Showing results by narrator "Joel Simler" in All Categories

Romance can be a little complicated when you get sucked into a wormhole. Just ask high school English teacher June Flint. One little solar flare happens and suddenly you find yourself 85 years in the future. Eighty-five years from your dream job. Your ailing mother whose only companion in this world is you. Your favorite stuffed-crust pizza from DeLucia’s on Sunday nights. But when June’s cell phone inexplicably picks up a signal, she’s able to call back to the present—more specifically, four weeks before she accidentally time traveled.

When I convinced my friends to join me in a scheme to play the stock market, it paid off beyond our expectations. Honestly, most days I don’t even remember that I’m a billionaire. But it was big news for my family. In fact, my cousin made me guardian of her son in the event something happened to her. At face value, it sounds kind of nice. But I never really knew my cousin.

The fifteen stories and three screenplays that make up Volumes Two and Three of the Emmy® Award–winning Netflix Original series Love, Death + Robots. Featuring bestselling authors and screenwriters from all over the globe, curated by filmmakers Tim Miller and David Fincher, and Supervising Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson.

At the end of summer, sixteen years ago, we promised we’d keep in touch. And I did. She didn’t. I spent a year reaching out to her in every way imaginable, desperately clinging to the future we’d planned while we walked hand-in-hand on the beach. When July rolled around again, I waited eagerly, for her family’s return. They never came. She never came. I blamed her. I blamed myself. I blamed my big, involved family who are basically royalty on this island our ancestors found. After a while, I forgave her and moved on. Of course I did. Carrying a torch for sixteen years would be ridiculous.

When the world changes overnight and monsters pour into the streets, Jaxon Hale expects chaos. He doesn’t expect a casino. A mysterious system chooses him as its first Pit Boss, granting him powers drawn from games of chance, wagers, and house advantages. Every fight becomes a gamble. Every victory builds the pot. But the house never plays fair. With his friends Mara and Elise fighting beside him, Jaxon must learn to master abilities like House Edge, manipulate deadly wagers, and stack the odds against monsters that grow stronger by the day. Because surviving the apocalypse isn’t enough.

This compulsive novel wrestles with vital questions of our time: sentience, purpose, life, death, and how to make a really good commercial. Told entirely through questionably obtained company emails, chat transcripts, TED Talks, training sessions, and more, this all-too-probable future pits emotionally intelligent AI against emotionally stunted humans.

Amrapali Anna Singh is an historian and analyst capable of discerning the most cryptic and trivial details from audio recordings. One day, a mysterious man appears at her office in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, having traveled a great distance to bring her three Type IV audio cassettes that bear the stamp of a library in Buenos Aires that may or may not exist. On the cassettes is the deposition of an adventure journalist and his obsessive pursuit of an amorphous, legendary, and puzzling "City of Dreams."

Love might be a choice, but some choices are off limits. They say opposites attract—and I’m not going to disagree. In fact, I’d be doing my best to see if the attraction was mutual if not for one little thing. She’s my best friend’s little sister.

You ever meet someone and have that immediate click? That was Kayla and me. First day of our first teaching jobs and we both just knew we were going to be best friends forever.

In 1999, the bestselling video game Tony Hawk’sPro Skater was released, and a new generation was exposed to skateboarding culture right in their very own homes. Kids and adults alike could now spend hours playing as actual skateboarders, learning the vernacular, listening to the music skateboarders loved, and having fun onscreen before trying to skate IRL in the driveway.

Sometimes it sucks being a werewolf. People know what I am. Which is rough because normies don’t trust monsters. Mostly, I just try to get by and keep my head down. My vampire and mummy roommates probably don’t help matters. But when a rash of robberies strikes the neighborhood, all eyes turn to the monsters. Even the police cast a distrustful eye our way. As the nights go by and the cops bumble their way through the investigation, it becomes clear that something beyond your average series of smash-and-grabs is going on. For a skittering evil lurks in the dark corners, waiting to pounce.

Hugo didn’t ask for this gift that his father, brilliant biologist Abednego Danner, bestowed upon him; a “gift” that promises a life of greatness. From being a baby that can launch himself from a second-story window unscathed, a boy that can leap canyons and hurl boulders, a football star that can beat an opposing team single-handed, a man capable of crushing an entire enemy platoon with his bare hands; surely such a person could steer the entire world to their whims. But, does the world hold any post for a man of such strength?

Four half sisters create the family they’ve always dreamed of in this enchanting quartet from bestselling authors Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden and Caitlin Crews. The Hathaway sisters might have grown up apart, but when they agree to move to Jasper Creek, Oregon, to revitalize...

I never figured that I’d be someone who fell for a damsel in distress. I see my share of hurting and wounded people in my job at the island health clinic. Wanting to help and heal is why I went into medicine. So why is Teresa different? No idea. All I know, is that she’s come into my clinic twice now with injuries that can’t possibly have been accidental, no matter what she said at the time. I want to protect her. I’ll do whatever it takes. Even if what she needs most is a marriage of convenience.

The Best of Bizarro Fiction: Vol. 2 features 11 carefully crafted surreal tales of the absurd, the hilarious, and the outright horrific. Edited by Matthew A. Clarke.

Silver City is not the kind of place you'd want to be with no recollection of who or what you are. Especially if you happen to find yourself naked in a pig barn, with a fresh bullet hole in your forehead. Suffocated with overwhelming anger and seemingly superhuman strength, the dead man sets out to discover who is responsible, why he was targeted, and what the speckled gunk sealing his wounds is. Gangsters, police, and freakish creatures that dwell in the depths of the silver mines, the entire city is working to bring him down.

Dalamaar orchestrates a complex plot to assassinate the King and the Ainoren, relying on numerous moving parts. However, unforeseen events and unexpected allies complicate his scheme, jeopardizing his plan. As tensions rise and loyalties are tested, the fate of the Ainoren hangs in the balance, leading to a suspenseful confrontation.

I never questioned my decision to marry Faith the day she turned eighteen. She needed to get out of her situation at home and, at nineteen, I already knew everything about everything, so in my mind it made perfect sense. We’d been pals for years. I loved her. She had no idea. But she was desperate for somebody to rescue her, and a marriage of convenience with me was a better—safer—choice than anything else she could find.

The galaxy is a colorful place and Crustacea is no exception. Born on a whim of a madman, the planet of psychic crabs evolved through a combination of radiation, cosmic energy and what scientists could only describe as 'the right vibes'. Now, the crustacean leadership must deal with the impending arrival of the first ambassador from the United Commission of planets, renegade lobsters, and foul creatures lurking in the deep.

From beloved author Diana López comes an exciting middle grade story about three friends, a magic competition, and how far they'll go to succeed. Sixth graders Dominic, Loop, and Z stumble upon a new magic shop in town and can't wait to spend their summer mastering cool tricks to gain access to...