From beloved author Walter Dean Myers, this original 20-page short story serves as a prequel to his award-winning novel Monster, which has been read and loved by millions of readers.Word on the street is that a robbery is about to go down in Harlem, and Steve Harmon is right in the middle of it. Everyone is trying to prove who's the toughest. Steve gets caught up in the talk and wonders about the difference between right and wrong. Should he turn these guys inStay quietWhat choice will Steve make?Walter Dean Myers was the New York Times bestselling author of Monster, the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award; a former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature; and an inaugural NYC Literary Honoree. Myers received every single major award in the field of children's literature. He was the author of two Newbery Honor Books and six Coretta Scott King Awardees. He was the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults, a three-time National Book Award Finalist, as well as the first-ever recipient of the Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

A darkly whimsical and wickedly funny tale about a twelve-year-old maid who finds herself at the very heart of a conspiracy involving mischief, ghosts, and intrigue. Just right for fans of Lemony Snicket and Neil Gaiman, Anyone but Ivy Pocket is the first book in a four-book series and is illustrated throughout.Ivy Pocket is a walking disaster, at every turn enraging and appalling the fancy aristocrats she works for. But our protagonist doesn't see herself that way at all. In fact, she's convinced she's rather wonderful, perfectly charming, and extremely talented. When Ivy finds herself abandoned and penniless in Paris, she has no idea how she will get back to England. Fate intervenes when Ivy is called to the sickbed of a dying duchess and is charged with delivering a spectacular (and possibly cursed) diamond necklace to Matilda Butterfield on her twelfth birthday. From that moment on, Ivy Pocket is propelled towards her remarkable destiny in a surprising adventure full of villains, mayhem, and misunderstandings.

The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars in Gretchen McNeil’s witty and suspenseful novel about four disparate girls who join forces to take revenge on high school bullies and create dangerous enemies for themselves in the process.?Bree, Olivia, Kitty, and Margot have nothing in common—at least that’s what they’d like the students and administrators of their elite private school to think. The girls have different goals, different friends, and different lives, but they share one very big secret: They’re all members of Don’t Get Mad, a secret society that anonymously takes revenge on the school’s bullies, mean girls, and tyrannical teachers.When their latest target ends up dead with a blood-soaked “DGM” card in his hands, the girls realize that they’re not as anonymous as they thought—and that someone now wants revenge on them. Soon the clues are piling up, the police are closing in . . . and everyone has something to lose.

How far would you go for a friendIn Nuts to You, the funny and moving new novel by Newbery Medalist Lynne Rae Perkins, two squirrels go very far indeed to save a friend who has been snatched up by a hawk. Nuts to You is short, funny, and surprising—an Incredible Journey with squirrels. It features black-and-white art by the author on every page and will appeal to fans of animal fantasies by Kate DiCamillo, Kathi Appelt, and Avi.The squirrels Jed, TsTs, and Chai are the very best of friends. So when Jed is snatched up by a hawk and carried away to another realm, TsTs and Chai resolve to go after him. New communities are discovered, new friends are made, huge danger is encountered (both man-made and of the fox and bobcat variety) and mysteries are revealed. Nuts to You is wholly original, funny, lively, and thought-provoking. It is a deeply satisfying piece of storytelling about the power of stories to save the world; about the power of friendship and the importance of community.This beautiful book is illustrated in black-and-white on every page by the author and includes an introduction, epilogue, and funny footnotes throughout. A terrific read aloud!

Sweet Evil author Wendy Higgins captivates with this fresh romance filled with alluring chemistry and coming-of-age tension. This 96-page novella of unrequited love between sophomore Ryan "The Kid" McPhearson, who makes the varsity baseball team and finds himself immersed in the life of upperclassmen, and the untouchable senior Brooke Bennet is rife with emotion. Maybe to the outside world a two-year age difference doesn't matter, but this is high school. Everything matters. Higgins's deeply felt characters are tested with romantic highs and lows that are powerful, poignant, and keep us wanting more. Includes a hot teaser chapter from Sweet Peril, the second book in Higgins's paranormal Sweet Evil series.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

Fans of Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series will be drawn to Wendy Higgins's sexy, thrilling Sweet Evil series.Sweet Peril focuses on the battle between light and dark, good and evil, within Anna Whitt, the child of a guardian angel mother and a demon father. Anna promised herself she'd never do the work of her father—polluting souls. She'd been naive to make such a claim. Haunted by demon whisperers, Anna does whatever she can to survive, even if it means earning an unwanted reputation as her school's party girl. And all the while there's gorgeous bad-boy Kaidan Rowe, the son of the Duke of Lust, plaguing her heart and mind.Anna discovers it is her fate to banish demons from the earth, and save the other Nephilim from their dark destiny. Until then, Anna and Kaidan must put aside the issues between them, overcome the steamiest of temptations yet, and face the ultimate question: is loving someone worth risking their life?

