Showing results by publisher "Tantor Media" in Satire

Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve. With the right image, values, and opinions, you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent—the Virtual elite—and have the world at your feet. Otherwise you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water, or even humanity. The system has no flaws. Until the elusive "Ten Percent Thief" steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city.

Anna and Tom, an expat couple, have fashioned a dream life for themselves in Berlin. They are young digital "creatives" exploring the excitements of the city, freelancers without too many constraints, who spend their free time cultivating house plants and their images online. At first, they reasonably deduce that they've turned their passion for aesthetics into a viable, even enviable career, but the years go by, and Anna and Tom grow bored.

Apparently, conservative Midwestern voters want more than my brains, connections, and good looks to vote me in as a congressman. That's right, to appear as the all-American family man they want . . . I need a wife. ASAP. The lovely Odette Hastings seems to fit the bill. She's a wholesome small-town girl, and conveniently in need of cash. I'll give her the money to take care of her elderly parents, and she'll be the political arm candy I need. We both win, right? The only problem is Odette is a little too beautiful, a little too intelligent, and way too distracting.

Lo Summers's life is falling apart. In a matter of weeks, she's lost her job and her home. To top it all off, she has a chronic illness and no health insurance. Then a photo of Lo looking cozy with her friend, Weston King, a famous YouTube star, goes viral, and it forces them to confront a past they tucked away a long time ago.

When Lexi Blake was 12 years old, a fortune teller gave her the following cryptic message: In your 30th year, once the dog jumps over you, your life will change in the most unexpected ways. 

Paradise is supposed to be a short-term stop. Until Thor shows up. Okay, not the real Thor. But replace the hammer with a dog who won't stop barking, and Adam Thomsen is definitely long-haired Thor's doppelganger. Too bad for me, he's decided I'm the villain in his story. Too bad for him, his scowl is no match for my super-powered positivity.

Tara Heinz began her modeling career at the tender age of twelve. After spending fifteen years drooling over forbidden foods, she does the unthinkable. She enrolls in culinary school and becomes a pastry chef. After a nasty breakup with her rock star boyfriend that leads to tabloid war, Tara takes a job at a rural lodge in Oregon to escape the spotlight she no longer desires. James Cavanaugh is a farmer in Oregon. His days are spent building his business and his nights are spent sleeping, so he can get up at four in the morning. 

After losing my husband three years ago, I'm ready for a fresh start for me and my daughter. I appreciate all of my parents' help, of course, but I can't live with them forever (and I don't want to). Dr. Drew Reed, my father's coworker, informs me his basement (turned income-property) is available for rent. And he also needs a part time nanny. Lucky for him, I can do both! But living in such close proximity, seeing him in those dang sexy surgical scrubs, and watching him with our girls . . . is making my heart thaw in ways I never expected. But am I ready to love again?

Autumn Jones is at a crossroads. With no job offers in sight, she can either return to Koshkonong, Wisconsin to work at her dad's feed store or she can move to New York and help her older sister Helen coordinate the Manhattan Kennel Club Show. She and Helen may fight like cats and dogs, but Autumn would rather live with a thousand Helens than go home after seven years of college.

Walking into Jake's bachelor party to see my professor motorboating a stripper was awkward. It wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't completely hot for the guy. I had been since I first walked into that feline anatomy class and saw him performing chest compressions on a Persian cat named Andrew. So, as I sat in that strip club and knocked back my third tequila, I started thinking...I should make a move on him. When our eyes locked over the busty, blonde stripper who was gyrating against me and he smiled, it was all the encouragement I needed. I have no idea what happened next.

I lost a bet to my older brother. My evil, life-ruining older brother, and now I can't go on a date for FOUR months. I can't even touch a woman. No hand holding. Forget kissing. I'm walking the straight and narrow (AKA dateless and lonely) just fine. Until my best friend (the woman I've been pining over since college) gets her heart broken.

Put your hand up if you've ever moved to a new place and found a wild animal loose in your attic, and your former high school sweetheart shows up, looking just as incredibly handsome as the day he kissed you? *Puts hand up.* Just me? Then I probably don't need to tell you that all I can think about is how I'd like to kiss him right now . . . and that is a big NOPE. Because I'm a single mom, and my whole life is in a state of major renovation right now. Especially since I bought a major fixer upper in the beach town where I grew up and moved in with my daughter.

Wealthy and devout, Michael and Julia Glynn are the envy of their neighbors and the model Irish Catholic couple, bearing Michael's increasingly painful and crippling arthritis with stoicism. In hope of a miracle, their priest suggests a family pilgrimage to Lourdes. Yet these pious holiday plans are thrown into doubt when anonymous, obscene letters begin to arrive, full of terrible accusations.

"I need a ride," I said to a sexy stranger on a Harley. Three hours later? A six-foot-tall Marilyn Monroe was officiating our Vegas wedding at the Happy Chapel. But it's not love—it's business—a marriage pact made out of desperation so my career doesn't go up in flames. Sure, Flynn Winslow is a hot, broody, mysterious man that women all over the globe would sell their souls to land for real, but I have my eyes on the prize and our marriage arrangement will end in three months with no strings attached. Right?

Twenty-five-year-old rookie Repo Agent, Andrea Sloan, doesn't like accepting help from anyone - especially not arrogant musicians who are too charming for their own good. Even though she swore off men years ago, Andi finds herself drawn to handsome rockstar, Cooper Barnett, as he continually pops up in her life when she least expects it. Their budding relationship becomes even more complicated when Cooper talks Andi into letting him ride-along on one of her repos, and they come across a very naked, very dead body. 

Emily Forrest runs Exalted, the hottest astrology account on Instagram, from her studio apartment in Los Angeles. Burned out on meme-making and listicles, Emily's passion for astrology is waning despite her gift for deciphering the signs, until she comes across a birth-chart that could potentially change her mind. Beau Rubidoux's planets are aligned, each paired with its optimum sign—his chart is exalted. She decides that Beau, a well-connected photographer in Echo Park, could potentially be the love of her life and help her fulfill her true destiny: to be a star.

I'm Serafina Lopez, and I'm an astrologer. No, not the airy-fairy type who wears long flowy skirts and enormous hoop earrings—you know, unless I want to. I'm an uber-serious businesswoman. My popular lifestyle app, "Live for you Star Sign," is getting so big, I've just been asked to be a guest on New York's most-watched morning show. This TV segment is going to launch my career into the stratosphere. Imagine my surprise when I show up on set to find out that I'm not the only guest.

From the first time I played army as a kid, the military has been my life. As an Airborne Major, I'd led my men through two tours in Afghanistan. But when my father was elected president, I became an even greater target for the enemy - a prize for someone to take out. To ensure not only the safety of myself, but of my men, I got stripped of my cammies, shoved into an Armani suit, and placed into a management position at my father's company. After years of trekking through the desert with an assault rifle, I was way out of my area of expertise....

Kill for Love is a searing satirical thriller about Tiffany, a privileged Los Angeles sorority sister who is struggling to keep her sadistic impulses-and haunting nightmares of fire and destruction-at bay. After a frat party hookup devolves into a bloody, fatal affair, Tiffany realizes something within her has awoken: the insatiable desire to kill attractive young men.

After the death of his fiancee due to medical errors, hospital pharmacist Daniel O'Dwyer escapes to Oak Island, North Carolina. The only things on his mind are fresh sea air, fresh seafood, Fat Tire Amber Ale, and the avoidance of any type of healthcare institution. But fate and jellyfish draw him back, and reluctantly, he agrees to go undercover to combat narcotic drug diversion at nearby Boiling Grove Community Hospital.