Showing results by narrator "Luci Christian Bell" in All Categories

Ian is...just my best friend. We're extremely close, stuck so deep inside a Jim-and-Pam-style friendzone everyone at work assumes we're a couple - that is until one day, word spreads through the teacher's lounge that he's single. Fair game. Suddenly, it's open season on Ian. He should be reveling in all the newfound attention, but to our mutual surprise, the only attention he seems to want is mine. He's turning our formerly innocent nightly chats into X-rated phone calls. Our playful banter sports a new, dangerous edge.  

"Nobody knows me as Manolito García Moreno, not even Big Ears López, and he's my best friend; even though sometimes he can be a dog and a traitor (and other times, a dog traitor), he's still my best friend and he's a whole lotta cool. In Carabanchel - that's the name of my neighborhood in Madrid, in case I haven't told you-everyone knows me as Manolito Four-Eyes." "Don't try to be different," says Manolito's mother. But he can't help it - he doesn't have to try.

Life as an ENFP is no walk in the park. Despite the happy-go-lucky attitude they exude, only those who share the specific preference for extroversion, intuition, feeling, and perceiving on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator can truly understand the unique form of chaos that governs this type's restless mind. Embodying a profoundly strange stack of cognitive functions, ENFPs approach the world with both the enthusiasm of a child and the wisdom of an old soul.

In this dazzling debut, Carla Shalaby, a former elementary school teacher, explores the everyday lives of four young "troublemakers", challenging the ways we identify and understand so-called problem children. Time and again, we make seemingly endless efforts to moderate, punish, and even medicate our children, when we should instead be concerned with transforming the very nature of our institutions, systems, and structures, large and small.

Scarlet Reed has returned to Polson Falls, convinced that 12 years away is long enough to shed her humiliating childhood identity as the town harlot’s daughter. With a teaching job secured and an adorable fixer-upper to call home, things in her life are finally looking up. That is, until she finds out that Shane Beckett lives next door.

Julie E. Czerneda's acclaimed Web Shifters series continues with the story of Esen - the last survivor of a unique alien race. Able to take on the form of any creature she observes, Esen has long since broken the cardinal rule of her species: noninterference.

Dani was born with her heart on the wrong side of her body. In her 15 years of life, she’s had more doctor’s appointments, X-rays, and tests, and eaten more green hospital Jell-O than she cares to think about. Fourteen-year-old Amanda is a competitive gymnast, her body a small package of sleek muscles, in perfect health. The two girls don’t know each other, don’t go to the same school, don’t have any friends in common. But their lives are about to collide. Acclaimed author Jill Wolfson tackles this fascinating story with her trademark honesty and wit.

Once in a while, a first novel arrives like a bolt of lightning, commanding attention with an explosion of power, grace, and light. Flying in Place is such a book. As unflinching as The Lovely Bones, as startling as Beloved, it is a work to bear witness - with bravery and compassion - for the experience of millions of readers and their loved ones. Emma is 12, a perfectly normal girl, in a perfectly normal home. With a perfectly normal father...who comes into her bedroom every night in the hours before dawn. Emma will do anything to escape.

"Nobody knows me as Manolito Garca Moreno, not even Big Ears Lopez, and he's my best friend; even though sometimes he can be a dog and a traitor (and other times, a dog traitor), he's still my best friend and he's a whole lotta cool. In Carabanchel - that's the name of my neighborhood in Madrid, in case I haven't told you - everyone knows me as Manolito Four-Eyes."

In a world shrouded by soot and smoke, young Makarria has literally been forbidden to dream.… Legend has foretold the demise of Emperor Thedric Guderian at the hands of a sorceress with royal blood, and the Emperor has made it his legacy to stamp out all magic from the Sargothian Empire in favor of primitive coal fired smelters and steam-powered machines. When Guderian’s minions discover a Dreamwielder on a seaside farmstead, a chain of events forces Guderian’s new threat - the young Makarria - to flee from her home and embark upon an epic journey.

