Narrator

Emily Woo Zeller

Emily Woo Zeller
  • Inspired by songs from AC/DC’s bestselling album, Back in Black, this anthology contains ten murder mysteries from ten bestselling writers—including a new Jack Reacher original by Andrew Child.

    The third collection in the Music and Murder Mystery Series, Back in Black features one story for each song from the seminal hard rock album of the same name. This book showcases ten brilliant mystery writers at the top of their game, including Reed Farrel Coleman, Heather Graham, Tori Eldridge, Ward Larsen, and Andrew Child, among others.

    Chilling and unexpected, Back in Black has a mystery for everyone.

  • For listeners of Outlawed, Piranesi, and The Night Tiger, a riveting, roaring adventure novel about a legendary Chinese pirate queen, her fight to save her fleet from the forces allied against them, and the dangerous price of power

    When Shek Yeung sees a Portuguese sailor slay her husband, a feared pirate, she knows she must act swiftly or die. Instead of mourning, Shek Yeung launches a new plan: immediately marrying her husband’s second-in-command, and agreeing to bear him a son and heir, in order to retain power over her half of the fleet.

    But as Shek Yeung vies for control over the army she knows she was born to lead, larger threats loom. The Chinese Emperor has charged a brutal, crafty nobleman with ridding the South China Seas of pirates, and the Europeans—tired of losing ships, men, and money to Shek Yeung’s alliance—have new plans for the area. Even worse, Shek Yeung’s cutthroat retributions create problems all their own. As Shek Yeung navigates new motherhood and the crises of leadership, she must decide how long she is willing to fight, and at what price, or risk losing her fleet, her new family, and even her life.

    A book of salt and grit, blood and sweat, Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea is an unmissable portrait of a woman who leads with the courage and ruthlessness of our darkest and most beloved heroes.

  • Based on true events.

    Sang Ly lives at Cambodia’s city dump and is grateful she can help earn a living for her family by sifting through the trash for recyclables and things that can be repaired and sold. On a good day, she can earn enough to buy food for her family. She needs enough good days so she can pay the rent collector, Sopeap—a grumpy old woman who shows no mercy and who is willing to evict any tenant who can’t pay their rent on time.

    When Sang Ly is unable to pay her rent for the month, she fears her family will have to leave the dump and their shanty home, a place where her only possessions can be carried in two hands. Little does she know that a discarded children’s book found among the mounds of trash would save her. When Sopeap sees the book lying on Sang Ly's cardboard bed, her mood changes. Sang Ly offers her the book if she is allowed to keep her family at the dump.

    An unlikely friendship develops between the two women, and Sang Ly learns that Sopeap knows how to read—something that Sang Ly has always wanted to learn. Being able to read could transform Sang Ly’s world beyond the predictable confines of the dump and lead to a future with possibilities and hope. But the rent collector has a secret and tragic past, one that will not be easy for Sang Ly to navigate.

    With the help of her supportive husband, Ki Lim, and a helpful and humorous boy, Lucky Fat, Sang Ly embarks on a life-changing journey to give her young son, Nisay, a better life and future.
     
    The Rent Collector is about the power of literacy, the influence of the past, and finding hope, resiliency, and empowerment in the face of seemingly endless hardship.

  • Even though twelve-year-old Alexis was born in Hawaii, she won’t surf or swim with her friends—not since the ocean and its hidden creatures swept her out to sea. Instead, she grabs her best detective hat and decodes her mom’s latest challenge.

    Alex’s mom works in counterintelligence and leaves codes, ciphers, and puzzles behind for Alex to solve, always with a “treasure” at the end. It’s a brilliant game between them, and Alex loves figuring out her mom’s puzzles—especially the tricky ones—but when an emergency at sea puts her mom in possible danger, solving the next one suddenly feels far more urgent.

    Friends help as Alex races to decipher each clue before time runs out, but when the trail leads to grumpy old Uncle, his enormous dog Sarge, and a sea turtle unlike any other, the challenge changes into something bigger than any before. With storms on the horizon and lives on the line, Alex must face her fears to solve Mom’s challenge and save those she loves. With her ohana to help, she must be strong like the sea.

