Showing results by narrator "Julia Whelan" in All Categories

Trashy-romance writer Gerri has it all - an overbearing family, a dead-end job, and no man but a ton of pressure to get married and have kids. Frustrated and hopeless that things will ever change, she decides it’s time to transition from “tragic loser” to “tragic loss”. Armed with a shoebox full of sleeping pills and a big bottle of vodka, she’s ready to end it all. First, she writes “honest” farewell notes to everyone she knows…

Nyle’s life with her grandmother on their Vermont sheep farm advances rhythmically through the seasons until the night of the accident at the Cookshire nuclear power plant. Without warning, Nyle’s modest world fills with protective masks, evacuations, contaminated food, disruptions, and mistrust. Things become even more complicated when Ezra Trent and his mother, refugees from the heart of the accident, take temporary shelter in the back bedroom of Nyle’s house.

Dr Cliff Miyashiro arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue his recently deceased daughter’s research, only to discover a virus, newly unearthed from melting permafrost. The plague unleashed reshapes life on earth for generations. Yet even while struggling to counter this destructive force, humanity stubbornly persists in myriad moving and ever inventive ways. From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead, this story follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world.

In the exciting final installment of the Lost Voices trilogy, mermaid Luce swims to the San Francisco Bay where she finds a group of renegade mermaids who become an army under her leadership when war breaks out between humans and mermaids.

Caught in their last moment of decadent obliviousness, the characters in At Danceteria are so blinded by the strobe lights they can't see what's waiting in the shadows. While fictional, each of the collection's seven stories, set at the dawn of the AIDS crisis, takes as their inspiration a real event.

Best-selling author Jenny McCarthy returns to her comic roots in this candid, wise, and witty look at women, men, sex, romance, heartbreak, love, and how (not) to fake it. In Love, Lust & Faking It, the inveterate truth teller turns the lights on for a funny, often poignant, and no-holds-barred look at the essence of relationships: love and sex.

Her life by the sea in ruins, Pen has lost everything in the Earth Shaker that all but destroyed the city of Los Angeles. She sets out into the wasteland to search for her family, her journey guided by a tattered copy of Homer’s Odyssey. Soon she begins to realize her own abilities and strength as she faces false promises of safety, the cloned giants who feast on humans, and a madman who wishes her dead. On her voyage, Pen learns to tell stories that reflect her strange visions, while she and her fellow survivors navigate the dangers that lie in wait. In her signature style, Francesca Lia Block has created a world that is beautiful in its destruction and as frightening as it is lovely.

Plucked from the Mark Twain archives at the University of California, Berkeley, Twain's notes now form the foundation of a fairy tale picked up over a century later. With only Twain's fragmentary script and a story that stops partway as his guide, author Philip Stead has written a tale that imagines what might have been if Twain had fully realized this work. This is a story that reaches through time and brings us the debut children's book of America's most legendary writer, envisioned by one of today's most important names in children's literature.

Would you live your life differently if you were given a second chance? Hannah, David, Connie, and Linda - four terminally ill patients - have been selected for the SUBlife pilot program, which will grant them brand-new, genetically perfect bodies that are exact copies of their former selves - without a single imperfection. Blemishes, scars, freckles, and wrinkles have all disappeared; their fingerprints are different; their vision is impeccable; and, most importantly, their illnesses have been cured.

Elsie Porter is an average twentysomething and yet what happens to her is anything but ordinary. On a rainy New Year's Day, she heads out to pick up a pizza for one. She isn't expecting to see anyone else in the shop, much less the adorable and charming Ben Ross. Their chemistry is instant and electric. Ben cannot even wait twenty-four hours before asking to see her again. Within weeks, the two are head over heels in love. By May, they've eloped. Only nine days later, Ben is out riding his bike when he is hit by a truck and killed on impact.

Princess Magnolia is excited. Excited and nervous. She's going to the Interkingdom Science Fair today to present her poster about seeds and plants, and when she arrives, she sees that her friends are there, too! Princess Honeysuckle made a mole habitat, Princess Sneezewort has built a blanket fort, and Tommy Wigtower has a talking volcano that's saying "EAAAAT!" Wait, what?

Born during a Christmas blizzard, Jane Williams receives a rare gift: the ability to literally see true love. Jane has emerged from an ailing childhood a lonely, hopeless romantic when, on her 29th birthday, she receives a card from the midwife who delivered her. Jane must identify the six types of love before the full moon following her 30th birthday - or face grave consequences. When Jane falls for a science writer who doesn't believe in love, she fears that her fate is sealed.

Maya is in love with both her boyfriend and her boss. Sadie's lover calls her as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counseling. Gwen pines for her roommate, a man who will hold her hand but then tells her that her palm is sweaty. And Sasha agrees to have a drink with her married lover's wife and then immediately regrets it.

After a daring escape from the Diotech scientists who created her, Seraphina and Zen believe they are finally safe from the horrors of her past. But new threats await them at every turn as Zen falls prey to a mysterious illness, and Sera's extraordinary abilities make it more and more difficult to stay hidden. Meanwhile Diotech has developed a dangerous new weapon designed to apprehend Sera--a weapon even she will be powerless to stop.

Fresh out of medical school, Linda D. Dahl was nervous to begin her surgical residency in the Bronx. Compounding the long hours and overwhelming workload, Dahl felt like a perpetual fish out of water. One night, at her husband’s urging, Dahl watched a boxing match between Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya. Watching Mosley survive against the odds gave Dahl hope that she, too, could find her footing. Later, when she was in practice on the Upper East Side, Dahl received a phone call from the New York State Athletic Commission. They were looking for a fight doctor. Dahl accepted.

A plain-spoken, appealing narrator relates the history of her parents - a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. With her mother's death in childbirth, so begins a heroine's tale equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have.

Amber Bryant and Tyler Hicks have been best friends since they were teenagers - trusting and depending on each other through some of the darkest periods of their young lives. And while Amber has always felt that their relationship is strictly platonic, Tyler has long harbored the secret desire that they might one day become more than friends. Returning home for the summer after her college graduation, Amber begins spending more time with Tyler than she has in years. Despite the fact that Amber is engaged to her college sweetheart, a flirtation begins to grow between them.

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets.

Isabelle Scott and Mirabelle Monroe are still reeling from the revelation that they share more than just the roof over their heads. The media has pounced on their story and the girls are caught up in a flurry of talk-show appearances and newspaper interviews. They’ve put on a happy public face, but someone is leaking their true feelings to the press. While it seems like the world is watching their every move, at least they have each other. But with cotillion season right around the corner, Izzie and Mira have barely had time to process their newfound sisterhood.

Sixteen-year-old Glenn Morgan has lived next to the Rift her entire life and has no idea of what might be on the other side of it. Glenn's only friend, Kevin, insists the fence holds back a world of monsters and witchcraft, but magic isn't for Glenn. She has enough problems with reality: Glenn's mother disappeared when she was six, and soon after, she lost her scientist father to his all-consuming work on his mysterious Project. Glenn buries herself in her studies and dreams about the day she can escape.