Showing results by narrator "Mara Wilson" in All Categories

They say Cape Disappointment is haunted. That's why tourists used to flock there in droves. They'd visit the rocky shoreline under the old lighthouse's watchful eye and fish shells from the water as they pretended to spot dark shapes in the surf. Now the tourists are long gone, and when Meredith Strand and her young daughter return to Meredith's childhood home after an acrimonious split from her wife, the Cape seems more haunted by regret than any malevolent force. But her mother, suffering from early stages of Alzheimer's, is convinced the ghost stories are real.

At four months old, Olivia Dahl was almost murdered. Driven by haunting visions, her mother became obsessed with the idea that Olivia was a changeling, and that the only way to get her real baby back was to make a trade with the dead women living at the bottom of the well. Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own...and for the first time, she hears the women whispering. Everyone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread.

In New York City, newly single Caroline is stumbling her way through the recent implosion of her life. After a surprise breakup leaves her with no job, no apartment, and no backup plan, she’s unsure of what to do next. That is, until Caroline’s father, Leo, injures himself in a bad fall and asks her to move home to the Jersey Shore suburb she’d always been desperate to escape. But Leo doesn’t want his daughter to be his caretaker; he needs her to replace him as third baseman in his local men’s softball league.

Hannah Rosenstein should be happy: after a lonely childhood of traipsing all over the world, she finally has a home as the co-owner of destination inn Carrigan’s All Year. But her thoughts keep coming back to Levi "Blue" Matthews: her first love, worst heartbreak, and now, thanks to her great-aunt’s meddling will, absentee business partner.

Tania de Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand. Everyone thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl”. But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father - a former Musketeer and her greatest champion. Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend finishing school. But L’Académie des Mariées, Tania realizes, is no finishing school. It’s a secret training ground for new Musketeers.

From the editors and most popular writers of Reductress, the only satirical women’s magazine in publication, How to Stay Productive When the World is Ending is a collection of essays, how-tos, and “inspirational” phrases to help you laugh when staying both sane and productive in a commodified world feels impossible.

Chelsea Higgins is doing just fine. She’s heading into the holidays at the helm of a thriving dog training business, and she’s got a mellow senior dog at home to keep her warm at the end of the day. What more could she need? Enter certified gym bro Andrew Gibson: Chelsea’s former nemesis, and now the newest neighbor in her business complex, who also wants to expand into the vacant space Chelsea’s been eyeing for months. Who cares if it’s the season of joy? Let the turf war begin. When an unfortunate run-in with Andrew’s lawless dog leaves Chelsea with a bum wrist, the two strike a deal.

Who is The Horoscope Writer? It’s not Bobby Frindley. He’s an ex-Olympic athlete who has fast-talked his way into an entry-level position at a dying newspaper. He’s supposed to be writing horoscopes, but someone has been doing his job for him . . . On his first night on the job, Bobby receives an email with twelve gruesome, highly detailed horoscopes, along with a chilling ultimatum: print them and one will come true, or ignore them and all of them will.

From the outside, Isabel doesn’t seem to have much going on. It’s the summer after college graduation, and she’s moved back to her hometown, where she spends her days house-sitting, babysitting, working the front desk at a yoga studio, and hanging out with her friend Ellie. But on the inside, Isabel’s mind is always running, always analyzing, and right now, she’s trying hard to not let her thoughts give weight to boys. So when Isabel spots three baby skunks in the yard, their presence is not only a strangely thrilling break from the expected, it feels like a fortuitous sign from the universe.

In an unnamed coastal city filled with refugees, the mother of a displaced family calls out her daughter’s name as she wanders the cliffside road where the child once worked. The mother searches and searches until, spent from grief, she throws herself into the sea, leaving her other children behind. Bearing witness to the suicide is another woman—on a business trip, with a swollen belly that later gives birth to a stillborn baby. In the wake of her pain, the second woman remembers other losses—of a language, a country, an identity—when once, her family fled a distant war.

Niki Ames can't wait to start eighth grade, that all-important year before high school. She and her best friend, Ava, have shared so many plans for the coming year. But then the unthinkable happens: at gym class pair-up, Ava chooses someone else to be her partner. Niki is devastated. It's clear that Ava wants to be part of the popular group, leaving Niki behind. Niki has to decide who her real friends should be, where her real interests lie.

Mallory Smith was no ordinary girl, and this is no ordinary story. At age three, Mallory was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis—a disease that attacks the internal organs and would eventually kill her. Despite living on borrowed time, Mallory pursued her passions: volleyball; writing; the environment; her boyfriend, family, and friends. Most importantly, every day she chose to embody the mantra "live happy."

Brooklyn-based aspiring writer Lucy Minninger has no trouble putting the comedy in her rom-coms. It's the romance part of the equation that's the problem. Former child star Rudy Riziero made his mark on some of the most popular kids' shows of the '90s. But that early success has pigeonholed him into a stand-up routine riffing on his past work, while the slick single life he envisioned was clearly a fantasy. He's actually ready for a relationship, if he could just find someone uninterested in who he used to be.

Marianne Blume knows she’s one of the stupid kids. After years of trying and trying and feeling like she's always failing, she has mastered the art of turning off her brain whenever questions or lectures arise. She gets by in school on a combination of luck, deflection, and charisma–that is, until she lands in the classroom of Mr. Garcia. To avoid flunking Mr. Garcia's class, Marianne joins her school's Quiz Quest team, hoping the move will ingratiate her to him, the team's coach.

In 1947, during the early years of the Cold War, a field in Roswell, New Mexico, was disturbed by a strange crash and smattering of debris. Some say the bodies of extraterrestrial beings were strewn across the ground, that a UFO had crashed there, and that the government was covering up the evidence in a massive conspiracy. But what really happened at Roswell?

​​​Yet Delta Wilding and her sister Bee are familiar with the peculiar. Raised by an eccentric father always on the hunt for the spectacular, they’re used to following weather patterns that twirl onto strange paths, a car that refuses to play any artist but one, and living in a sentient house with whims of its own. But when a mysterious boy falls from the stars into the woods behind the Wilding sisters’ farmhouse, nothing can prepare them for the extraordinary turn their lives are about to take.