Showing results by publisher "Tantor Audio" in Coming of Age

Fleeing the respectable society that wants to "sivilize" him, Huck Finn shoves off with Jim on a rhapsodic raft journey down the Mississippi River. The two bind themselves to one another, becoming intimate friends and agreeing "there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft".

There is a love so fierce it cannot be measured. A heart so strong it will never slow. There is a promise so sure it can never lie. He promised me that love forever. Even when it wasn't enough.

Clara Batchelor is twenty-two. Her brief doomed marriage to Archie over, she returns to live with her parents in the home of her childhood. She hopes for comfort but the devoutly Catholic household confines her and forms a dangerous glass wall of guilt and repression between Clara and the outside world. Clara both longs for and fears what lies beyond, and when she escapes into an exhilarating and passionate love affair her fragile identity cracks.

At just six years old, it becomes clear that China Creed's birthright, passed down from her mother's side of the family, is the power to grant wishes with only a touch. In their small Ozark town, where superstition runs rampant, the only person who can be trusted with her secret is the Cherokee midwife and healer who makes China her apprentice. After the tumult of the Civil War, a new doctor arrives in town who is curious about the lovely young woman who can birth babies and banish hexes.

In part one of Gone: Sending a half-naked picture to a stranger she met online seems innocent and fun to Lilly Randall. After spending the past four years working toward an honors degree, she needs a distraction, and flirting with a man she doesn't know can't hurt, right? Clive Parker is the one man who holds all of Lilly's dreams in the palm of his hand. He's the CEO of one of the world's largest technology firms. When her picture ends up in his pocket, her future will never be the same again.

Prince Stavin of Evandia. King Stavin of Coravia. Senior Warmaster Zel'Andral. What does having everything mean when it isn't what you wanted? King Kalin has sent Stavin on yet another Trade Mission to the other kingdoms to ensure their Traders' Guilds are adhering to the agreements between the kingdoms. Stavin finds that Reynadia holds the estate and town of Aniston, the original home of Stavin's birth-clan, Kel'Aniston. There he finds that the Aniston Clans worship the elder Gods Above. Stavin triggers a response from Arandar, the highest of the Gods Above, and finds himself Blessed.

At age 14, Zelda Rossi witnessed the unthinkable, and has spent the last 10 years hardening her heart against the guilt and grief. She channels her pain into her art: a dystopian graphic novel where vigilantes travel back in time to stop heinous crimes before they happen. Zelda pitches her graphic novel to several comic book publishers in New York City, only to have her hopes crash and burn. Circumstances leave her stranded in an unfamiliar city, and in an embarrassing moment of weakness, she meets a guarded young man with a past he'd do anything to change....

I am a man who had nothing but found everything. I'll never go back to nothing ever again. I vowed to protect her, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do. The pictures I stumbled upon haunt me still; the secret I shoulder is heavy. They say secrets put distance between two people, but the truth is far more destructive than keeping it will ever be. I won't ever tell. She can't ever know.

MJ Jassemolada is a big girl, and has been a big girl her whole life. Living in LA all her life, she feels like she's surrounded by the thin and beautiful of the world, and having a widower father who tells her she's beautiful every day just doesn't help. She can see her reflection in the mirror, after all, loud and clear. After graduation from UCLA, she gets a coveted job as personal assistant to superstar singer Meredith Renner, who's leaving for a world tour with Heath Spencer, who's even more popular than Meredith, if such a thing is possible.

Haley Jones already thought her life was complicated, but after the events of the gala, she is in desperate need of direction - if only there was a compass for locating her missing dad or navigating relationships. Despite her efforts to gain independence and forge her own identity, she still feels adrift in her new life. And, when things heat up with Liam, Knox, Ethan, Chase, Theo, and Jackson, Haley finds herself in uncharted territory, torn between attraction and frustration. When tensions rise within the group, will Haley be the one to pull the guys together or tear them apart?

