Mental Fiction

2199. Deep-space exploration is a reality and teleportation is routine. But this time something has gone very, very wrong. Seventeen-year-old Jessica Mathers wakes up in a lander that’s crashed onto the surface of Carver 1061c, a desolate, post-extinction planet fourteen light-years from Earth. The planet she was supposed to be viewing from a ship orbiting far above. The corridors of the empty lander are covered in bloody hand prints; the machines are silent and dark. And outside, in the alien dirt, there are fresh graves carefully marked with names she doesn’t recognize.

If first impressions determine a relationship, my new neighbor and I should be the worst of enemies. Not only did my cheating boyfriend threaten to call the police on my new duplex neighbor, Oscar, but I called him by the wrong name when I ran into him later that same day. After he’d given me the double fudge muffin he’d just bought. The last one at the bakery. I don’t get close to anyone. Letting people in means letting in their questions, their pity, their concern. I’ve gotten really good at pretending everything is fine, that I’m happy and my life is perfect. No one, not even ...

It sucks being with Grandpa in this new town. It sucks that they left the old place without finding Rosco. Travis doesn’t want to do anything, especially try to get by in his classes, which never seems possible, anyway. He’s a Bluefish - stupid, angry, alone. Then, suddenly, there’s a girl. Velveeta. She’s up in his face and she’s not backing down. She is as loud as he is quiet, as outgoing as he is shut in. She’s pretty, in a funky, scarf-wearing sort of way, and she’s smart - way smart - smart enough to figure out that Travis has a secret.

My sophomore year changed everything. I dropped 40 pounds after a stint in fat camp. Prior to losing weight, most of my time was spent comparing myself to my twin sister and trying to hide my cankles. But losing weight made all things seem possible. Now I'm popular, vying for the hottest guy in school and competing for a prom queen nomination. Finally, I'm getting noticed, and it's all because I dropped the pounds.

Sierra's family runs a Christmas tree farm in Oregon - it's a bucolic setting for a girl to grow up in, except that every year they pack up and move to California to set up their Christmas tree lot for the season. So Sierra lives two lives: her life in Oregon and her life at Christmas. And leaving one always means missing the other. Until this particular Christmas, when Sierra meets Caleb, and one life eclipses the other.

Ella siempre lo amó. Él nunca lo supo. Hasta que la vida los volvió a encontrar. Sheccid ha sufrido un grave accidente. Está sola, aislada del mundo y de su familia; tiene marcas de intento de suicidio, pero no recuerda nada. El médico le pide que se remonte al pasado y reconstruya poco a poco los hechos. Ella descubre que el amor de José Carlos la ha mantenido con vida. Y se aferra a él. Sólo piensa en una cosa: salir del hospital y encontrarlo.

Evan Taft has plans. Take a gap year in Alaska, make sure his little brother and single mother are taken care of, and continue therapy to process his father's departure. But after his mom’s unexpected diagnosis, as Evan’s plans begin to fade, he hears something: a song no one else can hear, the voice of a mysterious singer . . . Shosh Bell has dreams. A high school theater legend, she’s headed to performing arts college in LA, a star on the rise. But when a drunk driver takes her sister’s life, that star fades to black.

Tyler Feder had just white-knuckled her way through her first year of college when her super cool mom was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now, with a decade of grief and nervous laughter under her belt, Tyler shares the story of that gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, extremely awkward time in her life. Dancing at the Pity Party is a frank and refreshingly funny look at what it’s like to grieve - for anyone struggling with loss who just wants someone to get it.

With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses, Hanna's tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas, in search of a new home. But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. She discovers secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she's far from normal. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen, and no one is safe.

Teagan Firestone has always been the dutiful daughter, especially since her mom died. But as her father finally begins to move on, it’s her turn to do the same. Her destination: Pearl Lake, a close-knit community with an entrepreneurial spirit and secrets of its own. One of them is Aaron Saunders, who dropped out of college to work construction for Pearl Lake’s upper class. He’s a mystery and has a playboy reputation - that is, until he meets Teagan. Neither one of them is looking for love, but in a town this small, it’s hard not to let your heart get involved.

Before an accident took her out of the arena, Kami Garrett traveled with the women's professional rodeo circuit. Flashbacks from her crippling injury have made it impossible to perform her routines with confidence, so she settles for providing horseback riding lessons on her great-uncle's ranch in Surprise, Arizona. Kami grew up loving baseball because her father played for the Diamondbacks and they were very close. As the result of her parents' divorce, she refuses to date a pro ballplayer and risk ending up miserable like her mother. Everything changes, however, when a sexy, ambitious ...

A fragile young teenage girl is held captive. Locked in a cell by The Reestablishment, a harsh dictatorship in charge of a crumbling world. This is no ordinary teenager. Juliette is a threat to The Reestablishment's power. A touch from her can kill - one touch is all it takes. But not only is she a threat, she is potentially the most powerful weapon they could have....

When Fern hears about a photo contest with a big cash award, she decides she’ll enter and win! After all, photography is her passion (and was an interest she shared with her dad, who has recently died). She knows she can take a prize-worthy photo of a whale during one of the whale-watching tours her mom runs.

Critically acclaimed author of We Are the Ants - described as having "hints of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five" (School Library Journal) - opens up about what led to an attempted suicide in his teens, and his path back from the experience.

I'm just a girl that loves to write. I write when I'm happy and I write when I'm sad, and these are my thoughts in words as I seek peace. As you read, may these words lead you to peace. As others look for happiness, I'm in pursuit of peace.

When Alice was 10, Ray took her away from her family, her friends - her life. She learned to give up all power, to endure pain. She waited for the nightmare to be over. Now Alice is 15 and Ray still has her, but he speaks more and more of her death. He does not know it is what she longs for. She does not know he has something more terrifying than death in mind for her. This is Alice's story. It is one you have never heard, and one you will never, ever forget.

Despite my best intentions, I was beginning to understand how my dad saw the world. The shadows haunting every living thing. The secrets inside the lies wrapped in bullshit. Even Gracie’s box of pills was beginning to make sense. For the past five years, Hayley Kincain and her father, Andy, have been on the road, trying to outrun the memories that haunt them both. They moved back to Andy’s hometown to try a “normal” life, but the horrors he saw in the war threaten to destroy their lives.

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears?

It's senior year at St. Joan's Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys' texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can't. First it's the school's queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: Seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan's buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Emma O'Donovan is 18, beautiful, and fearless. It's the beginning of summer in a quiet Irish town and, tonight, she and her friends have dressed to impress. Everyone is at the party, and all eyes are on Emma. The next morning, Emma's parents discover her collapsed on the doorstop of their home, unconscious. She is disheveled, bleeding, and disoriented, looking as if she had been dumped there. To her distress, Emma can't remember what happened the night before.