Showing results by narrator "Nancy Wu" in All Categories

Magneto, the X-Men's oldest, deadliest foe, has taken over the entire island of Manhattan and declared it a haven for mutants. Ruled by Magneto and his Acolytes and enforced by reprogrammed Sentinels - powerful, giant robots - the haven is the first step in Magneto's ultimate goal of world domination: the Mutant Empire. Now, only the X-Men stand between Magneto and that goal. But the road to victory will not be an easy one, as half the X-Men are trapped in space - and mutants from all over the world are flocking to Manhattan and taking Magneto's side against the X-Men.

Fallen prophet, master of the elements, and daughter of the supreme Protector, Sanao Mokoya has abandoned the life that once bound her. Once her visions shaped the lives of citizens across the land, but no matter what tragedy Mokoya foresaw, she could never reshape the future. Broken by the loss of her young daughter, she now hunts deadly, sky-obscuring naga in the harsh outer reaches of the kingdom with packs of dinosaurs at her side, far from everything she used to love.

Li Juan and her mother own a small convenience store in the Altai Mountains in Northwestern China, where she writes about her life among grasslands and snowy peaks. To her neighbors' surprise, Li decides to join a family of Kazakh herders as they take their 30 boisterous camels, 500 sheep, and over 100 cattle and horses to pasture for the winter.

The American dream continues to resonate with immigrants from around the world. Millions of people hope to come to the United States to build a better life for themselves and their families, often by creating and growing new ventures and companies. While not everyone succeeds, many do. Mei Xu is one of those successes. In Burn, entrepreneur and international business­woman Mei Xu tells her story of ingenuity, determination, and luck.

Chloe loves her new life pouring beers and mixing cocktails at the Sea Glass Saloon in the Florida Panhandle town of Emerald Cove. On this morning’s foggy run, she spots a sailboat washed up on a sandbar. Hearing a cry, she climbs aboard the beached vessel to investigate and finds not only a mewling kitten, but also a human skeleton, in the cabin. The skeleton is tied to Chloe’s friend Ralph, whose wife disappeared on a sailboat with three other people twelve years ago. Believing his wife lost at sea, Ralph remarried. Now he finds himself a murder suspect.

Pursued by the police, the FBI, and, most dangerous of all, Kiran Biswas, visionary CEO and evil mastermind, three teen geniuses have to move fast and stay low as they race to find a missing brother, stop a vicious warlord, and save the world.

Eight-year-old Nancy Drew and her friends enter a sand-castle-building contest. Someone doesn’t want them to win and won’t play fair. When their castle is destroyed, and a mean message is found in the sand, Nancy becomes a detective once again.

With Chicago winters in the rearview mirror, Chloe Jackson is making good on a promise: helping her late friend’s grandmother run the Sea Glass Saloon in the Florida Panhandle. To Chloe’s surprise, feisty Vivi Slidell isn’t the frail retiree Chloe expects - nor is Emerald Cove. It’s less a sleepy fishing village than a panhandle hot spot overrun with land developers and tourists. But it’s a Sea Glass regular who’s mysteriously crossed the cranky Vivi. When their bitter argument comes to a head and he’s found dead behind the bar, guess who’s the number one suspect?

Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.

Lexi, Callie, and Hanna Breaux grew up in small-town Louisiana and have always struggled to make ends meet. For years, they’ve been playing the lottery, fantasizing about how much better life would be if they had the money. For Lexi, it means the perfect wedding; for Callie, it means having the courage to go after her career dreams; and for Hanna, it means buying a house that isn’t falling apart and sending her bullied son to private school. When the incredible happens and the Breaux sisters hit it big - $204 million big - all their dreams come true. Or so they think.

