Showing results by author "Di McDonald" in All Categories

Sasquatch! That's who Judy looks like in her school picture. Antarctica! That's where Judy's been sent three times in a single sour-ball week to chill out. Can Judy's mood get any worse? Well, duh! Of course it can. Unless…it's Backward Day! That means it's time for Judy to turn that frown upside down, make lemonade out of lemons, and be nice to stinky little brothers. Can she stay in a good-not-bad mood for an entire day? How about seven whole days? Will her friends freak out when they see a tidy, on-time Judy who smells like cupcake lip gloss?

Bruce and Stormy McDonald worked in Bulgaria as a Peace Corps volunteers, and fell in love with it all. In this Peace Corps memoir, they tell of meeting people who loved their country and its proud heritage, people who knew how to live very well with very little.

After several decades of looking for true love and never finding it, aging model and lingerie designer, Alexa Ranger, has finally given up the search. A couple of years ago, she got tired of the game completely and just stopped dating. Now friends and family keep her mostly content, so it's shocking at 50 years old to find herself suddenly wanting a sex life again. It's even more shocking to be attracted to a much younger man this time. She definitely thinks Casey Carter is sexy, but not handling her own age well, Alexa just can't get passed their 12 year age difference to even consider a fling.

Hold on to your umbrella and stock up on marshmallows - Judy and Stink face wicked weather in their third adventure. Judy and Stink and the whole Moody family hunker down with beans and batteries, ready to wait out the storm. But along with massive rain and strong winds, Hurricane Elmer throws down ghosts, squirrels, and aliens. Spooky! Just when things couldn’t possibly get any freakier - flicker, flicker, gulp! - the lights go O-U-T out.

Early one morning as Boston's only investigator is returning home from solving another peculiar case, he has the displeasure of witnessing a spectacularly horrible show outside his front door: a massive aircraft, carrying over one hundred souls, exploding in midair over the harbor. Almost immediately, the Human Surplus League takes credit for the heinous act of terrorism. But "Reluctant Flynn" isn't so easily convinced, unlike his partner and governmental counterparts.

Severely lacking in sleep from a recent bout of marathon investigative work, all Flynn wants is a proper night's rest. Unfortunately, at the early morning summons of his frantic daughter, he's off to the cemetery to rescue her young friend who's in quite a peculiar bind. And as the day progresses, a curious collection of puzzling cases fall into Flynn's lap, each one stranger and more urgent than the last. Buried secrets and dark motives come to light as he races to solve each crime and bring these seemingly disconnected matters to a full and complete case closed.

Welcome to The PANS/PANDAS Stories. In the first series, actor and charity campaigner Jo Joyner, and child counsellor and journalist, Lucy McDonald, meet children and families affected by this neuropsychiatric disorder. They also interview experts at the cutting edge of treatment. Awareness is growing, and the pair hope this podcast will offer hope and support to sufferers as they navigate an often long and complicated road to recovery. Disclaimer - Episodes can contain upsetting themes. It does not replace medical advice.

Young Fletch is less than pleased to be writing a business story, something that's well outside his field of expertise. Eager to get back out on the streets, he quickly compiles what he thinks is a well-executed article, complete with quotes from the chairman of the board's recent memos. But when he fails to do his due diligence when researching the company and its associates, he finds himself in hot water...and now out of a job. The chairman has been dead for more than a year.

Judy Moody is in a mood. Not a good mood. And definitely NOT a math mood. The substitute teacher in Class 3T thinks Judy's math skills need improving. So Judy has to start meeting with a math tutor. Does this mean flash cards? Does this mean baby games? Does this mean school on weekends? But when Judy meets her tutor - a sick-awesome college student with an uber-funky sense of style - and gets a glimpse of college life, Judy's bad math-i-tude turns into a radical glad-i-tude.

The tragic-comic story of two young men, aged 21 and 18, who fall in love in the summer of 1962, but who have the misfortune to be working as teachers in a Catholic preparatory school at the time. Their names are Tom and Christopher. In the opposite corner to them stands Father Louis, the elderly headmaster. It is his conviction that the sixties will go down in history as the decade which sees the earthly triumph of the Catholic Church. Life becomes more complicated for Tom and Christopher when Miss O'Deere, the art mistress, decides to paint the pair as David and Jonathan and to enter the result in a public exhibition. To say nothing of the inconvenient attentions paid to them by 13-year-old Angelo Dexter.