  • The story of three women by a writer hailed by Haruki Murakami as Japan’s most important contemporary novelist.

    Challenging every preconception about storytelling and prose style, mixing wry humor and riveting emotional depth, Kawakami is today one of Japan’s most important and bestselling writers. She exploded onto the cultural scene first as a musician, then as a poet and popular blogger, and is now an award-winning novelist.

    Breasts & Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.

    It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations.

    On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.

  • This luminous debut novel follows a young woman from her childhood in Vietnam to her life as an immigrant in the United States—and her necessary return to her homeland.

    As a child, isolated from the world in a secretive military encampment with her distant mother, she turns for affection to a sympathetic soldier and to the only other girl in the camp, forming two friendships that will shape the rest of her life.

    As a young adult in New York, cut off from her native country and haunted by the scars of her youth, she is still in search of a home. She falls in love with a married woman who is the image of her childhood friend, and follows strangers because they remind her of her soldier. When tragedy arises, she must return to Vietnam to confront the memories of her youth—and recover her identity.

    An inspiring meditation on love, loss, and the presence of a past that never dies, If I Had Two Lives explores the ancient question: Do we value the people in our lives because of who they are, or because of what we need them to be?

  • In the vein of Lisa Jackson and Julia Maynard, a dark and compulsive mystery about secrets too big for the small town’s britches.

    When secrets are too big to buy, it’s worth killing to bury them.

    Growing up, Laura Mori was constantly overshadowed by her far more successful siblings. She had a tough time appeasing her parents, and now that she’s a police officer, recently promoted to detective, they still seem less than fazed. Everyone knows a cop’s salary―it’s meager, to say the least. But Laura has found her calling―she was born to be a detective and is determined to prove it, if not to her parents, then at least to the boys club that is Sunrise Lake PD. She sticks out like a sore thumb as the only young female minority, but she has resolved to at least seem like an unshakeable thumb.

    The next case file on her desk turns out to be a bank heist and it should be easy enough, but what starts off as a one-and-done job quickly begins to seem too by-the-book and oddly like a notorious series of deadly bank hits from years past dubbed Twilight. But it’s a dead end―Twilight is only ever mentioned in hushed tones, and there’s little to no history on it in the department. And then she receives her first sign, of many more to come, that her investigation is not welcome. Alongside her partner Z and stunningly attractive FBI agent Nick Derringer, she begins to pull on the frayed thread, and that’s when she sees the bloody writing on the wall: the only other young female cop on the force was KIA during Twilight.

    With too much on the line to lose, including her own life, Laura must get to the bottom of the case and fast, or she, too, will become history.

  • The latest Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery takes the acclaimed detective duo into the Deep South to investigate a murder within the Chinese community.

    The Most Southern Place on Earth: that’s what they call the Mississippi Delta. It’s not a place Lydia Chin, an American-born Chinese private detective from Chinatown, New York City, ever thought she’d have reason to go. But when her mother tells her a cousin Lydia didn’t know she had is in jail in Clarksdale, Mississippi―and that Lydia has to rush down south and get him out―Lydia finds herself rolling down Highway 61 with Bill Smith, her partner, behind the wheel.

    From the river levees to the refinement of Oxford, from old cotton gins to new computer scams, Lydia soon finds that nothing in Mississippi is as she expected it to be, including her cousin’s legal troubles―or possibly even his innocence. Can she uncover the truth in a place more foreign to her than any she’s ever seen?

  • The epic finale to the Bone Witch series! As Tea’s dark magic eats away at her, she must save the one she loves most, even while her life―and the kingdoms―are on the brink of destruction.

    In the eight kingdoms, none have greater strength or influence than the asha, who hold elemental magic. But only a bone witch has the power to raise the dead. Tea has used this dark magic to breathe life into those she has loved and lost … and those who would join her army against the deceitful royals. But Tea’s quest to conjure a shadowglass, to achieve immortality for the one person she loves most in the world, threatens to consume her.

    Tea’s heartsglass only grows darker with each new betrayal. Her work with the monstrous azi, her thirst for retribution, her desire to unmask the Faceless―they all feed the darkrot that is gradually consuming her heartsglass. She is haunted by blackouts and strange visions, and when she wakes with blood on her hands, Tea must answer to a power greater than the elder asha or even her conscience. Tea’s life—and the fate of the kingdoms—hangs in the balance.

