Showing results by narrator "Rachel Jacobs" in All Categories

Thirteen-year-old Annabelle struggles in school, no matter how hard she tries. But as soon as she dives into the pool, she's unstoppable. She's the fastest girl on the middle school swim team, and when she's asked to join the high school team over the summer, everything changes. Suddenly, she's got new friends, and a high school boy starts treating her like she's somebody special - and Annabelle thinks she'll finally stand out in a good way.

Zoe Alamandar has one goal: Win the State Field Hockey Championships and earn a scholarship that will get her the hell out of Central New York. She and her co-captain, Ava Cervantes, have assembled a fierce team of dedicated girls who will work hard and play by the rules. But after Zoe is sexually assaulted at a party, she finds a new goal: Make sure no girl feels unsafe again. Zoe and her teammates decide to stop playing by the rules and take justice into their own hands.

One minute, Rachel is taking a break from babysitting. The next, she's escaping the Earth on a pedal-powered interplanetary bus. It could happen to anybody. It could. Generally it doesn't, but it could. Because what Rachel soon learns is that Earth is infected with Math, which is why we look at our solar system and see freezing balls of ice, gas, and rock whirling lifelessly through a hostile void. Everyone else sees air pirates sailing the Seven Skies of Saturn, the endless exciting fight scenes of Mars, the sullen ghosts of Pluto, and much more.

Amelia Peabody lives in a small town where nothing changes. And that's just fine by her. After losing her big sister, Clara, a few years ago, Amelia can't handle any more change. But when she starts eighth grade, she accidentally receives a letter that Clara had written to herself. In it, there's a list of things she'd wanted to do before the end of middle school and never finished, like get on the softball team and throw an awesome birthday party on the lake.

When investigative journalist Miren Triggs is sent a photo of a missing girl, it’s the first promising lead in a decade long cold case that continues to haunt her family. Miren is instantly intrigued by this new clue. Could it be the first step in finding the missing girl – and could Miren be the one to do it? Before she has a chance to follow the trail, though, she’s called to report on a shocking murder. A crucified body has been found in the suburbs of Queens. Miren is torn between the crimes of past and present. But could it be possible these cases are linked?

Fifteen years after her troubled daughter Julie ran away from home, Beth Sawyer stumbles across a newspaper photograph of an up-and-coming teen golfer, who not only shares her last name, but also looks just like her daughter. Sky Sawyer couldn’t possibly be her granddaughter—or could she? With her sort-of-functional life sinking into a full on mulligan—and let’s not get started on her soon-to-be-married ex-husband—Beth meets Barry, a fellow golfer who she accidentally hits with her golf ball and who might just be Mr. Right.

Edie Carrigan didn't plan to "get herself" pregnant, much less end up in a home for unwed mothers. In 1950s North Carolina, illegitimate pregnancy is kept secret, wayward women require psychiatric cures, and adoption is always the best solution. Not even Edie’s closest friend, Luce Waddell, understands what Edie truly wants: to keep and raise the baby. Twenty-five years later, Luce is a successful lawyer, and her daughter Meera now faces the same decision Edie once did.

Best friends Cordelia and Larkin have always called the Glades—a peaceful swamp full of magical creatures—home. But when Oziris, Cordelia’s father and the leader of their village, dies unexpectedly, a dark curse sweeps over the land.

Ever since she was a baby, the words people use to describe Elyse have instantly appeared on her arms and legs. At first it was just "cute" and "adorable", but as she's gotten older and kids have gotten meaner, words like "loser" and "pathetic" appear, and those words bubble up and itch. And then there are words like "interesting", which she's not really sure how to feel about. Now, at age 12, she's starting middle school, and just when her friends who used to accept and protect her are drifting away, she receives an anonymous note.

Nurse Nellie Lester thinks she can escape death. Fleeing Chicago at the height of the 1918 Spanish flu, she takes a nursing job at a decrepit manor on a desolate Michigan island. She’s convinced the island holds the secret to her family’s murky past. Soon after her arrival, the frozen body of the prior nurse is unearthed. Haunted nightly by a ghostly presence, Nellie is convinced the nurse’s murder and her father’s fate are connected and dives into the mystery.

