Showing results by narrator "Katharine Chin" in All Categories

Princess Jasalyn seeks revenge. Armed with an enchanted ring bestowing death's kiss, she's been sneaking away at night to assassinate her enemies. Felicity needs a miracle. Fated to kill her father, she's been using her ability to shape-shift to evade a fatal prophecy. But when rumours begin circling that the evil king Mordeus is still alive, Jasalyn teams up with the handsome Kendrick - a rebel once imprisoned alongside her. While Felicity must take Princess Jasalyn's form, and her place at court - drawing irresistibly closer to the Wild Fae King, Misha.

Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonise the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there's a mission that's too dangerous - even suicidal - the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact. Mickey signed on to escape from both bad debts and boredom on Midgard. After six deaths, Mickey7 understands the terms of his deal...and why it was the only colonial position unfilled when he took it.

Helen Zhang is the bestselling author who can't write her own happy-ever-after. Grant Shepard is the screenwriter with the movie-star looks who can't afford his therapist. When the two of them are put together to adapt Helen's books for television, it should be a dream come true. Helen can start a new life in Hollywood. Grant can pay his mortgage. Only, Grant Shepard is the last person that Helen wanted to see again. She's never forgiven him for what happened thirteen years ago. So no one is more surprised than her when sparks begin to fly between them in the writers' room.

Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations – until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she's haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future. Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can't refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren't the only ones hunting for it.

Now entering its second century, the prestigious annual story anthology has a new title, a new look, and a new guest editor. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and young emerging voices. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Adichie, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.

Fifteen years after rebels stormed the streets, Kisia is still divided. Only the firm hand of the god-emperor holds the kingdom together. But when a shocking betrayal destroys a tense alliance with neighbouring Chiltae, all that has been won comes crashing down. In Kisia, Princess Miko T'sai is a prisoner in her own castle. She dreams of claiming her empire, but the path to power could rip it, and her family, asunder.

Ruby Chen has always played the part of the dutiful eldest daughter: excelling in school; excelling in piano lessons; excelling at keeping her younger sister, Tina, focused on extracurriculars meant to impress college admissions officers. But when a ghost from the spirit world attacks Ruby in the middle of Vancouver’s Chinatown neighborhood, her life is plunged into a darkness that no amount of duty can free her from. Overnight, Ruby’s sister seems to change.

Commander Lisa Chao works in the US Navy's Strategic Planning Center in Pearl Harbor. When tensions rise with China over Taiwan, she has to unravel exactly what's happening in the Pacific and why. What she uncovers leads America to war—but not with China. Bullets and bombs are no match for an extraterrestrial warship that can fly between stars, but perhaps the answer to the coming war lies not in the present but in the past. Could Sun Tzu's The Art of War provide humanity with a fighting chance against a technologically superior alien enemy?

“Without stories, we cannot live well,” shares guest editor Min Jin Lee, describing how storytelling affects and nurtures readers. The Best American Short Stories 2023 features twenty pieces of short fiction that reflect a world full of fractured relationships, but also wondrous hope. A lifelong friendship may become a casualty of the Russia-Ukraine war. Rejected by his lover, a man seeks to reconcile with his family. Twitter users miraculously muster enough empathy to help a lost cat find a forever home.

In The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, you can dine at a restaurant at the end of the universe, cultivate to immortality in the high mountains, watch roses perform Shakespeare, or arrive at the island of the gods on the backs of giant fish to ensure that the world can bloom. Written, edited, and translated by a female and nonbinary team, these stories have never before been published in English and represent both the richly complicated past and the vivid future of Chinese science fiction and fantasy.

Being an apprentice to one of the world's most famous sorcerers has its challenges; Tabatha Zeng just didn’t think they would include solving crime. But when her boss, the infamous fortuneteller Sorcerer Solomon, predicts his own brutal death—and worse, it comes true—Tabatha finds herself caught in the crosshairs. The police have their sights set on her and Callum Solomon, her murdered boss’s youngest son

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises.

A contemporary collection of original short stories by Anica Mrose Rissi that is sure to elicit chills, laughs, and screams, even from the most devoted fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark! A game of hide-and-seek goes on far too long. A lookalike doll makes itself right at home. A school talent-show act leaves the audience aghast. And a summer at camp takes a turn for the braaaains.

From New York Times bestselling author R.L. Stine, the master of horror for young audiences, comes 10 new stories that are sure to leave you shivering. Stine also reads the introduction to each story! Two kids embark on a field trip to the zoo...and stumble upon a creature they never expected to meet. A boy makes a machine that puts kids in charge...but at what cost? A child is sure his new house is haunted...but is it just in his head? And each story comes with a personal introduction from Stine himself.

The most influential book of Taiwan’s #MeToo movement—a heartbreaking account of sexual violence and a remarkable reinvention of the trauma plot, turning the traditional Lolita narrative upside down as it explores women’s vulnerability, victimization, and the lengths they will go to survive.

Daiyu is the orphaned daughter of a once influential, now missing, family. Alone and on the streets, she must rely on her wits to discover what happened to her family. But when Daiyu is kidnapped and smuggled from China to America, she relinquishes the future she imagined.

Nearly a decade ago, iconic magician Violet Volk performed her greatest trick yet: vanishing mid-act. Though she hasn’t been seen since, her hold on the public imagination is stronger than ever. While Violet sought out the spotlight, her sister Sasha always had to be the responsible one, taking over their mother’s hair salon and building a quiet life for her beloved daughter, Quinn. But Sasha can never seem to escape her sister’s orbit or her memories of their unresolved, tumultuous relationship.

“What's most compelling about a scientific story is the way it challenges us to think about the concepts we take for granted,” writes guest editor Carl Zimmer in his introduction. The essays in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing probe at the ordinary and urge us to think more deeply about our place in the world around us.

When Nozomi Nagai pictured the ideal summer romance, a fake one wasn't what she had in mind. That was before she met the perfect girl. Willow is gorgeous, glamorous, and…heartbroken? And when she enlists Nozomi to pose as her new girlfriend to make her ex jealous, Nozomi is a willing volunteer. Because Nozomi has a master plan of her own: one to show Willow she's better than a stand-in, and turn their fauxmance into something real. But as the lies pile up, it's not long before Nozomi's schemes take a turn toward disaster…and maybe a chance at love she didn't plan for.

Annalie and Margaret are sisters who agree on only one thing: that they have nothing in common. Annalie is 17: sweet, content and looking forward to a summer of flirting with the most popular boy in school. Margaret is 19: ambitious, a warrior for social justice and desperate to forget her ex-boyfriend in New York City. When their family is the victim of a racial attack, Annalie tries to pretend it never happened—but Margaret wants to fight back. Suddenly their relationship—and all the ones around them—are hanging by a thread.