In his Locus review of Two Worlds and in Between - the first volume of The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan - Gary K. Wolfe wrote, “...it makes you wish the second volume were here now.” Well, the long wait is over. This second volume completes this ambitious undertaking, collecting the finest of Kiernan’s stories from 2004 to 2012, selected by the author herself. The book includes 25 short stories and one poem, plus the short novel Black Helicopters - more than 200,000 words of fiction, including the World Fantasy Award-winning “The Prayer of 90 Cats”.

Manhattan is in the hands of the evil Magneto and his Acolytes as he executes the first step in creating the Mutant Empire. Half the X-Men have been captured, and Magneto's law is enforced by an ever-growing army of mutants and the powerful robotic Sentinels. The remaining X-Men must stop Magneto by turning the reprogrammed Sentinels against him to defeat the man himself. To do that, they must join forces with the US government - who view the X-Men as being as much of a menace as Magneto - and with one of their oldest foes, the Juggernaut!

Neon Yang continues to redefine the limits of silkpunk fantasy with their Tensorate novellas, which the New York Times lauded as "joyously wild". In this third volume, an investigation into atrocities committed at a classified research facility threaten to expose secrets that the Protectorate will do anything to keep hidden.

When Veronica Lewis wakes up in a Nevada hospital, the doctors tell her that she was badly injured in a car accident. She claims to be a college student at New York University, but a quick call to the admissions department reveals that she graduated years ago. Vonny has no memory of the past decade and no idea what she was doing in Nevada. The situation intensifies when a pair of detectives shows up at the hospital. They inform Vonny that her husband, John, was recently found dead. The detectives reveal that he was murdered in an alleyway and want to begin questioning her immediately.

There is no war outside of these walls. This is what the citizens of Ba Sing Se are told to believe, but Jin knows better. As a refugee whose parents were killed by the Fire Nation, she is haunted by her past. Now, she does her best to keep her head down in the Lower Ring, caring for her ailing grandfather and balancing school with survival. Her one bright spot is her best friend Susu, whose family treats Jin like one of their own, and whose bakery she helps make deliveries for.

Too tired to think? No time to read books? Zibby Owens gets it. Award-winning podcaster of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books and mother of four (ages six to 14) compiled 53 essays by 49 authors to help the rest of us feel understood, inspired, and less alone.

Seventeen year old Olivia Dresden is a precognitive. Since different versions of people's futures flicker before her eyes, she doesn't have to believe in human decency. She can see the way for everyone to be their best self—if only they would make the right decisions. No one is more conflicted than her mother, and Olivia can only watch as Chairwoman Dresden chooses the dark, destructive course every time. Yet Olivia remains fiercely loyal to the woman her mother could be.

When Tai Choi leaves her home in the Zhejiang province of China, she believes she’ll be visiting her grandmother. But in truth, despite her mother’s opposition, her father has sold her to pay his gambling debts. Alone and afraid, Tai Choi is put on a ship headed for San Francisco, known among the Chinese as Gold Mountain. When she arrives, she is forced to go by the new name listed on her paper documents: Tien Fu Wu. Her new life as a servant at a gambling den is hard. And if she is to survive, Tien Fu must persevere, and learn who to trust.

Sixteen-year-old Jessa Stone is the most valuable citizen in Eden City. Her psychic abilities could lead to significant scientific discoveries-if only she'd let TechRA study her. But after they kidnapped and experimented on her as a child, cooperating with the scientists is the last thing Jessa would do. But when she discovers the past isn't what she assumed, Jessa must join forces with budding scientist Tanner Callahan to rectify a fatal mistake made ten years ago. She'll do anything to change the past and save her sister-even if it means aligning with the enemy she swore to defeat.

It's Callie's seventeenth birthday and, like everyone else, she's eagerly awaiting her vision—a memory sent back in time to sculpt each citizen into the person they're meant to be. A world-class swimmer. A renowned scientist. Or in Callie's case, a criminal. In her vision, she sees herself murdering her gifted younger sister. Before she can process what it means, Callie is arrested and placed in prison. The only person who can help is her childhood crush, Logan, a boy she hasn't spoken to in five years.