From the acclaimed author of Brooklyn, Burning comes Guy in Real Life, an achingly real and profoundly moving love story about two teens that National Book Award–finalist Sara Zarr has called "wholly original and instantly classic."It is Labor Day weekend in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and boy and girl collide on a dark street at two thirty in the morning: Lesh, who wears black, listens to metal, and plays MMOs; Svetlana, who embroiders her skirts, listens to Bj?rk and Berlioz, and dungeon masters her own RPG. They should pick themselves up, continue on their way, and never talk to each other again.But they don't.This is a story of the roles we all play—at school, at home, online, and with our friends—and the one person who might be able to show us who we are underneath it all.

A riveting and powerful story of a runaway girl lured into prostitution in New York City, perfect for fans of Ellen Hopkins and Patricia McCormick.What do you do if you're in troubleWhen Michelle runs away from her drug-addicted mother, she has just enough money to make it to New York City, where she hopes to move in with a friend. But once she arrives at the bustling Port Authority, she is confronted with the terrifying truth: She is alone and out of options.Then she meets Devon, a good-looking, well-dressed guy who emerges from the crowd armed with a kind smile, a place for her to stay, and eyes that seem to understand exactly how she feels. But Devon is not who he seems to be, and soon Michelle finds herself engulfed in the world of child prostitution, where he becomes her "Daddy" and she is his "Little Peach." It is a world of impossible choices, where the line between love and abuse, captor and savior, is blurred beyond recognition.This hauntingly vivid story illustrates the human spirit's indomitable search for home and one girl's struggle to survive.

Skyvale faces problems worse than anyone realizes. Secrets are building. Enemies are everywhere. Told from the perspective of Tobiah, the crown prince with a dangerous secret, and set two years before the heart-racing action of The Orphan Queen, this 100-page digital novella brings to life one of Jodi Meadows's most beloved characters.Tobiah Pierce is ready to break free of his princely role—he's sick of the bodyguards that always trail him and is uncertain about the new girl at court, Meredith Corcoran, who his parents keep pushing toward him. When Tobiah's beloved tutor seems to be embroiled in a dangerous situation deep within the city, Tobiah jumps on the opportunity to throw off the royal restrictions and chase after him. But what happens in the narrow alleys and shadowy corners proves he doesn't know anything about the people he cares about—or the city he must one day rule.The Glowing Knight is the second of four prequel novellas that offer existing fans a deeper insight into a favorite character and the complex city of Skyvale, while new readers will find a stunning introduction to this rich world and the heart-pounding fantasy of the Orphan Queen series.Epic Reads Impulse is a digital imprint with new releases each month.

This swoonworthy, romantic companion novel to Wendy Higgins's New York Times bestselling Sweet Evil series is told from irresistible bad-boy Kaidan's point of view. Readers will love getting inside Kaidan's head, especially fans of the Divergent series by Veronica Roth, the Selection series by Kiera Cass, and Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire.When bad-boy drummer Kaidan Rowe encounters good girl Anna Whitt, the girl chosen to vanquish the demons from earth, he can't stop thinking about her. The Nephilim son of the Duke of Lust, Kaidan tries to help Anna embrace a life of sin, but she gradually helps him see that he's meant to do more with his life. Their relationship is as tortured as it is passionate, for Nephilim are forbidden to fall in love. But as hard as they may try to obey, Kai can't seem to stay away from Anna, nor Anna from Kai.Full of chemistry and high-stakes drama, this companion book is darker, hotter, and completely satisfying.