  • A novel of impressive scope and complexity, “American Woman is a thoughtful, meditative interrogation of…history and politics, of power and racism, and finally, of radicalism” (San Francisco Chronicle), perfect for readers who love Emma Cline’s novel, The Girls.

    On the lam for an act of violence against the American government, twenty-five-year-old Jenny Shimada agrees to care for three younger fugitives whom a shadowy figure from her former radical life has spirited out of California. One of them, the kidnapped granddaughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate in San Francisco, has become a national celebrity for embracing her captors’ ideology and joining their revolutionary cell.

    A brilliant readastonishing in its honesty and confidence” (Denver Post), American Woman explores the psychology of the young radicals, the intensity of their isolated existence, and the paranoia and fear that undermine their ideals.

  • Los Angeles is booming. Money is pouring in. Buildings are going up. But someone is killing architects.

    Detective Sam Carver journeys through sins scattered across the City of Angels, where hipsters, homeless, immigrants, producers, politicians, movie stars, and cops collide in mysterious ways. Every move Carver makes is anticipated by the killer, Dylan Cross. She has hacked his computer and knows his diaries and secrets. She sees in him a kindred and damaged spirit, a man who can understand her crimes, heal her scars, and love her. Dylan is reclaiming herself from a past of brutal injustices inflicted by a world of misogyny and power. Detective Carver is dealing with his own troubled history: an elusive and violent father.

    My Detective is a story of obsession set against vengeance and prayers of forgiveness in a city that is as cruel as it is fantastical. It captures modern Los Angeles in real time, an eerie glide through the imagination, where winds gust high above the San Gabriel Mountains and neighborhoods stretch toward the ocean like the flash and tremor of a dream. The novel speaks to our sense of beauty in a new century and the demons we rouse when we dare to create a new metropolis.

  • Nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Award, City on Fire returns to the world-city of Metropolitan, a city dominated by plasm, the magical substance capable of both creation and destruction.

    With her help, Aiah’s lover Constantine has established himself in the metropolis of Caraqui, a nation dominated by corrupt officials, gangsters, and the genetically altered known as the “twisted.” Here they hope to create a revolution in the cosmic order—but first they must fend off treachery, war, and the threat of Taikoen, the “hanged man,” a deadly creature that lives within plasm itself. Aiah must fight not only for her revolution and for her place in the world, but for Constantine’s very soul.

  • No one looks kindly on the killer of a king.

    After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, seventeen-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin is forced to see her mother’s Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: they’re not heroes of the people, as they’ve always claimed to be, but murderers. She herself included. Mira tries to ease her guilt by brewing helpful curatives, but her hunger tonics and headache remedies cannot right past wrongs or save the dissenters whom her mother vows to purge.

    Royal bastard Josse de Bourbon is more kitchen boy than fils de France. But when the Shadow Society assassinates the Sun King and half of the royal court, he must become the prince he was never meant to be in order to save his injured sisters and the petulant dauphin. Forced to hide in the sewers beneath the city, Josse’s hope of reclaiming Paris seems impossible―until his path collides with Mirabelle’s.

    She’s a deadly poisoner. He’s a bastard prince. They are sworn enemies, yet they form a tenuous pact to unite the commoners and former nobility against the Shadow Society. But can a rebellion built on mistrust ever hope to succeed?

  • Aiah has fought her way out of poverty and discovers a limitless source of plasm, the mysterious substance that powers the world-city. Her discovery soon involves her with Constantine, the charismatic, dangerous, seductive revolutionary who plans to overthrow the government and upend the cosmic order.

  • A hilarious and nostalgic trip through the history of paperback pre-teen series of the ’80s and ’90s

    Every twenty- or thirty-something woman knows these books. The pink covers, the flimsy paper, the zillion volumes in the series that kept you reading for your entire adolescence. Spurred by the commercial success of Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club, these were not the serious-issue YA novels of the 1970s, nor were they the blockbuster books of the Harry Potter and Twilight ilk. They were cheap, s’hort, and utterly beloved.

