Showing results by narrator "Catherine Ho" in All Categories

In a future where the world is roughly divided into two factions, the Pacific League of Nations and the Atlantic Division of Nations, tensions are high as each side waits for the other to make a move. But neither side is prepared for a powerful third party that has apparently been an influential presence on Earth for thousands of years—and just might be making a reappearance very soon. With the realization that a highly intelligent alien race has been trying to send them messages, three rising scientists within the Pacific League of Nations form an uneasy alliance.

Felicity has always been hesitant in the kitchen herself after many failed attempts, but a takeout meal gone wrong inspires her to craft some handmade fortune cookies. They become so popular that Felicity runs out of generic fortunes and starts making her own personalized predictions. When one customer’s ill-fated fortune results in his murder, Felicity’s suspiciously specific fortune has the police focusing on her as the main culprit. Now she must find a way to turn her luck around and get cleared from suspicion.

Mark Chan this. Mark Chan that. Writer and barista Emily Hung is tired of hearing about the great Mark Chan, the son of her parents’ friends. You’d think he single-handedly stopped climate change and ended child poverty from the way her mother raves about him. But in reality, he’s just a boring, sweater-vest-wearing engineer, and when they’re forced together at Emily’s sister’s wedding, it’s obvious he thinks he’s too good for her. But now that Emily is her family’s last single daughter, her mother is fixated on getting her married and she has her sights on Mark.

The best of the year's science fiction and fantasy stories as selected by the multiple award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan. Distant worlds, time travel, epic adventure, unseen wonders, and much more! The best, most original and brightest science fiction and fantasy stories from around the globe from the past 12 months are brought together in one collection by multiple award winning editor Jonathan Strahan.

When Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her best friend’s death, it’s with the intention to heal and move on with her life. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to choose the very same competition where said best friend, Trina Low, died. It seems that even though Najwa is trying to change, she’s not ready to give up Trina just yet. But the same can’t be said for all the other competitors. With Trina, the Scrabble Queen herself, gone, the throne is empty, and her friends are eager to be the next reigning champion.

Coauthors Soo Jin Lee and Linda Yoon are professional therapists who witnessed firsthand how mental health issues often went unaddressed not only in their own immigrant families, but in Asian and Asian American communities. Where I Belong shows us how the cycle of trauma can play out in our relationships, placing Asian American experiences front and center to help us process and heal from racial and intergenerational trauma.

Sara Chae is the founder of One Last Word, an app that allows you to send a mes­sage to anyone you want after you pass. Safeguards are in place so the app will only send when you’re definitely, absolutely, 100% dead, but when another Sara Chae dies and her obituary is posted online, Sara discovers that drafted messages she had drunkenly uploaded on one night have been released —one each to her emotionally charged mother, to her former best friend who ghosted her, and to her unrequited high school crush, Harry Shim.

Hayden Lichfield’s life is ripped apart when he finds his father murdered in their lab, and the camera logs erased. The killer can only have been after one thing: the Sisyphus Formula the two of them developed together, which might one day reverse death itself. Hoping to lure the killer into the open, Hayden steals the research. In the process, he uncovers a recording his father made in the days before his death, and a dying wish: Avenge me.

Erin Craig "delivers" on a story about a new girl in town and the cute pizza delivery boy, Auriane Desombre captures our hearts with teens communicating through window signs, and Bill Konigsberg takes us along on daily walks with every step bringing us closer to love. There's flirting and romance from Rachael Lippincott, a tale of a determined girl with a mask-making business from Erin Hahn, and a music-inspired love connection from Sajni Patel. Brittney Morris turns enemies to lovers with the help of a balcony herb garden.

Spanning more than 150 years, and set in multiple locations in colonial and postcolonial Asia and the United States, Inheritors paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of its characters as they grapple with the legacies of loss, imperialism, and war. Written from myriad perspectives and in a wide range of styles, each of these interconnected stories is designed to speak to the others, contesting assumptions and illuminating the complicated ways we experience, interpret, and pass on our personal and shared histories.

