Showing results by narrator "Samara Naeymi" in All Categories

Windham-Farnswood Academy is beautiful, prestigious, historic - the perfect place for girls to prep for college. But every student knows all is not as it seems. Each January, the Winter Girl comes knocking. She's the spirit who haunts the old senior dorm, and this year is no exception. For Haley, the timing couldn't be worse. This month marks the one-year anniversary of the death of her ex-best friend, Taylor. When a disturbing video of Taylor surfaces, new questions about her death emerge. And it actually looks like Taylor was murdered.

It’s Rashin’s first day of school in America! Everything is a different shape than what she’s used to: from the foods on her breakfast plate to the letters in the books! And the kids’ families are from all over! The new teacher asks each child to imagine the shape of home on a map. Rashin knows right away what she’ll say: Iran looks like a cat! What will the other kids say?

It's summer when Arezu, an Iranian American teenager, goes to Spain to meet her estranged father at an apartment he owns there. He never shows up, instead sending her a weekly allowance, care of his step-nephew, Omar, a 40-year-old Lebanese man. As the weeks progress, Arezu is drawn into a mercurial, charged, and ultimately catastrophic affair with Omar, a relationship that shatters her just at the cusp of adulthood. Two decades later, Arezu inherits the apartment. 

An army of toys, a menacing threat, and a thrilling adventure collide in the high-stakes sequel to middle-grade adventure Spark and the League of Ursus. Spark may be a cute and cuddly teddy bear, but she’s also a fierce protector. Weeks after rescuing her human owner—a budding young...

Hunt the mesmer. Free the captives. Be the hero you never wanted to be. It's been 10 days since Jade finally got out. Out of the bed she spent her life trapped in, out of the hospital, and now out of the city, the walls, and way outside of her comfort zone. The wilderness is a terrifying place, especially when you're hunting mesmer...and everything else is hunting you. Unfortunately, getting out of the forest won't get her out of the woods. She’ll need to navigate court politics and foreign policy if she wants to come out in one piece.

Only five days have passed since Jade was brought to a distant world and a new life. Mobile for the first time ever, Jade is given the chance to do something she’s always wanted: attend school. Dracona isn’t your typical school, however. In Andara she needs to learn all the skills an adventurer needs. For her, that means how to cast magic and use weapons without hurting herself. She’ll have to learn fast because the obstacle course isn’t the only thing challenging her progress; she’s racing against the clock to learn how to beat the Mesmer before they find her.

Jade has spent her life fighting boredom in the terminally ill ward. Surfing the net or reading, she always envied the ability of others to go out and experience the world. She knew her wish to live a normal life was far beyond her reach, but after waking up one morning without the sounds of her life support, she opens her eyes and finds herself with a weak but healthy body in a magical world.

“Grab a flashlight and burrow under the covers! Spark and the League of Ursus is the perfect bedtime adventure, with a fierce, fluffy hero you'll want by your side when the lights go out.”—Kirsten Miller, New York Times bestselling co-author of Nightmares! Toy Story meets Stranger Things...

In 1954, Joyce Johnson’s Barnard professor told his class that most women could never have the kinds of experiences that would be worth writing about. Attitudes like that were not at all unusual at a time when “good” women didn’t leave home or have sex before they married; even those who broke the rules could merely expect to be minor characters in the dramas played by men. But secret rebels, like Joyce and her classmate Elise Cowen, refused to accept things as they were. 

A myriad of studies show that the parents of American youth play the leading role in shaping the character of their religious and spiritual lives, even well after they leave home and often for the rest of their lives. We know a lot about the importance of parents in faith transmission. However we know much less about the actual beliefs, feelings, and activities of the parents themselves. To address that gap, this book reports the findings of a new national study of religious parents in the United States.

Private Matthew Petticrew arrives in France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces, an arrival that a war-weary France desperately hopes will help to end the turmoil. Having faced unthinkable things on the front, he is captivated by the sound of a lullaby, sung by a voice so pure he knows he must have imagined it. But rumors sweep through the trenches like wildfire, dubbing the voice "The Angel of Argonne", a mysterious presence who leaves behind wreaths on unmarked graves and footprints in the war-pocked soil. 

Elfreda Raughn will avoid pregnancy if it kills her, and one way or another, it will kill her. Though she's able to stomach the gruesome day-to-day duties, the reality of preserving the Order's magical bloodline horrifies her, but the Sisters of Aytrium have sworn to pay a price for the safety of their nation. Elfreda wants out, whatever the cost. So when a shadowy cabal approaches her with an offer of escape, she leaps at the opportunity. As their spy, she gains access to the highest reaches of the Order....

It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.

I didn’t even want to go to the party. Seriously, I’d rather have stayed home with my librarian-witch grandmother and her mystical book club than go. But my best friend, Skyler, begged me. So I went. And it was the worst party of my life. The last party of my life. Not only was the band downright horrible, but the lead singer bit me afterward. And then stole Skyler. Now I’m chasing down a band of angry vamps with my other best friend, Vaughn, in tow - and a buttload of feelings between us we can’t even begin to address. And worse, I’m changing into something else.

Winner of the 2021 IRE Book Award Winner of the 2022 Texas Institute of Letters Carr P. Collins Award for Best Book of Nonfiction In the age of #MeToo, learn how brave whistleblowers have dared to lift the federal court’s veil of secrecy to expose powerful judges who appear to defy laws they...

It’s time to change the way we think about menopause. While medicine and popular culture fixate on menopause as a decline of women’s bodies and minds, we can choose to honor and embrace the powerful gifts that come to us in our elder years. With Making Sense of Menopause, this renowned women’s health practitioner offers a powerful and practical guide to experiencing perimenopause and menopause as a natural gateway into the next vital, exciting, and meaningful phase of our lives.

Owl is mixed up … It’s the middle of the night, and all the animals of the forest are sound asleep. Except Owl. Way up high, on the branch of a tall tree, he lies awake, wondering: Why am I the only one who isn’t sleeping? But when Owl goes off in search of an answer, all the animals in...

8 HOURS TO STOP AN EXPLOSION ... 8 HOURS TO FALL IN LOVE. From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Illuminae and Aurora Rising comes a high-octane, high-chemistry, sci-fi adventure about a stowaway girl and the richest boy in the galaxy, racing against the clock to outwit a gang of...

For fans of Jasmine Warga and Starfish, an Iranian American girl navigates complicated relationships with her mother, her best friend, and her body image in this unflinching and ultimately uplifting middle-grade debut. Sometimes Yasmin feels like her body isn’t hers. And it’s not just...

A spirited exploration of the diary, from pen-and-paper to TikTok, for the people who write—and read—them Featuring iconic diary keepers like Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Alison Bechdel, and Taylor Swift We know what it was like to be an out lesbian in 19th-century England, what the inner...