Showing results by narrator "Andre Santana" in All Categories

Teo never thought he could be a Hero. Now, he doesn’t have a choice. The sun is gone, the Obsidian gods have been released from their prison, and chaos and destruction are wreaking havoc on Reino del Sol. All because Teo refused to sacrifice a fellow semidiós during the Sunbearer Trials. With the world plunged into perpetual night, Teo, his crush Aurelio, and his best friend Niya must journey to the dark wilderness of Los Restos, battling vicious monsters while dealing with guilt, trauma, and a (very distracting) burgeoning romance between Teo and Aurelio.

Carmen Sanchez is a tough Homeland Security agent who plays by the rules. But when her sister is attacked, revealing a connection to a series of murders across Southern California, she realizes a conventional investigation will not be enough to stop the ruthless perpetrator. With nowhere else to turn, Sanchez enlists the aid of Professor Jake Heron, a brilliant and quirky private security expert who, unlike Sanchez, believes rules are merely suggestions. The two have a troubled past, but he owes her a favor and she’s cashing in.

America has grown used to larger-than-life politicians: Teflon Don, AOC, MTG, Dark Brandon, and all the rest have injected DC politics with an unmistakable edge of celebrity flair and tabloid intrigue. Yet in 2022, a new player on the national scene outshone them all. George Anthony Devolder Santos, and his revolving door of pseudonyms, shed glaring new light on how far we’d all let our politics slide as his claimed resume was shred to bits in the wake of a longshot run to office from New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat.

Joey Eclipse is the #1 beginner with a list of achievements that's hard to believe. All while in an apocalypse where the multiverse integrates whole universes and initiates countless humans to its game-like realms of limitless magic. Here's the problem. He's way too overpowered to stay in a lesser realm. And he keeps refusing his first ascension to accomplish his remaining goals. Too bad Joey's refusal to ascend dooms the lesser realm to suffer attacks from buffed-up monsters. Like the epic dread whale, a highly evil boss that's two realms of power greater than Joey Eclipse.

In 2018, novelist Jami Attenberg, faced with a looming deadline, needed writing inspiration. Using a bootcamp model, she and a friend set out to write one thousand words daily for two weeks straight. They opened this practice to Attenberg’s online community and soon hundreds then thousands of people started using the #1000WordsofSummer hashtag to track their work and support one another. What began as a simple challenge between two friends has become a literary movement—write 1,000 words per day without judgement, or bias, or concerns about writer’s block, and see what comes of it.

Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for decades, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he's pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale—"for the algorithm"—Misha discovers that it's not that simple. As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what's right—before it's too late.

Teo, a seventeen-year-old Jade semidiós and the trans son of the goddess of birds, isn't worried about the Trials...at least, not for himself. His best friend, Niya is a Gold semidiós and a shoo-in for the Trials, and while he trusts her abilities, the odds of becoming the sacrifice is one-in-ten. But then, for the first time in over a century, the impossible happens. Sol chooses not one, but two Jade competitors. Teo, and Xio, the thirteen-year-old child of the god of bad luck. Now they must compete in five trials against Gold opponents who are more powerful and better trained.

For the first time in history, we have instantaneous access to the world's knowledge. There has never been a better time to learn, to create and to improve ourselves. Yet, rather than being empowered by this information, we're often overwhelmed, paralysed by believing we'll never know or remember enough. This eye-opening and accessible guide shows how you can easily create your own personal system for knowledge management, otherwise known as a Second Brain.

Despite the heavy gold bounty on his head, Joey's on the war path to greatness and rising like a star. He has millions of livestream viewers watching him solo an entire dungeon during an apocalypse where the multiverse system integrates whole universes and initiates countless humans to its game-like realms of limitless magic.

New Nigeria is a good, clean, all-American town. The husbands are smiling and handsome, the wives are strong, rich, and powerful, and Nat Turner High is the best public school in the state. Yet, the citizens of this idyllic community find themselves in a rapidly changing country and, to be perfectly honest, some of them are a teeny bit uncomfortable with it all.

Joey's new apocalypse life, integrated and initialized by the system of Multiverse Z, turned him into a Great Adventurer. He gained a quest to help a war princess defeat an epic boss monster, and he's going to need the best adventurers around to build a raiding army and secure some sweet, sweet achievements.

Immigration is one of the most controversial topics in the United States, typically framed as a battle between anti-immigrant conservatives and pro-immigrant liberals. Yet surprisingly, almost no one on either side of this issue seems to understand the true impact that immigrants have on any aspect of American life. In The Truth About Immigration, Wharton School professor Zeke Hernandez provides an accessible, apolitical, and evidence-based look at the effects of immigration on our local communities and our nation.

New Yorker journalist Jonathan Blitzer has been covering the immigration crisis at America’s southern border for nearly a decade, but the current emergency is the end of a much larger story. In this, his first book, Blitzer goes back to the beginning: to the shadowy civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s; to the American prison system in the 1990s and the policies of mass deportation that transformed local street criminals into international crime syndicates.

Crest is not excited to be on their Journey: the month-long sojourn on land all teen merfolk must undergo. The rules are simple: Help a human within one moon cycle and return to Pacifica to become an Elder—or fail and remain stuck on land forever. Crest is eager to get their Journey over and done with. Humans are disgusting. They’ve polluted the planet so much that there’s a floating island of trash that’s literally the size of a country.

In this revolutionary guide to learning, Professor Dan Willingham uses fascinating brain science to help you study more efficiently and effectively, shrug away exam stress and make learning a skill you can master and enjoy. Based on the latest research, Outsmart Your Brain offers specific strategies for reading, listening and taking tests, covering the practical aspects like optimum note taking, how to read difficult books and good exam technique, coupled with the psychological challenges of dealing with anxiety, fighting procrastination and developing good focus.

It’s senior-year spring break, and Noelle Meyer and Evan Sinclair have been kidnapped. Neither knows why they were chosen, only that they share a tragic past: Evan’s father got away with killing Noelle’s mother, effectively ruining her family when the death was ruled an accident. Despite the connection that should have made them enemies, the teens instead unite to face their other common denominator—their abductors. Noelle and Evan survive one sadistic circumstance after another, eventually making a harrowing escape. But every happy ending comes at a price…

Multiverse Z came knocking, snatching all the humans from Earth to integrate with their game-like realms of magic. No warning. No tutorial. It's an instant transition where eighteen-year-old Joey Eclipse is thrust from his relaxing night playing video games to a stone room with two doors. There's nobody but him. The system messages asking some cryptic questions: [Adventurer or Commoner?] [Greatness or Steadiness?] And more. Joey made his choices, choosing the path of a Great Adventurer, a limited and special category. A unique profile is designed for him.

For six amateur bakers, competing in Bake Week is a dream come true. When they arrive at Grafton Manor to compete, they're ready to do whatever it takes to win the ultimate prize: The Golden Spoon. But for the show's famous host, Betsy Martin, Bake Week is more than just a competition. Grafton Manor is her family's home and legacy - and Bake Week is her life's work. But as the competition commences, things begin to go awry. At first, it's small acts of sabotage. But when a body is discovered, it's clear that for someone in the competition, The Golden Spoon is a prize worth killing for.

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.