Showing results by narrator "Michael Crouch" in All Categories

Theo Mackey remembers only one thing for certain about the fire that destroyed his home: He lit the match. Sure, it was an accident. But the blaze killed his mom and set his dad on a path to self-destruction. Everything else about that fateful night is full of gaping holes in Theo’s mind, for good reason. Maybe it’s better that way. As captain of the Ellis Hollow Diving Team, with straight A's and solid friends, he's only one semester away from securing a scholarship and leaving his past behind.

The cavern city of Pelismara has stood for a thousand years. The Great Families of the nobility cling to the myths of their golden age while the city's technology wanes. When a fever strikes, and the Eminence dies, seventeen-year-old Tagaret is pushed to represent his Family in the competition for Heir to the Throne. To win would give him the power to rescue his mother from his abusive father, and marry the girl he loves.

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.

Lilith Thorne, forty, rarely sees the light of day. She has spent the past three years in total isolation at Guthrie Hall. She doesn't see anyone, her groceries are delivered to the front gate. She adores her house and takes comfort in her routine, eating the same carefully prepared meals day after day. And yet, she is lonely, and posts an ad on Craigslist for a companion. Eighty-year-old Beverly Smith answers the ad. Fiercer than her age will allow people to believe, the two women couldn't be more different. Where will this extraordinary friendship lead the two women?

Seventh graders Sammy and Matty are the Putterman twins—the perfect team of two. But Matty has a secret he’s not ready to share with his family yet, and he suddenly quits baseball and stops talking to his sister. With their twin telepathy broken, Sammy doesn’t know what to do without her teammate.

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.

For centuries, the Kingdom of Eledore has relied upon the kainen race's natural magical talents to retain its elevated and seemingly impervious status in the world, particularly above the humans in Acrasia. Plots and assassination attempts grow against the royal twin heirs, Nels and Suvi, as the Acrasians seem to be doing more than saber rattling against what they see as an evil, tyrannical nation.

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.

Most people in town think 16-year-old Clinton Williams’ family is strange. Wishing he could contact his wayward brother, Clinton yearns for a day when he, too, can escape the neighborhood and travel the country. After following a clue to Berry-berry’s whereabouts, Clinton ventures to Coastal Florida hoping to find him, but instead gets a firsthand view of his brother’s callous destructiveness that will leave permanent marks on the young man.

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.

Sixteen-year-old Dale Cardigan is a loner who’s managed to make himself completely invisible at his all-boys high school. He doesn’t fit with his classmates (whom he gives nicknames in his head), his stepbrother (whom nobody at school knows he’s related to), or even his mother (who never quite sees how gifted a musician Dale might be)—but they don’t fit with him, either. And he’s fine with that. To him, high school and home are stages to endure until his real life can finally begin.

Siblings Sam and Ilsa Kehlmann have spent most of their high school years throwing parties for their friends - and now they've prepared their final blowout, just before graduation. The rules are simple: each twin gets to invite three guests, and the other twin doesn't know who's coming until the partiers show up. With Sam and Ilsa, the sibling revelry is always tempered with a large dose of sibling rivalry. One night. One apartment. Eight people. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, we all know the answer is plenty. But plenty also goes right...in rather surprising ways.

In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne, where he quickly earns a reputation as an outcast. When a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects that the angry new boy is responsible for his disappearance. And no one believes Richard when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie.

Sixteen-year-old Will spends most of his days the same way: Working at the Dollar Only store, trying to replicate his late father’s famous cornbread recipe, and walking the streets of Los Angeles. Will started walking after his father committed suicide, and three years later he hasn’t stopped. But there are some places Will can’t walk by: The blessings store with the chest of 100 Chinese blessings in the back, the bridge on Fourth Street where his father died, and his childhood friend Playa’s house.

Trembling in the wake of devastating treachery, can the Loxely sisters finally bring down the royals and all they stand for? Jessa and Sasha are finally united in the cause of saving their kingdom and bringing their family back together. The sisters will face their greatest tests yet. Jessa's wedding is coming up faster than she can stop it, but it's Sasha who is running out of time. Things aren't as they seem in the palace, and the one person who can save them is the one they swore to never trust again.

The war on the ground has ended, but the war with the sky has just begun. After the Siege of the Six Villages, the ghost eagles have trapped Uztaris on both sides of the conflict. The villagers and Kartami alike hide in caves, huddled in terror as they await nightly attacks. Kylee aims to plunge her arrows into each and every ghost eagle; in her mind, killing the birds is the only way to unshackle the city’s chains. But Brysen has other plans.

“Hatred combined with lies and secrets can break the world.” Grandpa Zach used to say that before he died, but Stuey never really knew what he meant. It was kind of like how he used to talk about quantum physics or how he used to say ghosts haunted their overgrown golf course. But then one day, after Stuey and his best friend, Elly Rose, spend countless afternoons in the deadfall in the middle of the woods, something totally unbelievable happens.

As Norway’s newly appointed minister of justice, child-rights advocate Clara Lofthus has a chance to accomplish something meaningful on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society. It couldn’t be more personal. After her husband’s death, she is the sole caretaker of her twin sons, Andreas and Nikolai. She’s also still haunted by her own traumatic childhood—and the lengths to which she was willing to go to pursue her own brand of vigilante justice. How far? No one ever needs to know. And this is just one of Clara’s secrets.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, read by Michael Crouch. Straight people should have to come out too. And the more awkward it is, the better. Simon Spier is 16 and trying to work out who he is - and what he's looking for. But when one of his emails to the very distracting Blue falls into the wrong hands, things get all kinds of complicated. Because for Simon, falling for Blue is a big deal.... It's a holy freaking huge awesome deal.

Stevie Rosenstein has never made a true friend. Never fallen in love. Moved from city to city by her father’s unrelenting job, it’s too hard to care for someone. Trust in anything. The pain of leaving always hurts too much. But she’ll soon learn to trust, to love. Twice. Drew and Shane have been best friends through everything. The painful death of Shane's dad. The bitter separation of Drew's parents.