Showing results by narrator "Andre Santana" in All Categories

As she begins 6th grade, Lauren Lightfoot wants nothing more than to get her first pair of pointe shoes, enjoy her love for ballet, and spend time with her friends. Lauren and her friends Bryan and Serena are challenged to define themselves both on stage and in the world when they audition for the Pacific Northwest Ballet School and compete for roles in the spring recital.

Growing up , TJ was Cam's boy next door. When Cam needed a home, TJ's parents—Mae and Jin—took him in. Their family bakery became Cam's safe place. Until he left, and it wasn't anymore. Years later, Cam's world is falling apart. The love of his life, Kai, is gone: but his ghost keeps haunting Cam, and won't let go. And Cam's not sure he wants to let go, not sure he's ready. When he has a chance to return to his home town, to work in a gay bar clinging on in a changing city landscape, he takes it.

Nate Hargraves—stage-shy singer-songwriter—is totally stoked for his cousin's wedding in South Africa, an all-expenses-paid trip of a lifetime. Until he finds out his sleaze-ball ex-boyfriend is also on the guest list. Jai Patel—hot-as-hell high school rock-god—has troubles, too. His band's lead singer has quit, just weeks before the gig that was meant to be their big break. When Nate saves the day by agreeing to sing with Jai's band, Jai volunteers to be Nate's plus-one to the wedding, and the stage is set for a summer of music, self-discovery and simmering romantic tension.

Despite the heavy gold bounty on his head, Joey's on the war path to greatness and rising like a star. He has millions of livestream viewers watching him solo an entire dungeon during an apocalypse where the multiverse system integrates whole universes and initiates countless humans to its game-like realms of limitless magic.

It’s about time roommates Alejandro and Kenny get married. Or at least, that’s what all their close friends and family think when they announce their engagement. The kicker? The two are faking their whole relationship so Alejandro can get a green card. But if Han was going to marry anyone, it would be his ride or die since second grade. Han has never been able to put down roots, and the only one who truly breaks through his walls is Kenny.

Joey Eclipse is the #1 beginner with a list of achievements that's hard to believe. All while in an apocalypse where the multiverse integrates whole universes and initiates countless humans to its game-like realms of limitless magic. Here's the problem. He's way too overpowered to stay in a lesser realm. And he keeps refusing his first ascension to accomplish his remaining goals. Too bad Joey's refusal to ascend dooms the lesser realm to suffer attacks from buffed-up monsters. Like the epic dread whale, a highly evil boss that's two realms of power greater than Joey Eclipse.

An artist, a cop, a cowboy, several fly fishermen and even a reluctant romance novelist inhabit these revealing and often hilarious stories. An old man ends up in a high-speed chase with the cops after stealing the car that blocks the garbage bin at his apartment building. A stranger gets a job at a sandwich shop and fixes everything in sight: a manual mustard dispenser, a mouthful of crooked teeth, thirty-two parking tickets and a sexual identity problem.

Joey Eclipse has returned to his beginner challenge area after winning a solo dungeon crawl. He's the first Dungeon Master of his entire realm and can instantly swap out enchanted weapons from his dungeon inventory dimension. This is during an apocalypse where the multiverse integrates whole universes and initiates countless humans to its game-like realms of limitless magic. And while Joey is still a small part of the system, his shadow, necromancy, dragon magic, and cultivation of fate are way too overpowered for the average beginner to face.

Joey's new apocalypse life, integrated and initialized by the system of Multiverse Z, turned him into a Great Adventurer. He gained a quest to help a war princess defeat an epic boss monster, and he's going to need the best adventurers around to build a raiding army and secure some sweet, sweet achievements.

Shadow work—the process of exploring your pain, trauma, and imperfections—is a powerful tool to help you embrace and accept yourself, even the parts that are difficult. Shadow Work gives you everything you need to get started with a clear explanation of what shadow work is, how it works, and how it helps you, as well as guided meditations and affirmations to walk you through your own shadow work. Written by licensed therapist Jor-El Caraballo, this book is the perfect companion for your self-exploration journey.

In 2018, novelist Jami Attenberg, faced with a looming deadline, needed writing inspiration. Using a bootcamp model, she and a friend set out to write one thousand words daily for two weeks straight. They opened this practice to Attenberg’s online community and soon hundreds then thousands of people started using the #1000WordsofSummer hashtag to track their work and support one another. What began as a simple challenge between two friends has become a literary movement—write 1,000 words per day without judgement, or bias, or concerns about writer’s block, and see what comes of it.

Killer clowns, a hungry hedge maze, and rich kids who got bored. Friendly cannibals, impossible slashers, and the dead who don’t stay dead…. A museum curator who despises “diasporic inaccuracies.” A sweet girl and her diary of happy thoughts. An old house that just wants friends forever…. These stories are filled with ancient terrors and modern villains, but go ahead, go into the basement, step onto the old plantation, and open the magician’s mystery box because this time, the white guy dies first.

A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

Jack Nevin’s clever trickery and moral flexibility make him the perfect assistant to the Enchantress, one of the most well-known stage magicians in turn-of-the-19th-century Europe. Without Jack’s steady supply of stolen tricks, the Enchantress’ fame would have burned out long ago. But when Jack’s thievery catches up to them, they’re forced to flee to America to find their fortune. Luckily, the Enchantress is able to arrange a set of sold-out shows at Seattle’s Alaska - Yukon - Pacific World’s Fair Exposition.

In these tense, macabre stories, bodies fall from the sky, perfect nails conceal grisly secrets and violence pulses behind gleaming façades. From hellish visions to obsessive relationships, acclaimed author Agustina Bazterrica takes us to the dark heart of human desires and fears. Shocking, brutal, yet glinting with sharp humour, "Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird" is a breathtaking dive into human monstrousness from a master of contemporary horror.

After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town’s idyllic community.

Hunter never expected to be a boy band star, but, well, here he is. He and his band Kiss & Tell are on their first major tour of North America, playing arenas all over the United States and Canada (and getting covered by the gossipy press all over North America as well). Hunter is the only gay member of the band, and he just had a very painful breakup with his first boyfriend—leaked sexts, public heartbreak, and all—and now everyone expects him to play the perfect queer role model for teens.

I was mostly a Good Dog until they sold me out to animal control, okay? But if it’s a choice between Oz, with its creepy little singing dudes, and being behind bars in gray old Kansas, I’ll choose the place where animals talk and run the show for now, thanks. It’s not my fault that the kid is stuck here too, or that she stumbled into a tug-of-war over a pair of slippers that don’t even taste good. Now one witch in good eyeliner calls her pretty and we’re off on a quest? Teenagers.

Banneker Homes is a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone's mind. There is Swan in apartment 6B, whose excitement about his friend's release from prison jeopardises the life he's been trying to lead. Mimi, in apartment 14D, who hustles to raise the child she had with Swan, waitressing at Roscoe's and doing hair on the side. And Quanneisha B. Miles, a former gymnast with a good education who wishes she could leave Banneker for good, but can't seem to escape the building's gravitational pull.

“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.