    Paperback Crush dives in deep to this golden age with affection, history, and a little bit of snark. Listeners will discover (and fondly remember) girl-centric series on everything from correspondence (Pen Pals and Dear Diary) to sports (The Pink Parrots, Cheerleaders, and The Gymnasts) to a newspaper at an all-girls Orthodox Jewish middle school (The B.Y. Times) to a literal teen angel (Teen Angels: Heaven Can Wait, where an enterprising guardian angel named Cisco has to earn her wings “by helping the world’s sexist rock star”). Some were blatant ripoffs of the successful series (looking at you, Sleepover Friends and The Girls of Canby Hall), some were sick-lit tearjerkers à la Love Story (Abby, My Love), and some were just plain perplexing (Uncle Vampire?) But all of them represent that time gone by of girl-power and endless sessions of sustained silent reading.

    In six hilarious chapters (Friends, Love, School, Family, Jobs, Terror, and Danger), Bustle Features Editor Gabrielle Moss takes the listener on a nostalgic tour of teen book covers of yore, digging deep into the history of the genre as well as the stories behind the best-known series.

  • How do you stage a mutiny when you’re only awake one day in a million? How do you conspire when your tiny handful of potential allies changes with each job shift? How do you engage an enemy that never sleeps, that sees through your eyes and hears through your ears, and relentlessly, honestly, only wants what’s best for you? Trapped aboard the starship Eriophora, Sunday Ahzmundin is about to discover the components of any successful revolution: conspiracy, code―and unavoidable casualties.

  • In The Bone Witch, Tea mastered resurrection―now she’s after revenge.

    No one knows death like Tea. A bone witch who can resurrect the dead, she has the power to take life … and return it. And she is done with her self-imposed exile. Her heart is set on vengeance, and she now possesses all she needs to command the mighty daeva. With the help of these terrifying beasts, she can finally enact revenge against the royals who wronged her―and took the life of her one true love.

    But there are those who plot against her, those who would use Tea’s dark power for their own nefarious ends. Because you can’t kill someone who can never die …

    War is brewing among the kingdoms, and when dark magic is at play, no one is safe.

  • From the award-winning author of For Today I Am a Boy, a gripping and deeply felt novel about a group of young girls at a remote camp—and the night that changes everything and will shape their lives for decades to come

    A group of young girls descends on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and camp songs by the fire. Filled with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home.

    The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore traces these five girls—Nita, Andee, Isabel, Dina, and Siobhan—through and beyond this fateful trip. We see them through successes and failures, loving relationships and heartbreaks; we see what it means to find, and define, oneself, and the ways in which the same experience is refracted through different people. In diamond-sharp prose, Kim Fu gives us a portrait of friendship and of the families we build for ourselves—and the pasts we can’t escape.

  • From the award-winning author of For Today I Am a Boy, a gripping and deeply felt novel about a group of young girls at a remote camp—and the night that changes everything and will shape their lives for decades to come.

    A group of young girls descend on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and camp songs by the fire. Filled with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home.

    The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore traces these five girls—Nita, Andee, Isabel, Dina, and Siobhan—through and beyond this fateful trip. We see them through successes and failures, loving relationships and heartbreaks; we see what it means to find, and define, oneself, and the ways in which the same experience is refracted through different people. In diamond-sharp prose, Kim Fu gives us a portrait of friendship and of the families we build for ourselves—and the pasts we can’t escape.

  • The true confessions of an eating disorders survivor

    This confessional self-help guide explores the complex emotional truth of what it’s like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. Activist author Marissa LaRocca’s revelatory tale includes her struggle with her secrets, including sexuality, and how she emerged as an outspoken advocate for gay rights and women’s health issues.

    Many young women and girls struggle with the body image issues that engender eating disorders with elaborate rituals around food, binging, purging, and hiding it all while trying to maintain a face of normalcy to the world. Anorexia and bulimia have become major national health crises with skyrocketing statistics indicating that between three and five percent of the population suffer anorexia nervosa alone. Sadly, many never attain the sense of being “normal” and deal with a lifetime of body image and self-esteem issues.

