Showing titles in Loners & Outcasts

Abandoned at 12, Baby Girl is forced to face the harsh realities of life and struggles to find her path. She forages for sustenance, steals from the wealthy, and sleeps in any dark hole she can find. A 'family' of sorts forms between her and a band of other youngsters. Together they fight for survival, friendship, and love in the midst, but that is only the beginning. Life throws her one curveball after another until secrets are revealed and the search for her true origins begins and ends with the powerful truth.

Bad things are happening in the small town of Girdle, Montana. Fourteen year old Maxine Miller has been plagued by waking nightmares of shadow creatures since early childhood. Seven years on from a terrible family tragedy, while trying to make sense of it all in the aftermath, Max soon finds that the line between what's real and what's all in her head might not be so profound after all. With the help of her friends, she plunges into the ever thickening mystery of the shadow creatures, all the while uncovering truths that may have been better off left forgotten.

Nikki Black finds herself homeless and wandering the streets of Los Angeles, when she begins to uncover a sinister cover-up that endangers herself and others.

"Ryan Turner was standing alone on the subway platform when he saw the punch coming." Growing up white isn't easy, especially in a mixed-race school in the heart of Hollywood, California, but 17-year-old Ryan Turner is doing the best he can. Between taunts from his teachers, race riots in the cafeteria, and threats of detention, Ryan is just trying to get through the day. A mad, hysterical world where teachers peddle Marxist ideology, pinch-nosed white girls apologize for their "racism," and everyone strives to avoid the ultimate in humiliation: diversity training. A young adult novel about...

Nira Ghani has always dreamed of becoming a musician. Her Guyanese parents, however, have big plans for her to become a scientist or doctor. Nira's grandmother and her best friend, Emily, are the only people who seem to truly understand her desire to establish an identity outside of the one imposed on Nira by her parents. When auditions for jazz band are announced, Nira realizes it's now or never to convince her parents that she deserves a chance to pursue her passion.

Alice is fifteen, with hair as red as fire and skin as pale as bone. Something inside Alice is broken: she remembers words, but struggles to speak them. Still, Alice knows that words are for sharing, so she pins them to posters in tucked-away places: railway waiting rooms, fish-and-chips shops, quiet corners. Manny is sixteen, with a scar from shoulder to elbow.

Pen's life is about secrets: the secret of the city's spirits, deities and monsters, living just beyond the notice of modern Londoners; the secret of Pen's intricate scars that disfigure her so cruelly; and the most closely guarded secret of all: Parva, her mirror-sister, forged from her reflections in a school bathroom mirror.

When her diplomat father is kidnapped and the US government refuses to help, 17-year-old Gwendolyn Bloom sets off across the criminal underbelly of Europe to rescue him. As she journeys from the slums of Paris to the nightclubs of Berlin to the violent heart of the most feared criminal family in Prague, Gwendolyn discovers that to survive in this new world she must become every bit as cruel as the men she's hunting.

Mark. The name sends shivers down Charlie's spine. A year of relentless bullying left its mark, deep and painful. But the first day of summer throws a curveball crueler than any prank: Mark appears on Charlie's doorstep, begging for forgiveness. Can a bully truly transform? Or is this just another cruel manipulation? Charlie grapples with a decision that could change everything. Can he find the strength to forgive, or will the anger and fear fester?

Some people are just weird. They don't fit in - not at school, not at home, not with other kids no matter how hard they try. In the age of dwarves and dragons, outcasts end up as slaves, thieves, or worse. For the ones lucky enough to live in the land of Iasos, there is an alternative school - a last chance for the leftovers of society to find their path before it's assigned for them.

The Dreaded Summons and Other Misplaced Bills investigates seven unfortunate accounts piled together to make you laugh. The collection opens with Tina Teatree, who has a compulsion for weeding that soon digs up the root of her problem. The title story is "The Dreaded Summons", about an introvert and his friendship with a lost manatee. Other stories reveal the Breakfast Hunter, J.J. Whitweather, Shirley Short, and Fig B. Willingsbee.

It was New Year’s Eve the night that dead blackbirds descended, hours before 14-year-old Alex McCarthy's sister Olivia went missing from a party. Committed to finding out what happened to her sister within the previously safe walls of their subarctic Orkney village, Alex knows that dishevelled, sometimes intoxicated Detective Inspector Birkens is her best shot.

In a series of interwoven fictionalized stories, Deborah Noyes gives voice to the marginalized women in P. T. Barnum’s family - and the talented entertainers he built his entertainment empire on. Barnum was a legendary showman, entrepreneur, marketing genius, and one of the most famous nineteenth-century personalities. For those who lived in Barnum’s shadow, however, life was complex.

Born with a rare neurological condition, seventeen-year-old Quinn can't feel physical pain. It's a surprise he's still alive—a fact that has caused him to be left to his own devices for most of his life. No school, no friends, no rules. At the mercy of his older sister Caitlin, who has spent the past few years caring for their dying father, he spends his days drinking at a nearby bar, testing his limits, and working on a graphic novel about a mysterious vigilante called Shadow Man. Lately, even his art has taken a turn for the worse, and now he can't decide how his book should end.

I’d do anything for Bianca...except introduce her to my family. I know she wants to meet them, but I can’t predict what my dad might do. How can I tell her that? Our ugly family secret stays locked within our house, just the way Mum wants it to be. I won’t expose Bianca to it. But she’s starting to pull away from me. I can feel the wedge growing between us, and I don’t know how to stop it. Maybe she’s hiding something from me too. The light in her eyes doesn’t shine so bright these days. I wish I could figure out what is eating at her.

When a series of seemingly unrelated murders occur in his community, Sheriff Hyde Stinson grapples with how to protect the citizens of Telluride, Colorado. The killers take responsibility, but their motives are a mystery, and they remain on the loose. Hyde must now face the roughest group of outlaws in the area, The McCaffery Gang. Can he stop them alone, or will he need to rely on three brothers with bad reputations and questionable pasts?

Abby never expected life to be easy. The daughter of a father she's never met and a mother who works three jobs just to get by, she walks herself to her middle school in Chicago, fixes her own dinners, and keeps herself company. Despite all the disadvantages stacked against her, however, Abby manages to keep a smile on and even dedicates her time to helping others who have even less than her. But one July day, something happens in the city that causes a mass panic while she's out grocery shopping, and Abby's life is forever changed.

Cath and Wren are identical twins, and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university, and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She's horribly shy and has always buried herself in the fan fiction she writes, where she always knows exactly what to say and can write a romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life.

Banished from the Winter Court for daring to fall in love, Prince Ash achieved the impossible and journeyed to the End of the World to earn a soul and keep his vow to always stand beside Queen Meghan of the Iron Fey. Now he faces even more incomprehensible odds. Their son, King Keirran of the Forgotten, is missing. Something more ancient than the courts of Faery and more evil than anything Ash has faced in a millennium is rising as Evenfall approaches. And if Ash and his allies cannot stop it, the chaos that has begun to divide the world will shatter it for eternity.

Robin Goodfellow. Puck. Prankster, joker, raven, fool...King Oberon’s right-hand jester from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The legends are many, but the truth will now be known as never before, as Puck finally tells his own story and faces a threat unlike any before. A threat that brings him face-to-face with a new enemy...himself. With the Iron Queen Meghan Chase and her prince consort, Puck’s longtime rival Ash, and allies old and new by his side, Puck begins a fantastical and dangerous adventure not to be missed or forgotten.