Showing results by narrator "Erica Sullivan" in All Categories

If Indie had it her way, she would never choose to river raft with three other high school seniors, mostly strangers to each other, from her journalism class. A loner, a jock, an outsider, an Instagram influencer. As the trip unfolds, the unpredictable river forces them to rely on each other. Social masks start to fall as, one by one, each teen reveals a deep secret. One is harboring immense grief, unwilling to forgive after the death of a loved one. One is dealing with a new disability and an uncertain future. One is fearful of the repercussions of coming out....

Worst. Birthday. Ever. My first boyfriend dumped me - happy birthday, Josie! - my dad is who knows where; I have some weird virus that makes me want to hurl; and now my ex is licking another girl’s tonsils. Oh, and I’m officially the same age as my brother was when he died. Yeah, today is about as fun-filled as the swamps of Dagobah. But then weird things start happening. Like I make something materialize just by thinking about it.

A short story magazine that assembles a thrilling new mix of stories from genres including horror, science-fiction, comedy, and suspense. Buried at the heart of every story in the magazine is a unique artifact, an object that has inspired our storytellers to create a big idea, an irresistible question, a new immersive world, or a sense of wonder. Unearth your next great story with Assemble Artifacts.

In Nest. Flight. Sky: On Love and Loss, One Wing at a Time, award-winning memoirist Beth Kephart returns to the form for the first time in years to reckon with the loss of her mother and a slow-growing but soon inescapable obsession with birds and flight. Kephart finds herself drawn to the startle of the winter finch, the quick pulse of hummingbirds, and the hungry circling of hawks. She discovers birds in the stories she tells and the novels she writes.

Two authors with decades of experience promoting human rights argue that, as the world changes around us, rights hardly imaginable today will come into being.

Twenty years of addiction to cloud, a drug which wipes the user’s short-term memory, have left single mom Mellie with her mind in fragments. With the help of a tough-minded sponsor, and motivated by her own medically challenged daughter, Mellie clings to a fragile sobriety. Then, on the evening of her 29th day sober, a stranger pulls into her driveway and her heart surges. However, when Mellie’s pursuit of this man and the past they may share threatens her sponsor, Mellie will have to put her tiny family and her recovery at risk in hopes of saving the woman who saved her first.

Three months ago, graphic designer Vanessa Hewitt slept with the ridiculously hot guy she met after nearly falling to her death while stargazing on a bridge. The adrenaline-fueled night of we’ll-never-see-each-other-again sex fulfilled every fantasy, but with her best friend’s wedding on the horizon, Vanessa can’t stop thinking about what would happen if her sexy stranger passed through town again.

Lloyd Bunker's obsession with avoiding stoplights has run him and his '67 Pontiac GTO off the road, maybe for keeps. As they race to figure out what happened to Lloyd, T&A recruits Allie's former nemesis, Officer Tony Valerio, plus her best friend and ex-landlady, Margo, and television reporter Lisa Cole to help them follow a lethal trail of escalating crimes ranging from scrapping to pushing opioids to multiple murders. It's no longer just about Lloyd.

Thirty-year-old Nashvillian Julia Holmes is just weeks away from becoming Mrs. Aaron DeMinthe. For as long as she can remember, she's dreamed of getting married at Whitfield Chapel, and now her dreams are about to be realized. Julia has meticulously planned every detail of her big day, from the flowers to her gown, but the one thing she didn't plan for is Aaron's announcement: He needs to tick something off his bucket list before they tie the knot, and that something is to hike the last leg of the Appalachian Trail - a project several years in the making.

In small towns between the North Carolina Piedmont and the coast, the best scenery is often in the sky. On flat sweeps of red clay and scrub pine, the days move monotonously, safely, but above, in the blink of an eye, dangerous clouds can boil out of all four corners of the sky. The flat slow land starts to shiver and anything can happen. In such a storm, on Annie Peregrine’s seventh birthday, her father gave her the airplane and minutes later drove out of her life.

Vanished tells the stories of women and girls in upstate New York who are often overlooked or unseen. The characters range from an aging art professor whose students are uninterested in learning what she has to teach, to a young girl who becomes the victim of a cruel prank in a swimming pool, to a television producer who regrets allowing her coworkers into her mother’s bird-filled house to film a show about animal hoarding because it will reveal too much about her family and past. Humorous and empathetic, the collection exposes the adversity in each character’s life.

Frankie Gray has come to the island for the summer, hoping for one last shot at reconnecting with her teenage daughter, Izzy, before starting a job as a deputy sheriff. They are staying with her mother, Diana, at The Fairmile Inn, soon to be a boutique hotel, but when an elderly nun is found dead in suspicious circumstances, and then a tiny skeleton is discovered in the grounds of the house, Frankie is desperate for answers.

When we meet Shalem, a young woman in her late 30s, she is enduring small talk at a cocktail party hosted by one of her husband's colleagues. One talks about her breast milk and her twins; another frets about the matronly ass of his girlfriend. Shalem has arrived at the age of no longer young but not old and balancing the in-between. What she wears isn't cool. What she thinks isn't cool.

The Imperiled Ocean by ocean journalist Laura Trethewey is a deeply reported work of narrative journalism that follows people as they head out to sea. What they discover holds inspiring and dire implications for the life of the ocean - and for all of us back on land.

Every passing night brings her closer to a terrible destiny, and even the help of her supernatural friends may not be enough to save her. The worst part is her sealed fate finally brings Rowan, the leshy she loves, back into her life. But there’s another danger lurking in the trees, something unnatural. It is a magic beyond Amy’s understanding or even Rowan’s power to control. As time runs out and danger mounts, Amy must test her strength and her courage if she has any hope of saving her friends—or herself.

2013. Frankie Gray has come to the island for the summer, hoping for one last shot at reconnecting with her teenage daughter, Izzy, before starting a job as a deputy sheriff. They are staying with her mother, Diana, at The Fairmile Inn, soon to be a boutique hotel, but when an elderly nun is found dead in suspicious circumstances, and then a tiny skeleton is discovered in the grounds of the house, Frankie is desperate for answers.

When Claire Fontaine learns that her ex-husband, Simon, is marrying again, to a woman with a teenage daughter, her blood runs cold. She is sure that years ago Simon molested her own daughter and was responsible for her mysterious death. She can't let him get away with it a second time. Vandalism, harassment; whatever it takes, Claire will expose him. Simon doesn't know where Claire got this delusion from; her daughter's death was ruled a suicide, but she has always blamed herself - is she just lashing out?

The friendship of two tightly knit New York City couples whose bond isn't quite what it seems threatens to unravel after the publication of a story in a well-known literary magazine that bears a strange resemblance to their real life. This wry, urban novelette blurs the lines between love and lust, loyalty and betrayal, laying bare the power of literature to expose parts of ourselves we may not want to see. Christine Benvenuto oh-so-lightly pokes fun at Manhattan's privileged class, and her observations are all the more biting for their subtlety.