    This intimate account of courage and the search for truth and meaning will have you rooting for Marissa LaRocca as she unravels the emotional layers of her own battle with food, body image, and sexuality. Readers of this riveting memoir, Starving in Search of Me, will relate to the coming-of-age story of a young woman confronting some of life’s major issues while living, for a time, in two closets: one to hide her eating disorder and one to hide her sexuality and very identity. Echoes of Portia de Rossi’s Unbearable Lightness resound in LaRocca’s portrait of a life seemingly lived out in the open but, in truth, very much concealed. Through her inspiring triumphs and revelations, activist and author Marissa LaRocca invites readers to confront themselves. She asks, “What if, at the root of all ‘disorders,’ is the refusal to acknowledge or permit certain feelings―feelings that, if witnessed, have the power to free their sufferers? To what extent are ‘disorders’ actually doorways to helping us understand the truth about our lives?”

    In addition to her personal story, LaRocca takes a close look at society’s role in the development of eating disorders and other mental health challenges, establishing that the prevalence of such “illnesses” represent a collective yearning for connection, acceptance, and emotional nourishment amongst generations that are starving for so many things. Starving in Search of Me resolves with hope and an abundance of insights, tools, and resources to support eating disorder sufferers and members of the LGBTQ community alike. It’s a head-on journey toward total self-acceptance that will nourish the spirit and inspire readers to embrace their differences and nurture their authentic selves.

    What You’ll Learn Inside This Book:

    • Identify the root causes, symptoms, and triggers associated with an eating disorder
    • Acknowledge the “life issues” that are being masked by “food issues” or another addiction
    • Disempower compulsive behaviors like binging, purging, and obsessing about calories and exercise
    • Heal your relationship with food through healing your relationship with yourself
    • Escape the victim role, become empowered, and take responsibility for your own happiness
    • Connect with your life’s purpose and authentic self, transforming your weaknesses into strengths
    • Free your mind through tuning in to the body and witnessing emotions
    • Improve your body image and self-esteem by aligning your lifestyle with your true values, desires, and what is realistic
    • Effectively communicate your needs with confidence
    • Establish guilt-free lifestyle boundaries to reduce anxiety and maximize vitality
    • Enhance peace of mind by developing a reliable support system
    • Eliminate the need to be perfect by practicing forgiveness and compassion toward yourself
  • A darkly irresistible new fantasy set in the infamous Gomorrah Festival, a traveling carnival of debauchery that caters to the strangest of dreams and desires

    Sixteen-year-old Sorina has spent most of her life within the smoldering borders of the Gomorrah Festival. Yet even among the many unusual members of the traveling circus-city, Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel, and touch, with personalities all their own. Her creations are her family, and together they make up the cast of the festival’s freak show.

    But no matter how lifelike they may seem, her illusions are still just that—illusions, and not truly real. Or so she has always believed … until one of them is murdered.

    Desperate to protect her family, Sorina must track down the culprit and determine how they killed a person who doesn’t actually exist. Her search for answers leads her to the self-proclaimed gossip-worker Luca. Their investigation sends them through a haze of political turmoil and forbidden romance, and into the most sinister corners of the festival. But as the killer continues murdering Sorina’s illusions one by one, she must unravel the horrifying truth before all her loved ones disappear.

  • Bill Pronzini is crime-writing royalty. His more than eighty published novels have won or been nominated for Edgar, Hammett, Anthony, Shamus, and Macavity awards—a clean sweep of the crime fiction award field—and received rave reviews from critics. He crafts masterful stories, often from multiple perspectives, in which the human condition is on full display. The Violated is no exception.

    In Echo Park, in the small town of Santa Rita, California, the mutilated body of Martin Torrey is found by two passersby. A registered sex offender, Torrey has been a suspect in a string of recent rapes, and instant suspicion for his murder falls on the relatives and friends of the women attacked. Police chief Griffin Kells and detective Robert Ortiz are under increasing pressure from the public and from a mayor demanding results in a case that has no easy solution.

    Pronzini cleverly unfolds the case through alternating perspectives—Martin Torrey’s wife, caught between her grief and the fear her husband was guilty; the outraged husbands of the women violated; the enterprising editor of the local paper; the mayor concerned most with his own ratings; the detectives, often spinning in circles—until a surprising break leads to a completely unexpected conclusion. The Violated is Bill Pronzini at the height of his storytelling powers.