In this first book in the New York Times bestselling Crash trilogy, the world is introduced to this generation's Romeo and Juliet: Jude Ryder and Lucy Larson—Explosive. Sizzling. Tragic.A steamy summer encounter with bad boy Jude means trouble for Lucy. Her sights are set on becoming a ballerina, and she won't let anything get in her way . . . except Jude.He's got a rap sheet, dangerous mood swings, and a name that's been sighed, shouted, and cursed by who knows how many girls.Jude's a cancer, the kind of guy who's fated to ruin the lives of girls like Lucy—and he tells her so.But as rumors run rampant and reputations are destroyed, Lucy's not listening to Jude's warning. Is tragedy waiting in the wingsThis racy romance is hot, hot, hot!

Readers of Disney Fairies, The Never Girls, and Rainbow Magic will absolutely love the fifth book in the Fairy Bell Sisters series by Margaret McNamara, a delightful chapter-book series about Tinker Bell's little sisters for kids ages 6-10.Springtime means spring-cleaning for the fairies of Sheepskerry Island. It also means getting to search for treasure in the jumble pile—a giant collection of unwanted items outside Queen Mab's palace. When Sylva Bell and her best friend, Poppy Flower, find Queen Mab's old fairy dollhouse in the pile, they are overjoyed! But as the two friends play with it, they start to unlock its secrets and discover its special magic—a magic that has a history of putting friendships to the test.

The Fairy Bell Sisters get in the Christmas spirit in this sixth book in Margaret McNamara’s delightful chapter-book series about Tinker Bell’s little sisters, perfect for kids ages 6 to10 who enjoy Disney Fairies, The Never Girls, and Rainbow Magic.There are only ten days left until Christmas, and the Fairy Bell Sisters couldn’t be more excited: this year, their big sister Tinker Bell is coming home to visit! Tink says she’s going to treat her sisters to the very best Christmas by bringing?presents and decorations from Neverland. Then she makes her sisters promise not to do anything to prepare for the holiday—they work hard enough already!But as Christmas draws nearer—and Tink still has not arrived—Clara, Rosy, Goldie, and Sylva find it harder and harder not to join in the Fairyland festivities.?And on top of everything else, baby Squeak has started acting rather strangely. . . . Will the season be ruinedOr will the Fairy Bell Sisters find enough faith in one another to make this the most magical Christmas ever?

Abigail's parents believed the world was going to end. And—of course—it didn't. But they've lost everything anyway. And she must decide: does she still believe in themOr is it time to believe in herselfFans of Sara Zarr, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell will connect with this moving debut.Abigail's parents never should have made that first donation to that end-of-times preacher. Or the next, or the next. They shouldn't have sold their house. Or packed Abigail and her twin brother, Aaron, into their old van to drive across the country to San Francisco, to be there for the "end of the world." Because now they're living in their van. And Aaron is full of anger, disappearing to who-knows-where every night. Their family is falling apart. All Abigail wants is to hold them together, to get them back to the place where things were right. But maybe it's too big a task for one teenage girl. Bryan Bliss's thoughtful debut novel is about losing everything—and about what you will do for the people you love.

Experience the fantastic adventure filled with magical objects, secret sects, and life as we know it on the line! Mixing magic and physics, Ted Sanders has created an epic story that has the feel of classic fantasy but twists it into something new and innovative. From the moment Horace F. Andrews sees the sign from the bus—a sign with his own name on it—everything changes. The sighting leads him underground, to the House of Answers, a hidden warehouse full of mysterious objects. But there, he finds only questions. What is this curious placeWho are the strange, secretive people who entrust him with a rare and immensely powerful giftAnd what is he to do with it?When Horace finds the Box of Promises in the curio shop, he quickly discovers that ordinary-looking objects can hold extraordinary power. From the enormous, sinister man shadowing him to the gradual mastery of his newfound abilities to his encounters with Chloe—a girl who has an astonishing talent of her own—Horace follows a path that puts the pair in the middle of a centuries-old conflict between two warring factions in which every decision they make could have disastrous consequences.

In this incandescent page-turner, sixteen-year-old Claire learns the unfortunate truth that sometimes a girl has to kiss a lot of frogs. . . . Brilliantly capturing the complexities of friendship, the struggles of self-discovery, and the difficulties of trying to find love in high school, Rachael Allen has crafted a rich debut that's impossible to put down.No matter how many boys Claire kisses, she can't seem to find a decent boyfriend—someone who isn't afraid of her family's tragic past or her own aspirations for the future . . . until she meets Luke. But Megan, Claire's closest friend, is falling for Luke, too, and if there's one thing Claire knows for sure, it's that Megan is pretty much irresistible. With true love and best friendship on the line, Claire suddenly has everything to lose. And what she learns—about her crush, her friends, and most of all herself—makes the choices even harder.