It's been two weeks since Haley Jones turned 18 and her life was turned upside down. While searching for her dad, Haley is adjusting to life in Santa Cruz with a new job and friends. Surrounded by six dangerously appealing guys, she's still trying to figure out just who Liam, Knox, Ethan, Chase, Theo, and Jackson are and what they do. From a 21st birthday party to a swanky costume gala, Haley discovers just how difficult it can be to fit in and that maybe it's okay to stand out.

Twenty-year-old Allison Slater has been in love with her brother's bandmate, Rhys McGowan, since she was 15. But to him, she'll always be Jake's little sister and off-limits. Now a college sophomore, she sets her sights on making Rhys see her as someone he could date. But the night she has been dreaming of turns to heartbreak, and she realizes that she'll never be the one for Rhys. For Rhys McGowan, his nightmare began when he woke up, naked and hungover, next to his bandmate's little sister.

When Eli Harpo was four, he underwent emergency open-heart surgery, flatlined on the operating table, and for a brief time, went to heaven and met Jesus. Or at least that's what his father, a loving but devout Baptist minister, has raised him to believe. Nine years later, Eli isn't so sure. His rounds with his father to evangelize at hospices and sell his father's self-published book, Heaven or Bust!, feel inauthentic and strange, especially now that he's started having sex dreams about Jesus.

Told in stark, unsparing detail, Haffner's story delves into the illicit underworld of Berlin on the eve of Hitler's rise to power, describing how these blood brothers move from one petty crime to the next, spending their nights in underground bars and makeshift hostels, struggling together to survive the harsh realities of gang life and finding in one another the legitimacy denied them by society.

While most 17-year-old American girls would refuse to let their parents marry them off to a stranger, Robyn Mason dreams of the mysterious McKale in Ireland, wondering how he'll look and imagining his Irish accent. Prearranged bindings are common for magical families like her own. However, when she travels to the whimsical Emerald Isle, she discovers that there's more to her betrothal and McKale's clan than she'd been led to believe. What starts as an obligatory pairing between Robyn and McKale morphs over time into something they both need.

As Rolling Stone magazine prepares an issue on successful rock star marriages, they sit down with Brayden and Lily Vanderburg. After all, the two have been a couple since they were 16 years old. But there is more to the story than meets the eye, and their love took a slight detour before finding happily ever after. Told in flashbacks from the present to the past, Brayden and Lily share the story of their unbreakable love.

Nineteen-year-old Whit Conrad leaves her conservative Pennsylvania home for sunny California, looking for independence, a fresh start, and a place to stash her grief. She promptly finds a job at a tattoo parlor, a craptastic first apartment, and one friend - Ryan - who is a little less friend, a little more benefits. Deo Beckett is a soulful surfer with a passion for tattoos and beautiful women. On the eve of his twenty-second birthday, he finds himself living with his grandfather, recently unemployed, and seriously adrift.

Life works in mysterious ways. Four years ago, I became known as the girl with cancer. I refuse to cry. And I refuse to give in. A relationship with a man is the last thing I'm looking for right now, but one night with Parker changes everything. He is persistent, and he knows what he wants. He doesn't treat me like I'm fragile. But he doesn't know, and I'm not ready to tell him.

Nia Martins believes that a fresh start will help her leave her traumatic past behind. Moving to a different country, she seeks to shake off her demons by doing the one thing that sets her free from her destructive thoughts - teaching dance. But change doesn't come easy, and all Nia really wants is to take the next breath without the perpetual suffocation that follows. Reeves Mitchell has looked death in the eye so many times that it has become habitual. That is, until his best friend's life was on the line.

November 1989. The Berlin Wall has just fallen when the East German couple Inge and Walter, following a secret dream they've harbored all their lives, set out for life in the West. Carl, their son, refuses to keep watch over the family home and instead heads to Berlin, where he lives in his father's car until he is taken in by a group of squatters. Led by a shepherd and his goat, the pack of squatters sets up the first alternative bar in East Berlin and are involved in guerrilla occupations.