  • In the captivating start to a new, darkly lyrical fantasy series, Tea can raise the dead, but resurrection comes at a price.

    When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she’s a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.

    In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha—one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles and make a powerful choice.

  • The tight-knit residents of Blue Moon Mountain, nestled high in the Colorado Mountains, form an interconnected community of those living off the land, stunned by the beauty and isolation all around them. So when, at the onset of winter, the town veterinarian commits a violent act, the repercussions of that tragedy will be felt all across the mountainside, upending their lives and causing their paths to twist and collide in unexpected ways.

    The housecleaner rediscovering her sexual appetite, the farrier who must take in his traumatized niece, the grocer and her daughter, the therapist and the teacher, reaching out to the world in new and surprising ways, and the ragged couple trapped in a cycle of addiction and violence. They will all rise and converge upon the blue hour—the l’heure bleu—the hour of twilight, a time of desire, lust, honesty. The strong, spirited people of Blue Moon Mountain must learn to navigate the line between violence and sex, tenderness and the hard edge of yearning, and the often confusing paths of mourning and lust.

    Writing with passion for rural lives and the natural world, Laura Pritchett, who has been called “one of the most accomplished writers of the American West,” graces the land of desire in vivid prose, exploring the lengths these moving, deeply felt characters—some of whom we’ve met in Pritchett’s previous work—will traverse to protect their own.

  • Rookie cop Laura Mori catches her first investigation when the fiery crash of a sports car lights up the night sky. The fire burns the car and the body within it beyond recognition, but the police are able to identify the vehicle as belonging to Kent Jameson, a celebrity author and benefactor of their small town of Sunrise Lake, Oregon. Kent Jameson fears that the body is that of his seventeen-year-old daughter Lucy, who stormed out of the house that night after an argument.

    The investigation takes a drastic turn, however, when the lab reports reveal that the body was not Lucy but a runaway teenager named Kyra, whose disappearance has been linked with other missing persons—more than half a dozen “lost girls” who disappeared while living on the streets of Portland. But how did Kyra come to land at the Jameson estate in rural Oregon? What was she doing driving their car? And who cut the brake lines on the vehicle?

    Just when Mori is making progress in the case, she comes across a suspicious lane in the forest that leads her to new evidence that will once again alter the course of the investigation and rock Sunrise Lake to its core.

    R. J. Noonan’s electrifying mystery will resonate with fans of Lisa Gardner and Lisa Jackson.

  • Now available for the first time with two additional stories!

    Have you ever wondered what it's like to be bitten by a zombie or live through a bioweapon attack? In Cory Doctorow's collection of novellas, he wields his formidable experience in technology and computing to give us mind-bending sci-fi tales that explore the possibilities of information technology—and its various uses—run amok.

    "Anda's Game" is a spin on the bizarre new phenomenon of "cyber sweatshops," in which people are paid very low wages to play online games all day in order to generate in-game wealth, which can be converted into actual money. Another tale tells of the heroic exploits of "sysadmins"—systems administrators—as they defend the cyberworld, and hence the world at large, from worms and bioweapons. And yes, there is a story about zombies too. Plus, for the first time, this collection includes "Petard" and "The Man Who Sold the Moon."

  • Bailey Chen is fresh out of college with all the usual new-adult demons: no cash, no job offers, and an awkward relationship with Zane, the old friend she kinda-sorta hooked up with during high school.

    But when Zane introduces Bailey to his monster-fighting bartender friends, her demons become a lot more literal. It turns out evil creatures stalk the city streets after hours, and they can only be hunted with the help of magically mixed cocktails: vodka grants super strength, whiskey offers the power of telekinesis, and tequila lets its drinker fire blasts of elemental energy. But will all of these powers be enough for Bailey to halt a mysterious rash of gruesome deaths? And what will she do when the safety of a “real world” job beckons?

    This sharp and funny urban fantasy is perfect for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and grown-up readers of Harry Potter. Includes fifteen recipes from a book of ancient cocktail lore.

