Difficult Adult Children

As if her parents' divorce and sister's departure for college weren't bad enough, 14-year-old Ricky Bloom has just been diagnosed with a life-changing chronic illness. Her days consist of cursing everyone out, skipping school - which has become a nightmare - daydreaming about her crush, Julio, and trying to keep her parents from realizing just how bad things are. But she can't keep her ruse up forever.

In this sequel to The Becoming of Noah Shaw, the companion series to the New York Times best-selling Mara Dyer novels, legacies are revealed, lies are unraveled, and old alliances are forged.

Everything changes when Joey meets Dr. Charles Mansell and his baby chimpanzee, Sukari. Her new friends use sign language to communicate, and Joey secretly begins learning to sign. Spending time with Charlie and Sukari, Joey has never been happier. She even starts making friends at school for the first time. But as Joey’s world blooms with possibilities, Charlie and Sukari’s choices begin to narrow—until Sukari’s very survival is in doubt.

When high school senior Jonas moves to Seattle, he is glad to meet Levi, a nice, soft-spoken guy and fellow basketball player. Suspense builds like a slow drumbeat as listeners start to smell a rat in Ryan Hartwell, a charismatic basketball coach and sexual predator. When Levi reluctantly tells Jonas that Hartwell abused him, Jonas has to decide whether he should risk his future career to report the coach.

A new town, a new school, a new start. That's what 14-year-old Gray Wilton believes as he chants, "It's gonna be better, gonna be better here." But it doesn't take long for Gray to realize that nothing's going to change--there are bullies in every school, and he's always their punching bag. Gray feels trapped in a world where he has no control and no way out--until the day he enters the halls with his father's semiautomatic in hand.

A teacher is supposed to impart a love of learning and a thirst for knowledge. It’s a bit different with Ms. Lori Settles. All the kids are talking about how hot she is - and she is especially interested in Ryan Piccoli. When she starts giving Ryan extra attention, he’s feeling more than happy - at first. He’s used to being the class clown, but really he’s a loner.

Willa is lucky: She has a loving blended family that gets along. Not all families are so fortunate. But when a bloody crime takes place hundreds of miles away, it has an explosive effect on Willa's peaceful life. The estranged father she hardly remembers has murdered his new wife and children, and is headed east toward Willa and her mother. Under police protection, Willa discovers that her mother has harbored secrets that are threatening to boil over. Has everything Willa believed about herself been a lie?

A science-class field trip to the Everglades is supposed to be fun, but Sarah's new at Glades Academy, and her fellow freshmen aren't exactly making her feel welcome. When an opportunity for an unauthorized side trip on an airboat presents itself, it seems like a perfect escape - an afternoon without feeling like a sore thumb. But one simple oversight turns a joyride into a race for survival across the river of grass. Sarah will have to count on her instincts - and a guy she barely knows - if they have any hope of making it back alive.

Voices stars the people of Ansul, a town of scholars and traders conquered by the marauding Alds 17 years ago. When poet Orrec arrives in town, however, the people begin to garner the courage to rebel against their overlords.

There are stories where the girl gets her prince, and they live happily ever after. (This is not one of those stories.) Jenna Lord's first 16 years were not exactly a fairy tale. Her father is a controlling psycho and her mother is a drunk. She used to count on her older brother - until he shipped off to Iraq. And then, of course, there was the time she almost died in a fire.

Fifteen-year-old Amari witnesses the murder of her family and the destruction of her remote African village. She endures countless humiliations as she is beaten, branded, and forced to board a slave ship. The atrocities continue as she struggles through endless days of backbreaking work and daily degradation on a plantation.

It was supposed to be a Friday night like any other for Lana and her best friends. Three girls out to cause a little trouble. Break a few hearts. And try not to get caught. Except on this night, Lana Peri is the sole witness to a horrific crime, and she can’t say a word. Not if she wants to protect her friends. No one will believe her word over his, so he gets away with it. And she’s forced to pay for her silence. Instead of serving time in juvie, Lana is sentenced to a boarding school for privileged teens, Blackwood School in Vermont....

Jeremy Fink has big plans for this summer with his best friend Lizzy, a notorious troublemaker (and no, he does not have a secret crush on her). He has everything he needs within a few blocks of his home, so he never has to leave his little neighborhood. And this summer, he officially becomes a teenager.

When her father is murdered and the police obtain an e-mail confession that implicates her, Alice Robie realizes she will have to flee and prove her innocence.

Rosalinda Fitzroy has been asleep for 62 years when she is woken by a kiss. Locked away in the chemically induced slumber of a stasis tube in a forgotten subbasement, 16-year-old Rose slept straight through the Dark Times that killed millions and utterly changed the world she knew. Now her parents and her first love are long dead, and Rose -  hailed upon her awakening as the long-lost heir to an interplanetary empire - is thrust alone into a future in which she is viewed as either a freak or a threat. Rose must face the ghosts of her past with open eyes....

Bo Dickinson is a girl with a wild reputation, a deadbeat dad, and a mama who's not exactly sober most of the time. Everyone in town knows the Dickinsons are a bad lot, but Bo doesn't care what anyone thinks. Agnes Atwood has never gone on a date, never even stayed out past 10, and never broken any of her parents' overbearing rules. Rules that are meant to protect their legally blind daughter - protect her from what, Agnes isn't quite sure.

"Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your ass." That’s what some girl tells Piddy Sanchez one morning before school. Too bad Piddy doesn’t even know who Yaqui Delgado is, let alone what she’s done to piss her off. All Piddy knows is that Yaqui hates her - and she better watch her back because Yaqui isn’t kidding. At first Piddy just focuses on trying to find out more about the father she’s never met and how to balance honors courses with her job at the neighborhood hair salon. But as the harassment escalates, avoiding Yaqui starts to take over Piddy’s life.

Matt and Mike are best friends, just two working-class guys trying to earn some money in Montauk for the summer. When they meet Driana, JoJo, and Stef, three friends who live much different lives of privilege, Matt and Mike find themselves in a sticky situation where temptation rivals sensibility. Worlds collide when the group ventures out to sea aboard a small boat that Stef sneaks out from her dad's dock. As the waves rise and the fragile vessel weakens, things go horribly wrong. Adrift at sea for days, who will have what it takes to survive?

Samantha is a stranger in her own life. Until the night she disappeared with her best friend Cassie, everyone said Sam had it all - popularity, wealth, and a dream boyfriend. Sam has resurfaced, but she has no recollection of who she is or what happened to her that night. As she tries to piece together her life from before, Sam realizes that it's one she no longer wants any part of. The old Sam took "mean girl" to a whole new level, and it's clear that she and Cassie were more like best enemies.

Delaware, the morning of April 19. Senior Skip Day, and April Donovan's 18th birthday. Four days after the Boston Marathon bombing, the country is still reeling, and April's rare memory condition has her recounting all the tragedies that have cursed her birth month. And just what was that mysterious gathering under the bleachers about? Meanwhile, in Nebraska, Lincoln Evans struggles to pay attention in Honors English, distracted by the enigmatic presence of Laura Echols, capturer of his heart.