What happens when we reach out into the vastness of space? What hope for us amongst the stars? Multi-award winning editor Jonathan Strahan brings us 14 new tales of the future, from some of the finest science fiction writers in the field. The 14 startling stories in this anthology feature the work of Greg Egan, Aliette de Bodard, Ian McDonald, Karl Schroeder, Pat Cadigan, Karen Lord, Ellen Klages, Adam Roberts, Linda Nagata, Hannu Rajaniemi, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Ken MacLeod, Alastair Reynolds, and Peter Watts.

After a violent home invasion, Neve Maguire returns with her daughter to Black Lake, her childhood summer home, hoping for a fresh start. But when the body of a woman is found floating among the reeds in the lake behind her house, she fears she has made a horrible mistake. Neve is hiding secrets, though. Detective Jess Lambert can tell. Recently back after her own personal tragedy, Jess knows what it’s like to live with skeletons in your closet, and she’s sure Neve has a few of her own.

At 22, Adam Wheeler learns that he has come into property, a mill house and vineyard in southern France. Leaving old friends behind, Adam moves across the Channel. His new life is a lonely one, until new neighbour Stéphane turns out to be offering more than just a helping hand with his vines. But when the love of Adam’s teen years, Sylvain, appears on the scene, Adam must decide exactly what, and who, he really wants.

Judy Moody is in a mood. A sleuthing, Nancy Drew kind of mood. So what’s a WBMS (world’s best mystery solver) to do? Go find a mystery, that’s what! And she doesn’t have to snoop for long: when Mr. Chips, a beloved crime-dog-in-training, goes missing, Judy Drewdy and her chums, agents Dills Pickle (Frank), Spuds Houdini (Rocky), and James Madagascar (Stink) find themselves smack-dab in the middle of a real-life, scare-your-pants-off whodunit. Was Mr. Chips stolen by dirty dognappers? And why are chocolate-chip cookies disappearing all over town?

Sleepy, sleepier, sleepiest - NOT! When Stink’s parents win tickets to an aquarium sleepover for the whole family, could it be science-freak Stink’s dream come true or his worst nightmare? He loves learning about sharks, but does he want to sleep in the same room with them? He’s nuts about gross stuff, but does he want go to bed thinking about the eating habits of the vampire squid?Creepy, creepier, creepiest - yikes!

Life isn't always easy, unless of course you are an Instagram travel blogger who pretends it is. Once in a while, things happen, things you can't always control such as rain on your wedding day or needing to take a shit during a two-hour job interview, but what if there was a way to train your mind to not give a f--k? Why do we give a f--k? While there are numerous self-help books readily available, this book is written with the intent of empowering you so that you can start to take control of your life and stop worrying about so many f--ks. Is this book for you?

Ferocious storms, winged beasts, and falling angels are just some of the dark tales locked within these pages. Discover a world where carnage falls from the sky, and delve into the frenzy of a world gone mad as Heaven opens and all Hell breaks loose.

The Forty Elephants were unique in the annals of British crime. Known also as the Forty Thieves, they were the country's only all-female crime syndicate, a gang of tough but glamorous young women who plundered the fashion stores and jewel shops of the West End, took their lovers from the among London's most notorious gangsters, and terrorised their rivals, male and female alike. Their roots lay with the Elephant Gang, a band of highwaymen who once haunted the Elephant and Castle coaching inn south of the Thames and whose reputation descended through generations of cutthroats.

Late Christmas Eve, the Harper family’s car crashed on a desolate stretch outside Black Lake. Sixteen-year-old Alice was found injured by the side of the road—alone. It was as if her parents and younger sister, Ella, had simply disappeared. One year later, Alice is still dealing with nightmares and unanswered questions when she and her friends find Ella’s bloodstained backpack in the basement of an abandoned home.

No one had heard from Janet Livingston’s brother in years. The world-famous missionary and explorer had captured the imagination of millions with his book about his travels through the Colonial British Empire … but then he simply vanished. So, when Janet received a cryptic message from Africa, along with a necklace their father gave him, she knew he was still alive and needed her help. But a woman traveling alone to the farthest corners of the Empire was simply out of the question.