Showing results by narrator "Mara Wilson" in All Categories

The Finch sisters once spent long, hot summers exploring the dozens of abandoned properties littering their dying town—until they found an impossible home with an endless hall of doors … and three keys left waiting for them. Curious, fearless, they stepped inside their chosen rooms and experienced horrors they never dared speak of again. Now, years later, youngest sister Claire has been discovered dead in that old, desiccated house. Haunted by their sister’s suicide and the memories of a past they’ve struggled to forget, Meg and Esther find themselves at bitter odds.

A violent storm washes a mysterious house onto a rural Pacific Northwest beach, stopping the heart of the only woman who knows what it means. Her grandson, Simon Culpepper, vanishes in the aftermath, leaving two of his childhood friends to comb the small, isolated island for answers—but decades have passed since Melissa and Leo were close if they were ever close at all. Now they'll have to put aside old rivalries and grudges if they want to find or save the man who brought them together in the first place—and on the way they'll learn a great deal about the sinister house on the beach.

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.

Discover the untold origins of one of Disney’s beloved magic makers. The first volume in The Enchanters series from the New York Times best-selling author of A Twisted Tale and Fairy Tale Reform School! Before she created carriages out of pumpkins, fashioned gowns out of thin air, and conjured one-of-a-kind glass slippers, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother was a spirited sixteen-year-old named Renée Dubois. But how did a human girl become a fairy godmother?

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.

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."

Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club series featured a complex cast of characters and touched on an impressive range of issues that were underrepresented at the time: divorce, adoption, childhood illness, class division, and racism, to name a few. In We Are the Baby-Sitters Club, writers from the original BSC generation will reflect on the enduring legacy of Ann M. Martin’s beloved series, 35 years later - celebrating the BSC’s profound cultural influence.

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.

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.

Up-and-coming screenwriter Beatrix Noel's dream project is finally a reality—her 90s-era script is in production. Less dreamy is the A-list actor in the starring role—none other than Rocco Riziero, who jilted Beatrix on New Year's Eve back in 1999. Without his celebrity status, the project would likely still be withering on her hard drive, but that doesn't mean Beatrix won't shame him at every opportunity on-set—especially when it becomes painfully obvious he doesn't even remember her.

Days after the dawn of Y2K, beautiful, charismatic nineteen-year-old Karlie Richards is found brutally murdered in her campus apartment. Two decades later, those who knew Karlie—and those who just knew of her—remain consumed by her death. Among them is her freshman year roommate, Joy, now middle-aged and mid-divorce, living in the same college town and desperate for a new beginning. Jumping between 2019 and 1999, Bright and Tender Dark takes us from the era of Reddit threads and online obsession to the evangelism-infused culture of the late ’90s to reveal what really happened to Karlie.

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.

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.

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.