Tracing the life of the author’s father, this passionate, vivid memoir follows him through his childhood in the west of England, his successful 25-year career in the Indian Army prior to the country’s independence in 1947, and his final years in Devonshire, where he raised a family while the symptoms of Huntington’s disease gradually set in. Born of a family of impoverished Cornish fishermen, he and his six sisters cared for their dying mother after losing their father at the start of the First World War, before Huntington’s reared itself in their lives and led to the early death of three of the siblings. An absorbing, tense story of an emerging family crisis, this is an inspiring narrative showing that, through courage and faith in the face of great adversity, peace can be found. William Symons was born in Newlyn in 1878. Following family tradition he became a fisherman and a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. In 1914, following some early action at sea in the First World War, he died at the age of 36 yrs, leaving a widow and seven children, a boy and six girls. Unknown to him, and to his family, he left another legacy. In his body he carried a faulty gene, which, if inherited, could lead to Huntington’s chorea, a disease that normally becomes apparent in middle age. William died before symptoms appeared but the disease, known at the time as St Vitus Dance, was to claim the lives of a number of his descendants. This book chronicles the life of his eldest child, and only son, William John, who was 12 years old at the time of his father’s death. There was a small naval pension and William earned what pennies he could in his spare time until he left school the following year aged 13 years and went to work, initially for Dick Bath, the coal merchant. Somehow the family managed to stay together even after the death of his mother, Florence Louisa, from tuberculosis in 1921. They attended St. Peter’s Church, where the vicar, Mr Phelps, knew the family well and gave them his support. In 1919 William (always known as ‘Jack’ in the family) signed on as a soldier in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry and thus started a lifetime career in the Army and, from 1922, a long period of service in India. Mr Phelps helped him to weigh everything up and arrive at the decision to make this move. And so the story unfolds’. Eventually, at the age of 70 years, chorea would claim his life, but it was a life that saw a lot of happiness. Not least the birth of his two sons. The elder of these, John Symons, is the writer of this book.

This authorised biography of the poet Kathleen Raine tells the story of how she developed from a small girl, who knew at the age of eight that she wanted only to write poetry, into a world-renowned poet and literary scholar. Philippa Bernard follows Kathleen Raine’s struggle against the constrictions of her suburban childhood to her exciting days at Girton College in the twenties, where she became friends with many brilliant writers, artists and scientists, including William Empson, Julian Trevelyan, Jakob Bronowski and the film maker Humphrey Jennings, friendships which lasted all her life. After a short marriage to Hugh Sykes Davies, she eloped with the poet Charles Madge to live in Blackheath where two children were born. An affair led to a break with Charles, who was involved at the time with Inez Spender, wife of the poet Stephen, and at the outbreak of war in 1939, she ran away with her children to the Lake District to the home of Michael Roberts and his wife Janet Adam Smith. Taking a cottage near Ullswater, she found a peaceful seclusion which enabled her to write some of her finest poetry, but found it difficult to support her family. Leaving the children with her friend, the art patron Helen Sutherland, she moved to London. In a room off the Tottenham Court Road, she came to know Sonia Brownell (later to marry George Orwell) who introduced her to the artists and writers of the Fitzrovia set, Dylan Thomas, Cyril Connolly and Rex Whistler among them, and including the strange figure of Tambi – James Tambimuttu – who published her first book of poems, Stone and Flower. Kathleen had already achieved much critical acclaim and published several volumes of poetry when she met through Tambi the naturalist and explorer Gavin Maxwell. She fell disastrously in love with him, but his homosexuality, which she understood from the beginning of their relationship, proved too much of an obstacle, for she totally failed to understand that this delightful companion, whose love of all natural things matched her own, completely failed to reciprocate the warmth of feeling that overwhelmed her. The title of his book, Ring of Bright Water, centred around his beloved otters at his home in Scotland, was taken from a poem of hers. An intensive period of research on the poet William Blake led to the publication of Blake and Tradition, marking Kathleen out as a leading Blake scholar. This was followed by works on Coleridge, Yeats and Thomas Taylor. Towards the end of her long life Kathleen Raine founded the journal Temenos with the help of Prince Charles, who became a good friend. She travelled to India, was honoured with the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and made a Companion of Honour. Philippa Bernard met her as a neighbour in Chelsea where she and her husband owned an antiquarian bookshop. In this book she assesses sympathetically the work of Kathleen Raine, but does not hesitate to throw a critical light on this unusual woman of the highest intellect who loved her children deeply but deserted them to follow her instincts, who had an entirely practical attitude to the world about her, but who pursued a spiritual path, and who achieved so much in the world of literature and poetry.