  • A heartwarming story of friendship and demonic possession

    The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since the fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act … different. She’s moody. She’s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby.

    Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries—and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

    Like an unholy hybrid of Beaches and The Exorcist, My Best Friend’s Exorcism blends teen angst, adolescent drama, unspeakable horrors, and a mix of 80s pop songs into a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller.

  • An encouraging collection of short stories by bestselling middle-grade authors.

    This one-of-a-kind treasury brings together the talents of nearly two dozen bestselling middle-grade authors including Shannon Hale, Brandon Mull, Ally Condie, and Jennifer A. Nielsen—who have created original short stories and modern-day fairy tales, based on the lives and dreams of children they have met who all have two things in common: they have very big hopes and dreams, and they are all cancer patients.

  • A contemporary gothic from an author in the company of Kelly Link and Aimee Bender, Mr. Splitfoot tracks two women in two times as they march toward a mysterious reckoning.

    Ruth and Nat are orphans, packed into a house full of abandoned children run by a religious fanatic. To entertain their siblings, they channel the dead. Decades later, Ruth’s niece Cora finds herself accidentally pregnant. After years of absence, Aunt Ruth appears, mute and full of intention. She is on a mysterious mission, leading Cora on an odyssey across the entire state of New York on foot. Where is Ruth taking them? Where has she been? And who—or what—has she hidden in the woods at the end of the road?

    In an ingeniously structured dual narrative, two separate timelines move toward the same point of crisis. Their merging will upend and reinvent the whole. A subversive ghost story that is carefully plotted and elegantly constructed, Mr. Splitfoot will set your heart racing and your brain churning. Mysteries abound, criminals roam free, utopian communities show their age, and the mundane world intrudes on the supernatural—and vice versa.

  • At once intimate and sweeping, Bottomland—the anticipated second novel from Michelle Hoover—follows the Hess family in the years after World War I as they attempt to rid themselves of the anti-German sentiment that left a stain on their name. But when the youngest two daughters vanish in the middle of the night, the family must piece together what happened while struggling to maintain their life on the unforgiving Iowa plains.

    In the weeks after Esther and Myrle’s disappearance, their siblings desperately search for the sisters, combing the stark farmlands, their neighbors’ houses, and the unfamiliar world of far-off Chicago. Have the girls run away to another farm? Have they gone to the city to seek a new life? Or were they abducted? Ostracized, misunderstood, and increasingly isolated in their tightly knit small town in the wake of the war, the Hesses fear the worst. Told in the voices of the family patriarch and his children, this is a haunting literary mystery that spans decades before its resolution. Hoover deftly examines the intrepid ways a person can forge a life of their own despite the dangerous obstacles of prejudice and oppression.

  • A collection of five time-spanning, interconnected novellas that weave a subtle science-fictional web that stretches from the present into the future as our world collides with a mysterious alternate universe.

    Each of these stories presents a teen trying to find his or her way in unusual circumstances. Five teens, five futures.

    Dylan develops a sixth sense that allows him to glimpse another world.

    Ten years from now, Brixney must get more hits on her social media feed or risk being stuck in a debtors’ colony.

    Thirty years from now, Epony scrubs her entire online profile from the web and goes “high-concept.”

    Sixty years from now, Reef struggles to survive in a city turned into a virtual game board.

    And more than one hundred years from now, Quinn uncovers the alarming secret that links them all.

    Going beyond the usual boundaries of YA fiction, this will appeal to fans of authors—like Marcus Sedgwick, Patrick Ness, Kelly Link, M. T. Anderson, and David Mitchell—who wonder about the future and what the future will bring.

  • From British Fantasy Award nominee Molly Tanzer comes her debut novel, Vermilion, a spirited weird Western adventure that puts the punk back into steampunk.

    Gunslinging, chain-smoking, and Stetson-wearing Taoist psychopomp, Elouise “Lou” Merriwether might not be a normal nineteen year old, but she’s too busy keeping San Francisco safe from ghosts, shades, and geung si to care much about that. It’s an important job, though most folks consider it downright spooky. Some have even accused Lou of being more comfortable with the dead than the living, and, well … they’re not wrong.

