Fiction
Boys of Blur
N. D. Wilson
Fans of Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee and Louis Sachar's Holes will enjoy this story about a boy and the ancient secrets that hide deep in the heart of the Florida everglades near a place called Muck City.When Charlie moves to the small town of Taper, Florida, he discovers a different world. Pinned between the everglades and the swampy banks of Lake Okeechobee, the small town produces sugar cane . . . and the fastest runners in the country. Kids chase muck rabbits in the fields while the cane is being burned and harvested. Dodging flames and blades and breathing smoke, they run down the rabbits for three dollars a skin. And when they can do that, running a football is easy. But there are things in the swamp, roaming the cane at night, that cannot be explained, and they seem connected to sprawling mounds older than the swamps. Together with his step-second cousin "Cotton" Mack, the fastest boy on the muck, Charlie hunts secrets in the glades and on the muck flats where the cane grows secrets as old as the soft earth, secrets that haunted, tripped, and trapped the original native tribes, ensnared conquistadors, and buried runaway slaves. Secrets only the muck knows.
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Cold Calls
Charles Benoit
Three high school students—Eric, Shelly, and Fatima—have one thing in common: “I know your secret.” Each one is blackmailed into bullying specifically targeted schoolmates by a mysterious caller who whispers from their cell phones and holds carefully guarded secrets over their heads. But how could anyone have obtained that photo, read those hidden pages, uncovered this buried past? Thrown together, the three teens join forces to find the stranger who threatens them—before time runs out and their shattering secrets are revealed . . .This suspenseful, pitch-perfect mystery-thriller raises timely questions about privacy, bullying, and culpability.
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The Almost Truth
From the author of Unraveling Isobel and The Education of Hailey Kendrick, a smart, romantic novel about a teenage con artist who might be in over her head.Sadie can’t wait to get away from her backwards small town, her delusional mom, her jailbird dad, and the tiny trailer where she was raised…even though leaving those things behind also means leaving her best friend Brendan. Sadie wants a better life, and she has been working steadily toward it, one con at a time. But when Sadie’s mother wipes out Sadie’s savings, her escape plan is suddenly gone. She needs to come up with a lot of cash—and fast—or she’ll be stuck in this town forever. With Brendan’s help, she devises a plan—the ultimate con—to get the money. But the more lies Sadie spins, the more she starts falling for her own hoax…and perhaps for the wrong boy. Sadie wanted to change her life, but she wasn't prepared to have it flipped upside down by her own deception. With her future at stake and her heart on the line, suddenly it seems like she has a lot more than just money to lose...
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The Stepsister's Tale
Tracy Barrett
What really happened after the clock struck midnight? Jane Montjoy is tired of being a lady. She's tired of pretending to live up to the standards of her mother's noble family—especially now that the family's wealth is gone and their stately mansion has fallen to ruin. It's hard enough that she must tend to the animals and find a way to feed her mother and her little sister each day. Jane's burden only gets worse after her mother returns from a trip to town with a new stepfather and stepsister in tow. Despite the family's struggle to prepare for the long winter ahead, Jane's stepfather remains determined to give his beautiful but spoiled child her every desire. When her stepfather suddenly dies, leaving nothing but debts and a bereaved daughter behind, it seems to Jane that her family is destined for eternal unhappiness. But a mysterious boy from the woods and an invitation to a royal ball are certain to change her fate…. From the handsome prince to the evil stepsister, nothing is quite as it seems in Tracy Barrett's stunning retelling of the classic Cinderella tale.
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Close
Single-mom Kik Marcheson is doing the best she can. But effort doesn't seem to count for much in the parenting department.Her oldest daughter, Doone, is swimming in the deep end of adolescence. Casey, the middle-child slash good-girl is fraying along the edges and Tess, a quirky kindergartner, has installed an imaginary playmate in the family abode.When Doone falls in with the wrong crowd, a TV therapist offers to help. And things do start to look up. But only for a while.
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Burn Out
A futuristic blend of Beth Revis's Across the Universe and Lenore Appelhans's Level 2, Burn Out will satisfy the growing desire for science fiction with a thrilling story of survival, intrigue, and adventure. Most people want to save the world; seventeen-year-old Tora Reynolds just wants to get the hell off of it. One of the last survivors in Earth's final years, Tora yearns to escape the wasteland her planet has become after the sun turns "red giant," but discovers her fellow survivors are even deadlier than the hostile environment.
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A Christmas Carol
• This e-book publication is unique which includes exclusive Introduction, Historical Background and handcrafted additional content. • This edition also includes detailed Biography, Notes, Criticisms and Interpretations. • A new table of contents with working links has been included by a publisher. • This edition has been corrected for spelling and grammatical errors.
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1984
Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...•Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read•“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...A startling and haunting vision of the world, 1984 is so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the influence of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.
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The Twelfth of Never
Presley may be smart, but she buckles under pressure – or more specifically, she alphabetizes. In stressful moments her mind grabs words and compulsively sorts the letters, like a frightened guard dog chasing its tail. So it’s no surprise when signs from the universe constantly warn her: stay out of the spotlight. That’s hard to do when her Elvis-loving mom, the school secretary, plays embarrassing snippets of The King’s hits on the PA every day. It’s even harder when the school’s biggest goofball nominates Presley for president and her campaign speech turns disastrous. Her greatest refuge from the drama is her adorable nephew. But Luke’s mom – Presley’s teenage sister – has a secret that threatens to tear the boy from the family forever, unless Presley can stop it.Maybe the universe is out to get her. Or perhaps it’s whispering a new message: Stay cool. Step into the spotlight. Summon your inner Elvis.
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Everyone Dies in the End
At seventeen, Sherman Andrews has been accepted in the Missouri Scholars' Academy. Sherman has had a ten-year plan since he was eight, and he is determined to become an award-winning investigative journalist. He is going places, unlike his low-brow plumber father or his absent mother. While researching his first project, a chance discovery of a mysterious photograph of four men, dated 1935, leads to Sherman uncovering records of deaths, disappearances, and cover-ups on an almost unbelievable scale. Too late, Sherman realizes the organization responsible is still around, and they're prepared to take drastic measures to keep him quiet. Sherman must decide if he wants to flee for his life, or risk everything to become the reporter he's always wanted to be. There are only two people he can trust to help him. One is Charlie, the cute, chubby student librarian at the historical society. The other is Denton, who claims that the organization is led by a shadowy man who died in 1966...and 1935...and 1864. The fact that Denton has been forcibly committed to a mental hospital is just an unfortunate misunderstanding. Something evil is about to reappear. And Sherman, with his Dictaphone, his ironed socks, and his ten-page resume, may be the only one who can prevent a tragedy. Interspersed with flashbacks to the original 1935 adventurers, Everyone Dies is a lighthearted coming of age story about love, growing up, and what it's like to be buried alive.
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