Showing results by narrator "Mark Sanderlin" in All Categories

Was there any particular reason that, near the end of your lives, you suddenly stopped buying Bounty paper towels? So begins the first question from Bounty’s market research representative to Paul and Maggie. In this unique short story, a couple who died suddenly in their 50s recounts their use of Bounty paper towels and their sudden switch to a bargain brand near the end of their lives. What appears to be a run-of-the-mill spat between spouses at the Stop & Shop is revealed to be a defining moment of a marriage years in decline.

On his 11th birthday, Jackson is nervous about moving up to middle school where he knows he'll be bullied by older kids, so he makes his wish, "I don't want to grow up!" When his 12th birthday rolls around, he discovers his wish came true: he's still 11, and he's starting fifth grade (again). At first, this is the perfect life. Jackson is the smartest kid in his class, the best on his baseball team, and the star of the school band. But after a few years of being eleven, he realizes his life is passing him by.

Mark and Levi’s podcast takes a turn when a spaceship crashes in the backyard, and along with Levi’s older sister Brooke, they make contact with an extraterrestrial—a furry, purple creature they name Sky who was separated from the rest of her crew during an intergalactic mission. If she doesn’t make contact with them soon, she’ll never see her home again. Unfortunately, the kids aren’t the only ones who know about the alien’s arrival on Earth. A group of mysterious adults in black suits have begun following them. They’ve kidnapped Brooke’s boyfriend, Gavin, with Sky as ransom.

Lena was just an ordinary girl in an ordinary village until the sky cracked open and an Otherworlder fell through. They say these beings come from a distant realm called Earth, summoned by a mysterious spell known as isekai. They look harmless until you see what they can do. Otherworlders wield impossible power, the kind that can change the world or destroy it with a single thought. So she does the only thing she can. She befriends it.

The baseball season has begun, and Zachary Wilson, in his final year of school, is at the pinnacle of his life. Baseball is his passion and his ticket to a promising future. However, a muscle tear during a game leaves him out of the game for months, plunging him into an overwhelming darkness. In the midst of his desperation, he finds a ray of light in an unexpected situation: the mysterious patient Sunny Smith in the hospital. Intrigued, he begins to visit her regularly, sharing with her his deepest and darkest thoughts.

When a lifelong friendship just isn't long enough, two friends connect from beyond the grave in this heartwarming ghost story from a New York Times bestselling author. One minute, Finn was biking home from school, and the next, he was run off the road by a maniac in a big van. Now, he's a ghost...

Wren Roland has never been kissed, but he wants that movie-perfect ending more than anything. Feeling nostalgic on the eve of his birthday, he sends emails to all the boys he (ahem) loved before he came out. Morning brings the inevitable Oh God What Did I Do?, but he brushes that panic aside. Why stress about it? None of his could-have-beens are actually going to read the emails, much less respond. Right? Enter Derick Haverford, Wren's #1 pre-coming-out-crush and his drive-in theater's new social-media intern.

The Youngbloods are a mafia-like demon family, sent as a sinister advance team to prepare Earth for an infernal invasion. But when something goes wrong, the demon invasion never comes and the Youngbloods are stuck on crappy Earth with the worst creatures in the world—each other. Petra Youngblood is the family’s hunter. Her job: to track and kill the annual human sacrifice that keeps the Youngbloods immortal. Otherwise, they will crumble to dust. But as Petra is hunting down this year’s sacrifice, a man named Killian Irons, she breaks the first demonic rule.

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Unteachables comes a hilarious story about a boy who is homeschooled in his grandmother’s retirement community…until he is forced to go to public school. Dexter Foreman is twelve going on eighty. He has lived at The Pines retirement village...

“You never know what’s going to happen, Milo. No matter how hard you try to control things, this is our summer in Paris, and it might just be unpredictable. There might just be boys.” Milo is determined to have the most magical summer in Paris after winning an apprenticeship at a...

Hazel Davis is drifting: newly unemployed, living in a city she hates, and significantly less successful than her infamous younger sister, Evie. Evie grew up online, having gone viral at age five in a daddy-daughter dance video. Now she’s a megapopular lifestyle influencer. But to Hazel, @evelyn is just Evie, her beloved little sister—and a kid who has been exploited for her entire childhood. So when Evie disappears—in the middle of a live stream, during a brand-sponsored trip to Los Angeles—Hazel knows something is terribly wrong.

Theo Briggs is a rule follower. He's a decent student in his junior year, an appeasing son, and a lifelong Christian, just trying to make it through high school unscathed. Caleb Raynard is a romantic. One of the few out-and-proud kids at Specter High School, Caleb's dating life has been hellish, to say the least—fraught with misread social cues and embarrassing situations—and Caleb is about ready to call the whole thing off. When Theo and Caleb meet in the basement of an old Catholic church that's rumored to be haunted, an instant and electric connection forms between them.

The Youngbloods are a dysfunctional family from hell—literally. The mafia-like demon family got stranded on Earth during an infernal invasion gone wrong and have spent eons maintaining a fragile peace. But Petra Youngblood has strained the family bonds by breaking a cardinal rule: falling in love with a human. And not just any human: the sacrifice required to keep her family immortal. Even worse, the sacrifice, Killian Irons, is part of the secret society hell-bent on killing her family.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Gordon Korman comes the funny and heartwarming sequel to the word-of-mouth hits UNGIFTED and SUPERGIFTED. School has never been a problem for twelve-year-old super-genius Noah Youkilis—at least not until he gets an admission letter to the prestigious...

Twenty-three-year-old Nolan Baker wants it all by the time he's thirty. Too bad he's single, barely able to cover his own expenses, and still paying his dues at a prominent NYC comedy club. When faced with his perfect sister's wedding, Nolan takes it as a wakeup call. It's time to quit comedy and make good on his practical dreams—most importantly, asking Drew Techler, his best friend, to be his date. But right as Nolan is about to give it all up, he's asked to fill a last-minute spot for a famous comedian.

The morning after Hurricane Leo rips through the town of Canaan, residents awaken to widespread destruction—power outages, downed branches, uprooted trees, broken windows and damaged roofs. Four eighth-grade friends—Evan, Jason, Mitchell, and CJ—meet to explore the devastation. The tight-knit group is dismayed to find that Evan has brought along a stray—Ricky, who is new to their town and school, and doesn’t have any friends yet.

Twelve million years ago, rhinos, elephants, and camels roamed North America. They would gather at nearby watering holes - eating, drinking, and trying not to become someone else’s lunch. But one day, in what we now know as Nebraska, everything changed. The explosion of a supervolcano a thousand miles away sent a blanket of ash that buried these animals for millennia. Until 1953, when a 17-year-old farm worker made an unbelievable discovery.

To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents' debts and buy your children's future. Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug.

Brian has always been anxious, whether at home, or in class, or on the basketball court. His dad tries to get him to stand up for himself, and his mom helps as much as she can, but after he and his brother are placed in foster care, Brian starts having panic attacks. And he doesn't know if things will ever be normal again. Ezra's always been popular. He's friends with most of the kids on his basketball team, even Brian, who usually keeps to himself. But now, some of his friends have been acting differently, and Brian seems to be pulling away.