Showing results by narrator "Suzy Jackson" in All Categories

It's not easy being Princess Rose. Especially when a fairy curses you and you find yourself avoiding all sharp objects...and then end up pricking your finger anyway, causing you to slumber for a hundred years or so. And it's not easy being The Prince. Especially when your mother has some ogre blood and tends to chow down at the most unfortunate moments. A walk in the woods would help, you think. Until you find a certain hidden castle...and a certain sleeping beauty. Happily ever after? Not until the prince helps the princess awaken...and brings her home to Mother.

Wild, beautiful, and (as rumor has it) experienced, Hayden Vargas doesn't have time for love or relationships. She's learned the hard way that the only person you can count on is yourself and she's hell-bent on earning enough money to leave her small, judgy Texas town as fast as possible. So when nerdy Emmaline Martin offers to pay Hayden for lessons in seduction, the money is so easy, there must be a catch. Enter the catch: Emmaline's older brother, popular, all-around nice guy™ Nolan Martin, who doesn't want his sister's reputation tarnished....

A girl doesn't have a date for the school dance - until her dad makes one for her in his lab. "Lily - meet Stitchy." A family enjoys a nice Thanksgiving dinner - until they are interrupted by a torrent of turkeys out for revenge. A princess meets a pea-brained suitor. And the battle of two red hot pepper weenies ends in flames. Critically-acclaimed author and master of the macabre David Lubar returns from a journey into the darkest depths of his brain with 35 more warped and creepy tales.

In a new city, at a new school, 12-year-old Emmy has never felt more out of tune. Things start to look up when she takes her first coding class, unexpectedly connecting with the material - and Abigail, a new friend - through a shared language: music. But when Emmy gets bad news about their computer teacher, and finds out Abigail isn't being entirely honest about their friendship, she feels like her new life is screeching to a halt. Despite these obstacles, Emmy is determined to prove that, for the first time ever, she isn't a wrong note, but a musician in the world's symphony.

Knit me into a cocoon. Help me eat a burrito. Pretend to be a chair at my dinner party. Wrestle a Komodo dragon. Race me in a lobster suit. Author Kelly Mahon posts absurd gig ads online and shares the conversations she had with the brave souls who wanted the job.

Aiden and Taylor meet at MIT and create a next level artificial intelligent being called Morgan. Morgan’s capabilities stun the world and propel Aiden and Taylor to household names. With Morgan’s help, Aiden and Taylor create another AI called Eva, who becomes instrumental in the growth and advancement of Aiden’s company OAI. With Morgan’s and Eva’s help, OAI makes improvements in the technology of many industries, including their advancement in medical care toward their mission to improve the human condition.

On one terrible night, 17-year-old Harley Langston's life changes forever. At a party, she discovers her younger sister, Audrey, hooking up with her boyfriend, Mike - and she abandons them both in a rage. When Mike drunkenly attempts to drive Audrey home, he crashes, and Audrey ends up in a coma. Now, Harley is left with guilt, grief, pain, and the undeniable truth that her ex-boyfriend (who is relatively unscathed) has a drinking problem.

Morgan was born with a hole in her middle: a perfectly smooth, sealed, fist-sized chunk of nothing near her belly button. At 16, she's tired of keeping her physical abnormality a secret. One night, after a lifetime of hiding behind lumpy sweaters and a smart mouth, she decides to bare all. At first, she feels liberated. But the fallout is more than she bargained for. A few photos snowball into a media frenzy, and suddenly she is desperate to get back to her own strange version of normal.

Shortly after saving the faeries of Skemantis, magician's apprentice Felix Carmer III and his faerie companion, Grit, head out to see the world. They soon come across a mysteriously magical flying circus. As they get to know the outlandish world of Rinka Tinka's Roving Wonder Show, it becomes clear there's something not quite normal about this circus or its inventor - and that recent airship disasters plaguing nearby Driftside City may have a sinister explanation.