Cookie Vonn’s dreams include getting out of Phoenix and becoming the next great fashion designer. But in the world of fashion, being fat is a cardinal sin. It doesn’t help that she’s constantly compared to her supermodel mother - and named after a dessert. Cookie scores a trip to New York to pitch her design portfolio, but her plans are put on standby when she’s declared too fat to fly. When she finally arrives, she finds she’s been replaced by her ultrathin rival. Cookie vows to lose weight, get out of the friend zone with her crush, and put her dreams back on track.

Ada Ru finally thought her parents were going to agree to a Fitzhugh family vacation in Disney World the summer before sixth grade, until her father announces he's taking a teaching position in Scotland, and moving the family there for the entire summer. Ada Ru is anything but happy. She doesn't like their new home, she hates haggis, and she certainly doesn't like the idea that she will be away from her best friend all summer. To top it all off, there is said to be a monster in the lake near their house! That's when she meets Hamish Bean Timmy.

In the title story, set five minutes in the future where you not only have a credit score but also a dating score, a woman who’s been banished from all dating apps attends a weekly help group with others who have been “banned for life,” and finds herself falling in love. In “Backwards,” a twist on Benjamin Button, a woman reconnects with her estranged father as he de-ages ten years each day they spend together. In “Welcome to Oxhead,” all the parents in a gated community “shut off” when the power goes out.

On a cold, snowy night, thirteen-year-old Haswell Magruder makes a fateful decision. A wounded Confederate soldier appears at the family's Virginia farm, and Haswell convinces his mother to take the man in, despite the dire repercussions if the enemy Yankees were to catch them in such an act.

Ivy, Mateo and Cal used to be close - best friends back in middle school. So when Cal pulls into campus late for class and runs into Ivy and Mateo, they decide to ditch school. Just like old times. But they're not the only ones ditching school that day. When Ivy, Cal and Mateo spot Brian 'Boney' Mahoney acting suspiciously downtown they follow him into an empty building and walk straight into the middle of a murder scene. With their day of freedom about to turn deadly, it's only a matter of time before everyone's secrets are revealed.

For fans of legendary pulp author H. P. Lovecraft, there is nothing bigger than the annual Providence-based convention called the Summer Tentacular. Horror writer Colleen Danzig doesn't know what to expect when she arrives, but is unsettled to find that among the hob-knobbing between scholars and literary critics are a group of real freaks: book collectors looking for volumes bound in human skin, and true believers claiming the power to summon the Elder God Cthulhu.

When their father went to prison last year for embezzlement, twins Alex and Olly Brucke lost everything: their house, their college funds, most of their friends, and even their mother, who’s so focused on making ends meet that she’s never around anymore. The only thing they can count on lately is each other. But after their father dies unexpectedly in prison, the twins start to fracture. Alex is spiraling, skipping classes to spend all of her time drunk or high. And Olly is struggling with a secret his dad ordered him to keep: they have a secret half-brother named Tyler.

After suffering complete and total humiliation at her junior-high graduation, there’s only one thing Lizzie wants to do - leave the country! Luckily, she’s off on a class trip to Rome, where she meets hot Italian pop star Paolo Valisari. Lizzie’s in heaven. Even better, it seems that she bears a striking resemblance to Paolo’s singing partner, Isabella. Lizzie starts getting star treatment - and that’s when her adventures really begin!

Archie, Betty, Jughead, Veronica, and the rest of the gang are all getting ready for the next stage of their lives after high school graduation - or, at least, they're trying to. But then, one by one, they all receive a mysterious letter from someone calling themselves the Poison Pen. Somehow, the letter writer knows some of Riverdale's deepest, darkest secrets. And the Poison Pen is threatening to reveal all unless Archie and his friends do exactly what they're told - from posting embarrassing videos of themselves to blowing up someone else's marriage.

In this genre-defying story from Lygia Day Peñaflor, four teens befriend their favorite YA novelist, only to find their deepest, darkest secrets in the pages of her next book - with devastating consequences. Miri Tan loved the book Undertow like it was a living being. So when she and her friends went to a book signing to hear the author, Fatima Ro, they concocted a plan to get close to her. Told as a series of interviews, journal entries, and segments from the book within the book - this gripping story of a fictional scandal will keep you on the edge of your seat.