Showing results by narrator "Jensen Olaya" in All Categories

A turtle the size of an island. A cricket that can possess you if swallowed. A giant who turns enemies to stone. The legends of Southeast Asia—or "the lands below the winds," as explorers used to call it—are populated with a whole menagerie of colorful beasts that inspire awe and fear in equal measure. Yet, passed on as they are through story and song, so many of these stories remain rooted in some long-forgotten past and bound by the borders of the region, creatures of myth and memory and nothing more. Until now.

Kathy Lien, author and managing director of FX strategy at BK Asset Management, and Etienne Crete, full-time trader and founder of Desire to Trade, deliver a collection of thirteen revealing interviews with proprietary traders successfully making a living off the markets. You'll explore insights from veteran traders with over ten years' experience in the markets, winners of a variety of trading championships, and contemporary prop traders using methods like funded accounts to trade other people's money.

Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. But most managers feel they just don't have time for it. This book offers a better way: frequent, short conversations with employees about themselves, their goals, and the business that can be integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business.

In the Sundered Kingdoms, we who tend the Grove do not concern ourselves with what lies beyond our borders. Our purpose is to mend and to grow, and as the firstborn daughter, I, Amara Tyne, am princess to our people. But our lands and earthen powers have fallen under the hungry gaze of a would-be usurper, who demands we bend the knee in his quest to take control of this world. Our only hope for survival is an alliance with the fearsome Mordorin Fae, who rule the Sundered Kingdoms with an iron fist.

Agnes Chan never expected to be the punchline of her own life . . . But how else do you explain getting accidentally run over and seeing a lifetime of careful preparation, endless training, and all your hopes of a track scholarship to college destroyed in a split second? Not to mention the only witness to your humiliation being your #1 archnemesis, Royce Taslim. So, when Agnes finds a new answer to her scholarship predicament in the form of an international stand-up comedy contest for teens, the last person she expects to be up against is also the last person she wants to see: Royce.

It's the Philippines in the 1800s. The Filipino gentleman Crisostomo Ibarra returns from his studies abroad and finds the city of Manila changed, especially after he learns of his father's mysterious death. After a violent encounter with a monk, Ibarra is excommunicated. Maria Clara has to choose between being a dutiful daughter and the love of her life. Poor Sisa searches for her children, while municipal guards try to capture her for the alleged gold coins that have gone missing from the church. Elias wrestles with a mysterious crocodile in the dark waters of the Pasig.

Josephine del Rosario feels like a pariah in her town. Long ago orphaned after her father’s political campaign ended in tragedy, she’s all alone, taking care of the family home while her older brother is off in Manila, where a revolution brews. And it’s starting to feel like he’s abandoning her. When she receives a letter from a cherished childhood friend, Hiraya, inviting her to play a game, she jumps at the chance to leave town. Josephine will have whatever her heart desires if she wins. Maybe she can change her life. It doesn’t matter that dark rumours have always surrounded Hiraya.

Abby knew her pattern all too well: get her heart broken, swear off dating, find a man "worth" breaking that vow for . . . Rinse. Repeat. However, after leaving a particularly traumatic relationship, Abby realized that something had to change if she wanted to kick the pattern. One night while purchasing a solo concert ticket, an epiphany was born: she needed a year in which she was her own dating interest. One full year to give herself the care and consideration that she once gave to romantic partners. A year to treat herself the way she wished a partner would.

Exploring issues from the #MeToo movement, gender bias in division of labor and the workplace, and the underrepresentation of women of color in leadership, to cultural trends including food and travel shows, the intersection of fashion and food, and the evolution of food writing in the last few decades, Women on Food brings together food's most vital female voices.

Pippa Fleming is a woman who always has a plan…until she finally secures a coveted promotion and her dream job suddenly feels worse than getting caught under the sun as a redhead with no sunscreen. Exhausted and confused, Pippa seeks an escape by signing up for a reality dating show. Everyone is allowed one identity crisis, right? And where better to recharge than on a beach sipping cocktails with little umbrellas? As long as she remembers she’s only here to have fun not to lose her heart…

Lucy is the newest member of the Gamer Girls. She loves her new school, her family, and her friends, but she misses her old life in California, too. After unsuccessfully trying to convince her parents to let her visit California, they decide to bring her aunt and cousin Jordan to HER! +10 XP for awesome parents. Unfortunately, Jordan's presence causes a stir with the Gamer Girls . . . suddenly, like Lucy's race car in her newest video game obsession Fast Pursuit Horizon, she feels totally OUT OF CONTROL!

Lucia Cruz may be turning eighteen this year, but she is not the debutante type. Everything about a traditional Filipino debut feels all wrong for her. Besides, custom dictates that eighteen friends attend her for a special ceremony on her birthday, and Lucia only has one friend—Esmé Mares. They've stuck to each other's side all throughout high school, content to be friends with only each other. At least, Lucia thought they were content.

Some girls call their mother their best friend. Marisol Martin? She could never relate. She and her mom were forever locked in an argument with no beginning and no end. Clothes, church, boys, no matter the topic, Marisol always felt like there was an unbridgeable gap between them that they were perpetually shouting across, one that she longed to close. But when her mother dies suddenly, Marisol is left with no one to fight against, haunted by all the things that she both said and didn’t say.

The secrets of the house are the secrets of the heart. It begins with an act of betrayal that destroys the tenuous bonds of Celestina Errantes’s family. For years afterwards, Celestina longs for an escape from her unhappy home. Then an unexpected gift from her wealthy Lolo offers that chance: a long-forsaken property in Manila’s bohemian district, close to where ladies of the evening ply their trade. It is no place for a proper young woman, but this house, even with its ghosts, makes Celestina feel at home.

The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. Celeste Ng—Puschcart Prize winner and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere—selects twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published this year.

The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. Jia Tolentino, critically acclaimed essayist, editor, and New Yorker staff writer, selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

Seven strangers wake up in a sealed compound with no idea how they got there. They are informed by a computer-generated voice that they must complete tasks in order to leave, and that failure to complete any of the tasks or breaking any of the rules results in a strike. The first two strikes induce extreme pain. The third strike is death. As they struggle to survive without turning on each other, they have no idea that their actions and choices could doom humanity. Or save it.

Mule Tide Cheer is a short story, including two side characters from the Top Shelf Romances Series. It can be listened to as a standalone, and while technically a romantic comedy, this MMF story has little to no plot, to appease the author's listeners who have been asking for a fun, spicy holiday story.

Inspired by writer and philosopher Audre Lorde’s famous claim 'Poetry is not a luxury', this anthology proves the vitality of poetry as a crucial source of inspiration, comfort and delight. Each poem within has been chosen from centuries of verse from around the world, with an emphasis on living poets. Friends old and new await, with selections from Rita Dove, Victoria Chang, Ross Gay, Naomi Shihab Nye, C.D. Wright, Eileen Myles, Ada Limón,Ross Gay, Ilya Kaminsky, Jos Charles and more.

The Sanctuary is a refuge for strays and rescued dogs. Evie has joined a training program there, though she knows almost nothing about animals. Like the greyhound who won’t move, the Rottweiler with attitude problems, or the hound who might be a candidate for search-and-rescue, Evie has a troubled past. But as they all learn, no one should stay prisoner to a life she didn’t choose. Heartfelt and hilarious in turn, this is a deeply moving story of the countless ways in which humans and canines help each other find new lives, new selves, and new hope.