Showing results by narrator "Caitlin Kelly" in All Categories

A collection of 13 mesmerizing stories by American master Joyce Carol Oates, including the 2017 Pushcart Prize-winning "Undocumented Alien". The diverse stories of Beautiful Days explore the most secret, intimate, and unacknowledged interior lives of characters not unlike ourselves, who assert their independence in acts of bold and often irrevocable defiance.

Dara Ruminor is a serious young duelist in the mountaintop kingdom of Vertigon, a land of dramatic cliffs and misty peaks where mysterious Fire magic runs through the stones like blood. The secluded kingdom has been peaceful for 100 years. Swords are used for sport, and successful athletes live like kings as long as the crowds love them. Eighteen-year-old Dara needs to find a wealthy patron in order to duel professionally and avoid a lifetime working in her parents' Fire Lantern shop.

When the Olympian Comet shoots through the sky for the first time in 3,000 years, Nicole and four others - including mysterious bad-boy Blake - are gifted with elemental powers. But the comet has another effect - it opens the portal to another dimension that has imprisoned the Titans for centuries. After an ancient monster escapes, it's up to Nicole and the others to follow a cryptic prophecy in time to save the town...and possibly the world.

Dara Ruminor takes her new position as a castle guard for the King of Vertigon very seriously. She refuses to allow her feelings for Siv to get in the way of atoning for her parents' actions, no matter how hard it is to keep her distance. But she's keeping secrets from her king - and the one involving a fiery newfound ability is getting harder to hide.

Eva Evergreen is determined to earn the rank of Novice Witch before her 13th birthday. If she doesn't, she'll lose her magic forever. For most young witches and wizards, it's a simple enough test: One: Help your town, do good all around. Two: Live there for one moon, don't leave too soon. Three: Fly home by broomstick, the easiest of tricks. The only problem? Eva only has a pinch of magic. She summons heads of cabbage instead of flowers and gets a sunburn instead of calling down rain. And to add insult to injury, whenever she overuses her magic, she falls asleep.

Welcome to Pendark, a city of murky canals, brutal gladiator fights, and sorcerers who feud over access to the silvery magical substance known as Watermight. Tamri is a scrappy magic thief who’s trying to get her grandmother out of this festering swamp of a city. But when a quick score involving a dragon goes wrong, she’s shipped off to a distant mountaintop kingdom where the legendary Fire Queen is starting a school for magic wielders. Tamri's not just going there to learn.

Golden Age Hollywood - a city overflowing with gossip, scandal, and intrigue. Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the legendary temptress. So when the film's mercurial director casts Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, in the lead role, she quickly becomes the talk of the town. Vera also becomes an object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player whose career has stalled and who will do anything to win the fame she believes she richly deserves.

Finding out that she was a witch was strange enough, but now Nicole must face the realization that she has the rare power to kill with just a touch. No one can know her secret - not even Blake, who she's had undeniable chemistry with since first moving to town. Now Nicole, Blake, and the three others with elemental powers must journey abroad to stop a series of monsters that they previously believed to be dead from rising once again and destroying the mortal world. Will they all survive the quest?

Sunny MacDonald doesn't know what to expect when she's dragged to Club Fang by her twin sister Rayne. But the devastatingly handsome vampire Magnus mistakes her for her goth-loving twin and bites her on the neck, she realizes his fangs are all too real...and all too deadly. Now Sunny and Magnus find themselves in a race against time to find a way to reverse the bite before Sunny becomes a vampire forever. Something she definitely doesn't want-even if does mean spending eternity with a certain boy who bites....

On an otherwise ordinary day, 26-year-old American expat Adelaide Williams walks into a London hospital and asks for help. Something’s not right. She doesn’t feel like herself any more. For the past year, she's been dating Rory Hughes, the charming man she met when she was least expecting to fall in love. Does he respond to texts? Honour his commitments? Make advance plans? Sometimes, rarely, and no, not at all. Despite everything, Adelaide is convinced he’s The One.

Rafe and Jimmy, two misunderstood troublemakers, are finally up to something good. They're in charge of a huge celebration of books and reading - but when a small issue snowballs into a big problem that threatens to derail the whole event, they need to work fast to keep things on track!

When famous agent Lucy LaRoux drops by Classroom 13, she makes an offer no one can refuse - she makes all of the students famous. You might think this was sweet, but it was not. It was selfish. (Lucy wants their money.) With great fame comes frightening stage fright, broken bones, rotten reality television, and other awful accidents. As the students of Classroom 13 are about to learn, being famous (or infamous) isn't always fun.

Back at the Institute, Dash and Charlotte wonder if they have made the right choice in returning to Diamond Towers. Toxic zombies, called the Forsaken, emerge out of the mist. And Charlotte’s powers are on the fritz. Charlotte knows evil walks with them in the new world, and she’s ready to take action. With Dash by her side, no one stands a chance. The only way they can protect their future is to destroy the Institute brick by white brick. It will take more than mere strength and an act of God. It will take trust and a kind of love that is not easily broken.

Evadne is finally going to be reunited with her older sister, Halcyon, who has been serving in the queen’s army for eight long years. But when Halcyon unexpectedly appears a day early, Evadne knows something is gravely wrong. Halcyon has been charged with a heinous crime, and though her life is spared, she has been sentenced to 15 years of punishment - five years of hard labour, five years of imprisonment and five years serving the house that she has wronged.

Partying with popular classmates they barely know is not what Eva and her friends had in mind for their spring break. But things have been off ever since that thing they don’t talk about happened with Miles, so a trip to a private beach lodge might be exactly what they need. And Eva won’t admit it, but the chance to reconnect with Colton is worth putting up with Piper’s constant live streams to her thousands of ‘besties’.

It's not easy being Rafe Khatchadorian's sister. He's got quite a reputation around school, and Georgia's got it hard enough as is! With a super secret crush on her classmate Sam Marks, a Rube Goldberg machine challenge to dominate, and constant confrontations with vicious Missy Trillin and her evil Princess Patrol to look forward to, Georgia can't help but throw all her energy into the one thing that makes her happy: her kick-butt, all-girl rock band, We Stink!

Trapped inside the ancient building's collapsing walls, Sophie and Joseph are forced to confront the horrors that hide within. Shrouded figures stalk them from the shadows. Whispers echo through the night. Unmarked graves dot the property. And the dead are not as restful as they seem…

Under ordinary circumstances, Oakley Ford and Vaughn Bennett would never even cross paths. There's nothing ordinary about Oakley. This bad-boy pop star's got Grammy Awards, millions of fangirls, and a reputation as a restless, too-charming troublemaker. But with his home life disintegrating, his music well suddenly running dry, and the tabloids having a field day over his outrageous exploits, Oakley needs to show the world he's settling down - and who better to help him than Vaughn, a waitress trying to help her family get by? The very definition of ordinary.

Riley March and her friends are headed to ritzy, remote Palm Key Island for one last blow-out party weekend before college. It’s the vacation of a lifetime: beautiful beaches, epic nightlife, and hot guys like Riley’s crush—superstar soccer player Sebastian Ramos. There’s just one catch. Everyone on this trip is hiding something. Riley is hiding her past in order to fit in. Sebastian is hiding his feelings for Riley. And someone is hiding what really happened to Jordyn Chang, a classmate that mysteriously died last summer.

Lacey Luzzi's roller coaster of a life has been filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. She just never expected the lows to be so...sparkly. After falling on her face during an attempt to follow in her recently deceased mother's stripper boots, Lacey realizes she is not cut out for life on stage. She sets out on a yearlong investigation to find her true family, never expecting she'll find it with a capital F.