This Life of Grace is a biography and a history. It tells the story of Grace Jarrold, the youngest of eight children, who lived for almost ninety years in the village of Plympton in Devon. It also tells the story of the village over the last century, beginning with the Great War of 1914-1918, school life at that time as revealed in original documents, the building of ‘homes fit for heroes’ in the 1920s, and the General Strike of 1926. It describes the dwindling of the old ‘upstairs-downstairs’ life, the approach of the Second World War and the Blitz of Plymouth. After the tranquil period of fifteen years that followed the War, things changed at great speed. The influence of farming declined, leading to the closure of Plympton Market in 2002. The village grew to ten times its size at the time of Grace’s birth and it was absorbed into the City of Plymouth. All the events are recorded as they affected local people. Grace is at the heart of the story, much of it told in her words, related remarkably to the author in frank conversations as she relived her life when it was drawing to its close, during almost three years in a hospital bed. The life of her husband, Major William John Symons, of the Indian Army, is told by the same author in Stranger on the Shore, published in 2009. In a pre-publication review, Peter Smith of Crane Books, writes, ‘I liked This Life of Grace even more than Stranger, which I had found engrossing and very moving. This Life of Grace is written with such warmth and deep affection and understanding, bringing the characters vividly to life. Grace was a person of dignity and humility, an unusual combination, to which I felt a sense of eloquence, wit and humour should be added. She was very much a Grace.’

"I've been mythicized, Mick-icized, eulogized and fooligized, I've been Cole-Portered and farmer's-daughtered, I've been Led Zepped and 12-stepped. I'm a rhyming fool and so cool that me, Fritz the Cat, and Mohair Sam are the baddest cats that am. I have so many outrageous stories, too many, and I'm gonna tell 'em all. All the unexpurgated, brain-jangling tales of debauchery, sex & drugs, transcendence & chemical dependence you will ever want to hear." The son of a classical pianist straight out of the Bronx of old Archie comics, Steven Tyler was born to be a rock star. Weaned on Cole Porter, Nat King Cole, Mick and his beloved Janis Joplin Tyler began tearing up the streets and the stage as a teenager before finally meeting his "mutant twin" and legendary partner Joe Perry. In this addictively readable memoir, told in the playful, poetic voice that is uniquely his own, Tyler unabashedly recounts the meteoric rise, fall, and rise of Aerosmith over the last three decades and riffs on the music that gives it all meaning. Tyler tells what it's like to be a living legend and the frontman of one of the world's most revered and infamous bands the debauchery, the money, the notoriety, the fights, the motels and hotels, the elevators, limos, buses and jets, the rehab. He reveals the spiritual side that "gets lost behind the stereotype of the Sex Guy, the Drug Guy, the Demon of Screamin', the Terror of the Tropicana." And he talks about his epic romantic life and his relationship with his four children. As dazzling, bold, and out-on-the-edge as the man himself, Does the Noise in My Head Bother Youis an all-access backstage pass into this extraordinary showman's life.

Illustrations in this ebook appear in vibrant full color on a full color ebook device, and in rich black and white on all other devices. Narnia . . . where Talking Beasts walk . . . where a witch waits . . . where a new world is about to be born. On a daring quest to save a life, two friends are hurled into another world, where an evil sorceress seeks to enslave them. But then the lion Aslan song weaves itself into the fabric of a new land, a land that will be known as Narnia. And in Narnia, all things are possible. The Magician Nephew is the first book in C.S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia, a series that has become part of the canon of classic literature, drawing readers of all ages into a magical land with unforgettable characters for over fifty years. This is a stand-alone novel, but if you would like to journey back to Narnia, read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , the second book in The Chronicles of Narnia.