    When Lou hears that a bunch of Chinatown boys have gone missing somewhere deep in the Colorado Rockies, she decides to saddle up and head into the wilderness to investigate. Lou fears her particular talents make her better suited to help placate their spirits than ensure they get home alive, but it’s the right thing to do, and she’s the only one willing to do it. On the road to a mysterious sanatorium known as the Fountain of Youth, Lou will encounter bears, desperate men, a very undead villain, and even stranger challenges. She will need every one of her talents and a whole lot of luck to make it home alive.

  • In the heart-pounding sequel to the "zippy, gripping psychological drama" (Kirkus Reviews) Killer Instinct, teen vigilante Lane must face the secrets and unexpected consequences that arise in the wake of her first kill.

    It's been three months since Lane made her first kill—the sadistic Decapitator—and now she feels both closer and more alienated than ever from her united, grieving family. Haunted by conflicting memories of her mother, Lane resumes her role as the vigilante Masked Savior out of a feeling of obligation—but her heart just isn't in it anymore. Now that Lane has felt the rush of deeper, darker thrills, a growing part of her wants to revisit its seductive power, and she's not sure how long she can resist.

    Meanwhile, the Masked Savior has inspired its own fan site, where groupies gather online to praise, document, and debate each delivered act of justice. But one of Lane's secret admirers is becoming a cunning copycat, exacting "justice" on defenseless innocents, increasing the violence with each attack.

    Someone is watching Lane, edging closer to making contact—someone who knows her darkest secrets. Will Lane be able to stop the copycat and keep her identity protected, or will she give in to the thrills that tempt her?

  • Have you ever wondered what it's like to live through a bioweapon attack or to have every aspect of your life governed by invisible ants? In Cory Doctorow's collection of novellas, he wields his formidable experience in technology and computing to give us mind-bending sci-fi tales that explore the possibilities of information technology—and its various uses—run amok.

    "Anda's Game" is a spin on the bizarre new phenomenon of "cyber sweatshops," in which people are paid very low wages to play online games all day in order to generate in-game wealth, which can be converted into actual money. Another tale tells of the heroic exploits of "sysadmins"—systems administrators—as they defend the cyberworld, and hence the world at large, from worms and bioweapons. And yes, there is a story about zombies too.

  • Third Sister in the Tao family, Ailin has watched her two older sisters go through the painful process of having their feet bound. In China in 1911, all the women of good families follow this ancient tradition. But Ailin loves to run away from her governess and play games with her male cousins. Knowing she will never run again once her feet are bound, Ailin rebels and refuses to follow this torturous tradition. As a result, however, the family of her intended husband breaks their marriage agreement. And as she enters adolescence, Ailin finds that her family is no longer willing to support her. Chinese society leaves few options for a single woman of good family, but with a bold conviction and an indomitable spirit, Ailin is determined to forge her own destiny. Her story is a tribute to all those women whose courage created new options for the generations who came after them.

  • The poignant story of a Japanese American woman's journey through one of the most shameful chapters in American history.

    Sipping tea by the fire, preparing sushi for the family, or indulgently listening to her husband tell the same story for the hundredth time, Kimi Grant's grandmother, Obaachan, was a missing link to Kimi's Japanese heritage, something she had had a mixed relationship with all her life. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, all Kimi ever wanted to do was fit in, spurning traditional Japanese cuisine and her grandfather's attempts to teach her the language.

    But there was one part of Obaachan's life that had fascinated and haunted Kimi ever since the age of eleven—her gentle yet proud Obaachan had once been a prisoner, along with 112,000 Japanese Americans, for more than five years of her life. Obaachan never spoke of those years, and Kimi's own mother only spoke of it in whispers. It was a source of haji, or shame. But what had really happened to Obaachan, then a young woman, and the thousands of other men, women, and children like her?

    Obaachan would meet her husband in the camps and watch her mother die there, too. From the turmoil, racism, and paranoia that sprang up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the terrifying train ride to Heart Mountain, to the false promise of V-J Day, Silver Like Dust captures a vital chapter of the Japanese American experience through the journey of one remarkable woman.

    Her story is one of thousands, yet it is a powerful testament to the enduring bonds of family and an unusual look at the American dream.