The spiral to madness begins with a single push. Abandoned by her people, Queen Talyien's quest takes a turn for the worst as she stumbles upon a plot deeper and more sinister than she could have ever imagined, one that will displace her king and see her son dead. The road home beckons, strewn with a tangled web of deceit and impossible horrors that unearth the nation's true troubles - creatures from the dark, mad dragons, and men with hearts hungry for power.

New York Times best-selling author Marjorie Liu (Monstress) leads you deep into the heart of the tangled woods. In her dark, romantic, and spellbinding short fiction, you will find dangerous magic and even more dangerous women: a body-stealing sorceress, a bone-collecting apprentice-witch, a princess-turned-actress, and a warrior protecting China from her jealous ex. Concluding with a gorgeous full-length novella, Liu's first short fiction collection is an unflinching sojourn into her thorny tales of love, revenge, and new beginnings.

This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great--the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. Each book tells the story of an icon in a lively, conversational way that works well for the youngest nonfiction listeners and that always includes the hero's childhood influences. This book features I. M. Pei, the award-winning Chinese American architect whose projects include the John F. Kennedy Library and the pyramid at the Louvre.

In the first 20 years of the 21st century, New York City has been convulsed by terrorist attack, blackout, hurricane, recession, social injustice and pandemic. New Yorkers weaves the voices of some of the city's best talkers into an indelible portrait of New York in our time - and a powerful hymn to the vitality and resilience of its people.

Keiko "Kei" Springs is a Rider, a specialized form of delivery girl and mercenary all in one. They are among the most highly prized criminals in the dystopian neon city of New Los Angeles. Kei has been running from her past for years and has literally erased it from her mind using a popular street drug called lethe. Unfortunately, you can't outrun your past forever, even on her specialized Nina cybercycle.

When pirates attacked her town and the captain took a liking to her, she saw a way out. Zheng Yi Sao agreed to marry him only if she got an equal share of his business. When her husband died six years later, she took command of the fleet. Over the next decade, the pirate queen built a fleet of over 1,800 ships and 70,000 men. On land and sea, Zheng Yi Sao's power rivaled the emperor himself. Time and again, her ships triumphed over the emperor's ships.

Ex-Rider Keiko "Kei" Springs was living with her adopted daughter Becky away from her previous life of crime. Unfortunately, the past is not easy to escape and her sadistic former sensei, Snake, gives her an ultimatum: perform eight tasks for him or die. The final mission before her freedom is nearly impossible, though. Snake wants her to take down a luxury resort where the super-rich are implanted with their heart's desires, only to be brainwashed into serial killers for blackmail potential.

The Ragpicker—a man, bonded into a mysterious 'secondskin' that has prolonged his life after the digital apocalypse—wanders the lush, deserted Earth, haunted by failing avatars and fragmented texts. He’s searching for traces of his long-dead husband but his journey is interrupted by a girl, Ysmany, fleeing her remote village in order to save a baby orphaned by a military-grade secondskin, ‘The Server,’ the fanatical ruler of their town. Together they cross the flourishing, treacherous landscape towards sanctuary.

Raised among the ruins of a conquered mountain nation, Maren dreams only of sharing a quiet life with her girlfriend Kaia - until the day Kaia is abducted by the Aurati, prophetic agents of the emperor, and forced to join their ranks. Desperate to save her, Maren hatches a plan to steal one of the emperor's coveted dragons and storm the Aurati stronghold.

Elsa Park is a particle physicist at the top of her game, stationed at a neutrino observatory in the Antarctic, confident she's put enough distance between her ambitions and the family ghosts she's run from all her life. But it isn't long before her childhood imaginary friend—an achingly familiar, spectral woman in the snow—comes to claim her at last. Years ago, Elsa's now-catatonic mother had warned her that the women of their line were doomed to repeat the narrative lives of their ancestors from Korean myth and legend. But beyond these ghosts, Elsa also faces a more earthly fate.