Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Family & Relationships

Nineteen-year-old Na has always lived in the shadow of her younger brother, Bao-bao, her parents' cherished son. Years ago, Na's parents left her in the countryside and went to work in the city, bringing Bao-bao along and committing everything to his education. But when Bao-bao dies suddenly, Na realizes how little she knew him. Did he really kill himself because of a low score on China's all-important college entrance exam? Na learns that Bao-bao had many secrets and that his death may not be what it seems.

Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she's uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two.

First-time novelist Jenny Han has penned a realistic story that all middle-graders will surely be able to relate to. Meet 12-year-old Annemarie “Shug” Wilcox. What’s not to like about her? She’s smart, she’s tall, and she has lots of freckles. She lives in a small Georgia town with her popular, gorgeous older sister and intellectual mother. Shug is excited about starting the seventh-grade, but she’s not prepared for all the vicious teasing that comes with the new school year.

Chloe missed her bus home thanks to the terrible Miss Langley. Thankfully, she's able to catch the back-up bus. Unfortunately for Chloe … there is no back-up bus. As more and more students go missing without explanation and the authorities are stumped, Kaitlin and her friends become entangled in this deeply unsettling mystery that goes far deeper than any of them expected.

On the heels of a devastating plague, Torvi’s sister, Morgunn is stolen from the family farm by Uther, a flame-loving Fremish wolf-priest who leads a pack of ragged, starving girls. Torvi leaves the only home she’s ever known, and joins a shaven-skulled druid and a band of roaming Elsh artists known as the Butcher Bards. They set out on a quest to rescue Torvi’s sister, and find a mythical sword.

At Jonesville High, casual misogyny runs rampant, slut-shaming is a given, and school athletes are glorified above all else. Best friends Suze, Nikki, Ani, and Lydia swear they'll always have each other's backs against predatory guys - so when Suze suddenly starts dating wrestling star and toxic douchebag Tarkin Shaw, it's a big betrayal. Turns out, it's not a relationship - it's blackmail. At first, Suze feels like she has no choice but to go along with it, but when Tarkin starts demanding more, she enlists the help of intelligent misfits DeShawn and Marcus....

Sixteen-year-old Sunshine is reluctantly gaining control over her powers as a Luiseach. But while she explores her mystical lineage, she discovers a dangerous discordance - one only she can heal.

Seventeen-year-old Jaya Mehta detests wealth, secrets, and privilege, though he has them all. His family is Indian, originally from Gujarat. Rasa Santos, like many in Hawaii, is of mixed ethnicity. All she has are siblings, three of them, plus a mother who controls men like a black widow spider and leaves her children whenever she wants to. Neither Jaya nor Rasa have ever known real love or close family—not until their chance meeting one sunny day on a mountain in Hau’ula.

Almost seventeen, Rani Patel appears to be a kick-ass Indian girl breaking cultural norms as a hip-hop performer in full effect. But in truth, she's a nerdy flat-chested nobody who lives with her Gujarati immigrant parents on the remote Hawaiian island of Moloka'i, isolated from her high school peers by the unsettling norms of Indian culture where "husband is God." Her parents' traditionally arranged marriage is a sham. Her dad turns to her for all his needs—even the intimate ones.

Whenever something scandalous happens at Heller High, the Red Court is the name on everyone's lips. Its members deal out social ruin and favors in equal measure, their true identities known only by their leader: the Queen of Hearts. Ember Williams has seen firsthand the damage the Red Court can do. Now, she's determined to hold the organization accountable by taking it down from the inside. But will the cost of revenge be more than she's willing to sacrifice?

November is usually quiet in Holcomb, Kansas, but in 1959, the town is shattered by the quadruple murder of the Clutter family. Suspicion falls on Nancy Clutter's boyfriend, Bobby Rupp, the last one to see them alive. New Yorker Carly Fleming, new to the small Midwestern town, is an outsider. She tutored Nancy, and (in private, at least) they were close. Carly and Bobby were the only ones who saw that Nancy was always performing, and that she was cracking under the pressure of being Holcomb's golden girl.

Three Mormon high school friends, perky Nikki, studious Alicia, and football player Sam, make a pact of the Pygmalion style—they decide to help the “untapped” students at their school. Their plan is to transform three classmates and take them to the prom. But the experiment doesn’t go exactly as planned. They slowly begin to realize that there is more to most people than meets the eye.

Lia and Beck. Beck and Lia. Despite army-brat life orbiting them in and out of each other's worlds, Lia knows they are destined to be together. It's more than their friendship and chemistry. When Lia's mom was a teen, a fortune teller said her daughter would fall in love with her best friend's son. Lia and Beck were always meant to be. Or so they thought.

Sutton going missing is the worst thing to happen to Casey, to their family. She's trying to help find her sister, but Casey is furious. And she can't tell anyone about their argument before Sutton disappeared. Everyone paints a picture of Sutton's perfection: the popular cheerleader with an entourage of friends, a doting boyfriend, and a limitless future. But Sutton manipulated everyone around her, even stole an heirloom bracelet from Casey. People don't look for missing Black girls—or half-Black girls—without believing there is an angel to be saved.

Michael is content to live in the shadow of his best friends, James and Becky. Plus, his brother, Connor, has already been kicked out of the house for being gay, and laying low seems to be Michael's only chance at avoiding the same fate. To pass the time before graduation, Michael hangs out at The Echo, where he can dance and forget about his father's angry words, the pressures of school, and the looming threat of AIDS, a disease that everyone is talking about, but no one understands

Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she's going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school. When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together. They aren't friends. They hardly understand the other's point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames.

Best friends Dave and Julia were determined never to be cliché high school kids. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they'd never, ever do in high school. Some of the rules have been easy to follow, like number five, never dye your hair a color of the rainbow, or number seven, never hook up with a teacher. But Dave has a secret: he's broken rule number eight, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. It's either that or break rule number ten, never date your best friend.

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: A girl named Leila. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most. There's Hudson, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And Bree, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday - and a few stolen goods along the way. Elliot believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And Sonia worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.

Sidney and Asher should have clicked. Two star swimmers forced to spend their summers on a lake together sounds like the perfect match. But it's the same every year - in between cookouts and boat rides and family-imposed bonfires, Sidney and Asher spend the dog days of summer finding the ultimate ways to prank each other. And now, after their senior year, they're determined to make it the most epic summer yet.

Sidney has one goal for their junior year. Well . . . two, if they’re being honest. Number one: become president of their school’s Queer Alliance club. And number two: keep their self-diagnosed anxiety in check so their grades don’t tank like they did last year. But when the election results in a tie with none other than Sidney’s arch nemesis, the class clown Forrest, the two are forced to share the presidency until a revote at the end of term. Sidney expects Forrest to be insufferable, but it turns out that working together is . . . kind of nice?