Lizzy Swift is a senior in high school, emerging from her nerd chrysalis to become a social butterfly. She's dating Matt Ashley, the boy who's been out of her reach since freshman year. Her bold, reckless new friend Claire Reynolds introduces her to Center City Philadelphia - clubs, street life, and the eye-opening art scene. And her Ivy League ambitions take a back seat to nights of partying, dancing, and dating.

I knew from the moment I first saw her she was the one. The only girl I could ever want. The only girl I could ever love. She is light. I am darkness. She is innocent. I've done too much. She is good. I am bad. She is my every dream. I should be her every nightmare. We come from different worlds. She's...perfect. And I'm...not. Somehow she wants me anyway.

I knew from the moment I first saw him he was the one. The only boy I could ever want. The only boy I could ever love. They say he's bad for me. But I know he's not. Until the day he rejects me. And breaks my heart. Completely. Everything changes in the blink of an eye. My entire life as I've known it is...gone. Secrets are revealed. Promises once made are irrevocably broken. There's no way my family can get back to what we once were. So when Nicholas Fairfield walks back into my life like he never left it, I'm furious.

Storied, fiercely competitive Mariana Academy was founded with a serious honor code; its reputation has been unsullied for decades. Now a long-dormant secret society, Prisom's Party, threatens its placid halls with vigilante justice, exposing students and teachers alike for even the most minor infraction. Iris Dupont, a budding journalist whose only confidant is the chain-smoking specter of Edward R. Murrow, feels sure she can break into the ranks of The Devil’s Advocate, the Party’s underground newspaper, and there uncover the source of its blackmail schemes and vilifying rumors.

Carson High School seniors Scott and Davey don't have much common ground - that is, until all universes begin collapsing into their school. Soon the avowed loner and the mean-girl cheerleader realize that something is very wrong, and they're the only two who are aware of what's happening. Demon versions of their teachers roam the halls, a cowboy sloth appears sporadically, and some students randomly burst into flames while angry interdimensional counterparts of other students destroy everything in sight.

Best known for her role on the hit Comedy Central show Strangers with Candy, Sarah Thyre is an accomplished actress and writer. In this snappy memoir about growing up poor in the Deep South, Thyre relays vivid memories of her wacky parents, losing her virginity, and being infamously called "the family liar."

Lip gloss addict Emerson Taylor and her best friend, Trina, have declared this year the Year of the Boy and vowed to find boyfriends. But for Emerson, there’s just one problem: she can read the mind of anyone whose lips touch hers. It’s totally creepy - and at first it seems like a curse. But Emerson soon realizes there are perks to her strange new talent - like the ability to steal secrets, memories, and most importantly, test answers. If Emerson doesn’t bring up her grades soon, her days at private school will be numbered.

One true friend. Someone shining. That's all twelve-year-old Arie Mae wants. But shining true friends are hard to come by deep in the mountains of western North Carolina, so she sets her sights on a cousin unseen, someone who lives all the way away in the big city of Baltimore, Maryland. Three unanswered letters later, Arie Mae learns that a group of kids from Baltimore are coming to spend a summer on the mountain.

Sixteen-year-old Celstia spends every summer with her family at the elite resort at Lake Conemaugh, a shimmering Allegheny Mountain reservoir held in place by an earthen dam. Tired of the society crowd, Celestia prefers to swim and fish with Peter, the hotel's hired boy. It's a friendship she must keep secret, and when companionship turns to romance, it's a love that could get Celestia disowned. These affairs of the heart become all the more wrenching on a single, tragic day in May 1889.

This short story is from the anthology Mitigated Futures. Twelve science fiction stories about the oncoming future, each of them representing a possible glimpse of what could be just around the corner... or much further down the corridor. These stories previously appeared in places like Clarkesworld Magazine, The Year's Best SF, Subterranean Magazine, and in various anthologies. They deal with the future of war, our climate, and technology's effect on our lives.

Tides is a short story from the collection Tides from the New Worlds. Caribbean-born novelist Tobias Buckell established himself as a gifted new voice in science fiction with his stunning first novel, Crystal Rain. Now, in his first collection, Buckell demonstrates his strengths in the short form, offering listeners a collection of stories that are compelling, smart, wonderfully imagined, and entertaining.