"Don't try to be different," says Manolito's mother. But he can't help it - he doesn't have to try. Whether he's fighting over the One-and-Only Susana; trying not to fight with Ozzy the Bully; telling his entire life story to the school psychologist; or discovering the true meaning of World Peace-10-year-old Manolito is a real original. As he'd say, in the worldwide world, there's nobody like him! And for the first time, this best-selling phenomenon from Spain is available in English.

The first book in Julie Czerneda's acclaimed Web Shifters series made the Nebula preliminary nomination list in 1998. Changing Vision continues the story of Esen, the last survivor of an alien race with the ability to assume the form of any creature. Now Esen must break her species' rule of non-interference - to keep interspecies tension from escalating into all-out war.

Against the backdrop of the high-stakes and intensely competitive equestrian sport of show jumping, Finny, a fifteen-year-old girl in California, adopts an emaciated, untrained horse without her parents' knowledge. Soon after adopting Sky, Finny meets Joe, a sixteen-year-old, who has run away from his cruel uncle in Montana.

A girl and her two brothers are transported back to the time of King Arthur, where they must return three magic talismans to their rightful owners or remain trapped forever in the distant past. The adventure begins when Sara Lowry wins a picnic basket at the Firemen's Strawberry Festival. She and her brothers, Greg and Eric, are staying with their uncle at his Hudson Valley estate while their parents are in Japan.

West of New Orleans among a few small Gulf islands lies the Isle aux Chiens, a tiny, impoverished strip of land burdened by intolerable heat and roaming packs of wild dogs. Here a handful of Creole families eke out a meager existence by fishing the Gulf waters. Such is the fate of Al Landry and his seventeen-year-old daughter, Annie. All Annie has ever known is the wild sea, but she longs for other people and places, including the glamor of life in the Big Easy.

I breathed in and out for a few seconds as I waited at the end of the aisle. It felt like I was standing overlooking the edge of a cliff, and the minute I saw my future wife, I was going to freefall. The music started. Shit, I was seriously going to pass out. People stood; Demetri nodded his head and patted me on the back. And then I saw her. It was like seeing her for the first time all over again. Memories of meeting her that first day of school had me grinning from ear to ear.

They are the last survivors of their race, beings who live on and communicate through energy, who are capable of assuming the shape of any other species. When their youngest member is assigned to a world considered safe to explore, she is captured by the natives. To escape, she must violate the most important rule of her kind, and reveal the existence of her species to a fellow prisoner - a human being. Now her race is in danger of extinction, for even if the human does not betray her, the Enemy who has long searched for her people may finally discover their location.

All Eden wants is redemption...but the road to redemption is never an easy one. Travelling to Scotland to find her mother’s bloodline, Eden is soon embroiled in the politics and training of the Scottish Warriors of Neith. It is a world where some stand with open arms ready to welcome her as family, while others keep a wary distance, conspiring against her. Through it all Eden learns of love, friendship, and what it means to be a warrior. Her future has promise...that is until a man she thought was forever gone from her life returns to threaten it all. When the one person Eden loves above all else is endangered, she will have to make a choice. Him...or her?

What would you do if you were born to be a predator? Would you fight your natural instincts or give in to your nature? Eden is a soul eater closing in on her awakening. Her family has convinced her that soon she will have to take a life in order to save her own. It’s a decision Eden doesn’t want to deal with even as her hunger for souls grows stronger every day. To complicate her impossible position, new guy in school Noah Valois’ determination to befriend her puts Eden in touch with a humanity she’s never known. Addicted to his company, his friendship and affection, she becomes more and more terrified that giving into her hunger will mean losing him forever.…

Eden’s life has taken a turn she would never have imagined. She’s gone from soul eater to warrior, left behind a family she was ashamed of, and moved in with one she admires. She has a purpose, a future, and…she has Noah. Life should be good. But…the most fervent and powerful soul eaters are determined to take down the Ankh and Eden is the key to the destruction of the warrior race. Moreover, a shadowed enemy is still after Eden, and the mortal Warriors of Neith have chosen the worst time imaginable to start an uprising. With an enemy in every corner the problems before her are overwhelming.