killing that surrounded it. I'll tell it true, even though much of that mayhem was my own fault.

Janie Mason just wants to get through the season. She's under enormous pressure at work, her boss is brilliant but self-centered, and the holidays bring up a lot of memories she'd rather leave unremembered. The only thing that's making things tolerable for her right now is that she's getting to work more closely with Bill Sparks, the man she's crushing on, and Jeremy, someone who was just beginning to be a friend pre-lockdown and who has become the only person she can rely on now that everyone is back in the office. January really can't come soon enough.

Few cultures take gender inequality to the extent seen on the planet Bisbane. Bisbani women are city dwellers, enjoying high levels of education and technology. Males live in the wilderness, carefully enclosed in fenced preserves. The two sexes only interact when a woman wants a child, and even then she needs a sharp knife. Hermione's ready for another child. Her first, a son, will soon be relocated to the wilderness. She's hoping for a daughter, a more permanent family member with whom to share her life.

After her mother's funeral, Betha has several weeks of normal, and life is looking hopeful. An invitation to a war council meeting changes everything. Life as she knows it can’t ever go back as a gargoyle begs for help with the demons. The angels are already on the scene, but they can’t close portals—only she can.

Minno 2 packs more zany adventure, more creatures, and new characters into this thrill-a-minute sequel. Every chapter sweeps you along in the strange and marvelous world of Ambrosia. For Minno and Hailey there's no time to rest. They must forge alliances to take on even more bizarre adversaries. The bond between Minno and Hailey is about to be tested. Can the girls' unlikely friendship survive another harrowing exploit in an unfamiliar land?

The Little Boy, Who Was Precious is a story about a child's first long stay with his grandparents when his parents are away. The little boy, who is so brave against the beasts of his imagination, finds himself strangely lost without his mother and father. It takes a pair of loving grandparents to convince him that he is still the bravest and most precious little boy.

On the morning of the first day of senior year, Alix Keener awakens from a vivid, terrifying dream in which a ghostly boy warns her: Perennial is all around you. Shaking off the dream - and the cryptic message - is just what Alix doesn’t need as she starts a new life in Beaconsfield, the posh Detroit suburb she and her dad recently moved to after her mom’s death.

Betha and the crew finally made it to Mountain Hold, the city of the gargoyles. There, she discovers Starwalkers had meddled with the gargoyles before, providing salvation at a steep cost by tying the gargoyles to portals across the land. It's a race against time to get back home, only Betha and her friends have a little extra baggage. Gargoyles are called into action to bond with portals to stop the demons' crawl across the various worlds. Yet, Betha’s success at rebuking the demons has turned the king’s attention to her. Demons flock to the Fey Wilds with one mission: kill the traveler.