Showing results by narrator "Laura Knight Keating" in All Categories

Creel can't believe her aunt wants to sacrifice her to the local dragon. It's a ploy to lure a heroic knight so that he will fight the dragon, marry Creel out of chivalrous obligation, and lift the entire family out of poverty. Creel isn't worried. After all, nobody has seen a dragon in centuries. But when the beast actually appears, Creel not only bargains with him for her life, she also ends up with a rare bit of treasure from his hoard: a pair of simple blue slippers, or so she thinks.

Iris concocts the perfect curse for Pike: one that will turn him into a witch. But just as she’s about to dispel it, a bird swoops down and steals the curse before flying away. If the bird dies, the curse will be unleashed—and the bird is a powerful amplifier, and unleashing the curse would turn not just Pike, but everyone in the region, into a witch. New witches have no idea how to control their magic and the consequences would be dire.

For centuries, witches have maintained the climate, but now their control is faltering as the atmosphere becomes more erratic; the storms, more destructive. All hope lies with Clara, a once-in-a-generation Everwitch whose magic is tied to every season.

Beneath the streets of York, the goblin market calls to the Wickett women—the family of witches that tends to its victims. For generations, they have defended the old cobblestone streets with their magic. Knowing the dangers, they never entered the market—until May Wickett fell for a goblin girl, accepted her invitation, and became inextricably tied to the world her family tried to protect her from. The market learned her name, and even when she and her sister left York for Boston to escape it, the goblins remembered.

With the Dragon Wars over, Creel finds herself bored with life as a seamstress. Then word comes that a bordering country has been breeding dragons in preparation for an invasion. Never one to sit around, Creel throws herself headlong into an adventure that will reunite her with dragon friend Shardas, pit her against a vicious new enemy, and perhaps rekindle a friendship with Prince Luka that seems to have gone cold.

Having returned to Chicago, young socialite Anna Nicholson can't seem to focus on her upcoming marriage. The new information she's learned about her birth mother continues to pull at her, and she hires Pinkerton detectives to help her find the truth. But as she meets people who once knew her mother and hears stories about the past, Anna soon discovers that some secrets are better left hidden.

It's week nine of this season of The Catch, and the cast and crew are arriving at their latest exotic location: a remote tree-covered island in the rainy North Pacific. America's most eligible bachelor (*eye-roll*) has whittled down the contestants to the Final Four, but as everyone online knows, he's probably just going to pick Vanessa. So far, so predictable. At the top of Mount Resilience, luxury yurts surround an elegant firepit—all, of course, perfectly staged and lighted. But this week's Elimination Event isn't going to go as planned.

The new post-apocalyptic collection by master anthologist John Joseph Adams, featuring never-before-published stories and curated reprints by some of the genre's most popular and critically-acclaimed authors. Whether the end comes via nuclear war, pandemic, climate change, or cosmological disaster, these stories explore the extraordinary trials and tribulations of those who survive.

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.

January is a dying planet - divided between a permanently frozen darkness on one side and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life, spread across two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk. But life inside the cities is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside. Sophie, a student and reluctant revolutionary, is supposed to be dead, after being exiled into the night. Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping she can heal.

At birth, Violet and Rose Flowers were identical, save for a tiny bluish-purple mark gracing Violet’s slender neck. By nineteen, their temperaments distinguish them, as different as the flowers their mother named them for—Violet, wild and outgoing, and Rose, solitary and reserved. Still, they are each other’s world. Then, on a sweltering, terrible August night in 1928, an explosion rocks Lamb’s Dance Hall in Possum Flats, Missouri, engulfing it in flames, leaving one twin among the dozens dead, and her sister’s life forever changed.

Carolyn Mackler's Printz Honor book - starring the unforgettably funny, body-conscious Virginia Shreves - returns in this 15th anniversary edition featuring text updates and never-before-heard material from the author. Fifteen-year-old Virginia feels like a plus-sized black sheep in her family, especially next to her perfect big brother Byron. Not to mention her best friend has moved, leaving Virginia to navigate an awkward relationship with a boy alone. In order to survive, Virginia decides to follow a "Fat Girl Code of Conduct", which works, until the unthinkable causes her family's facade to crumble.

When a kid is dragged to Central Park in New York on a Saturday (when he could be at home watching the ball game), the last thing he wants is a history lesson from his mom. But then his mother starts telling him a story. A story about the giant structure sitting in right in front of them—Cleopatra’s Needle. It turns out that an enslaved boy and hundreds of other people spent more than six hundred days carving the Needle out of stone and pulling it upright. And another kid’s drawings were used to create the hieroglyphs on its sides.

As far as Creel is concerned, all is finally right with the world. The dragon king, Shardas, and his queen, Velika, have made a home for themselves on the Far Islands, and for the first time in centuries, it seems dragons and humans might be able to live together in peace. So what better time for Creel and Luka to plan their wedding? But then Velika gets kidnapped by a band of rogue dragons in need of their own queen. And Creel and Luka leap to aid Shardas and rescue her - only to discover that Luka's father has set his sights on taking back the Far Islands from the dragons.

A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mom, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it’s been just the three of them—her mom has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed. Yet when her mom brings home a six-foot tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart, and her children’s lives.

Seventeen-year-old Olivia Owens isn't thrilled that her dad's getting remarried...again. She's especially not thrilled that he cheated on her mom, kicked them out of their Rhode Island home, and cut Olivia out of her rightful inheritance. But this former heiress has a plan for revenge. While hundreds of guests gather on the grounds of the gorgeous estate where she grew up, everyone will be thinking romance—not robbery. She’ll play the part of dutiful daughter, but in reality she’ll be redistributing millions from her father’s online accounts.

Robin McKinley returns to the mythical setting of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword in this “thrilling, satisfying, and thought-provoking collection” featuring two stories set in the world of Damar, plus three other fantasy tales featuring adventurous, pragmatic, and heroic young women (Publishers Weekly).

In this clever YA rom-com debut perfect for fans of Kasie West and Ashley Poston, a teen obsessed with 19th-century literature tries to cull advice on life and love from her favorite classic heroines to disastrous results - especially when she falls for the school's resident Lothario.

"No one gets something for nothing. We all should know better." Teenagers at Wisconsin's Nottawa High School are drawn deeper into a social networking site that promises to grant their every need...regardless of the consequences. Soon the site turns sinister, with simple pranks escalating to malicious crimes. The body count rises.

Sixteen-year-old Virginia Shreves' life is finally back on course: She's accepted who she is inside and out and is rebuilding her relationship with brother Byron, whose date-rape charge shattered everything. But just as she adjusts to her new normal, her world turns upside down again. Sparks with boyfriend Froggy fade, her best friend bombshells bad news, and then the police arrest Byron.