Showing results by author "Sarah Fine" in All Categories

Ernestine “Ernie” Terwilliger has put her dreams aside to look after her eccentric mother. Case in point: saving her from a mysterious stranger who’s just stormed the terrified woman’s antique store wearing a rattlesnake tattoo, leveling threats, and brandishing the weirdest deck of cards Ernie’s ever seen. When Ernie grabs some of the cards and runs, she’s launched into a world she never knew existed - one her mother may know more about than she’s revealing. With a handful of stolen cards, Ernie has just been made an unwilling player in a game of good versus evil.

A week ago, 17-year-old Lela Santos’ best friend, Nadia, killed herself. Today, thanks to a farewell ritual gone awry, Lela is standing in paradise, looking upon a vast gated city in the distance - hell. No one willingly walks through the Suicide Gates, into a place smothered in darkness and infested with depraved creatures. But Lela isn’t just anyone - she’s determined to save her best friend’s soul, even if it means sacrificing her eternal afterlife. As Lela struggles to find Nadia, she’s captured by the Guards, enormous, not-quite-human creatures that patrol the dark city’s endless streets.

Galena Margolis, a brilliant scientist with a tragic past, is determined to fulfill her destiny and develop the vaccine that could save millions. Yet when Galena's test subjects meet with foul play, it's clear that someone is still determined to stop her and that Galena herself is a target. As the Ferry empire forges a plan to keep her safe, Declan Ferry, the politics-hating black sheep of the family, steps forward to protect her - but the emotional cost may be more than either of them is willing to pay.

What would it take to transform industrial-era schools into modern organizations capable of supporting deep learning for all? Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine's quest to answer this question took them inside some of America's most innovative schools and classrooms - places where educators are rethinking both what and how students should learn. The story they tell is alternately discouraging and hopeful. Drawing on hundreds of hours of observations and interviews at 30 different schools, Mehta and Fine reveal that deeper learning is more often the exception than the rule.

In a broken landscape carved by environmental collapse, Boston paramedic Cacia Ferry risks life and limb on the front lines of a fragile and dangerous city. What most don't know - including her sexy new partner, Eli Margolis - is that while Cacy works to save lives, she has another job ferrying the dead to the Afterlife. Once humans are "Marked" by Fate, the powerful Ferrys are called to escort the vulnerable souls to either eternal bliss or unending fire and pain.

Aislin Ferry and Jason Moros have only days until they will be called to account before the Keepers of the Afterlife. Yet as they race to restore order and make their case, their worlds fall into total disarray. Mutiny within the fractured Ferry family threatens Aislin's hold on power and role as Charon. Meanwhile, the fearsome Lord of the Kere has family trouble of his own. Someone is unraveling the fabric of fate, and Moros suspects one of his supernatural siblings is behind the terrible bid to unleash Chaos.

Mattie Carver's engagement party should have marked the start of her own personal fairy tale. But when her fiancé, Ben, is violently abducted the next morning, her desperate quest to find him rips her away from small-town life and reveals a shattering truth: magic is real - and Ben is hooked. It's not the stuff of storybooks. It's wildly addictive, capable of producing everything from hellish anguish to sensual ecstasy almost beyond human endurance.

Mattie Carver has relinquished the world of magic, with all its dark temptations. In six weeks, she'll marry Ben Ward and claim the safe, small-town life she craves. But Mattie's talents as a reliquary - someone able to smuggle magic within her body - make her a valuable commodity, even to those she trusts the most. Forced out of retirement by a painful betrayal, she must seek the help of the man she's tried desperately to stay away from: Ben's estranged brother, Asa.

Mattie Carver never thought she'd give up her small-town life to become one half of the best magic-smuggling duo in the business. Until recently, she didn't even know such a business existed. But as an unusually strong reliquary - able to carry vast quantities of magic in her body, undetected - she's been pulled into an underworld of organized crime and addictive enchantments.

One minute, Ernestine “Ernie” Terwilliger was a fairly normal young woman with an almost normal life. Absent father. Peculiar mother. Family secrets. The next, she was hurled into a land where the Immortal Dealers are waging a battle between good and evil - and where the fate of the world is in the cards. Having only started to master her own deck, the inexperienced Ernie places the wrong bet on the right guy at the worst time. That’s when she’s bounced into another realm and trapped there by a formidable and power-hungry rogue Dealer.

Cora should remember every detail about the night her stepsister, Hannah, fell down a flight of stairs to her death, especially since her Cerepin - a sophisticated brain-computer interface - may have recorded each horrifying moment. But when she awakens after that night, her memories gone, Cora is left with only questions - and dread of what the answers might mean.

In the week since Lela returned to Rhode Island, local news has been dominated by chilling sightings of human-like creatures running on all fours. Lela knows there’s only one explanation: The Mazikin have arrived in the land of the living. Needing to maintain the appearance of a normal life, Lela returns to Warwick High along with Malachi. At night they hunt for the Mazikin nest along with two new Guards. Jim, one rogue recruit, repeatedly challenges Lela’s authority. Lela struggles to keep all her Guards on the right side of the law, but their mistakes come at a terrible cost.

Tate and his father don't exactly get along. As Tate sees it, his father has unreasonably high expectations for Tate to be the best - at everything. Tate finally learns what he's being prepared for when he steals one of his dad's odd tech inventions and mercenaries ambush the school, killing his father in the process and sending Tate on the run from aliens who look just like humans. Even with all he knows, like how to defend himself with useful tools made out of bubblegum, Tate fears he's still inadequate.

With Juri in control and everything in absolute chaos, Lela plunges into the depths of hell to free Malachi from creatures that have waited decades to exact their revenge. But the Judge has her own way of doing things, and Lela must work with Ana, the new Captain, who has a very personal mission of her own. Together, they infiltrate the most horrifying realm either has yet encountered in the Shadowlands - the bitter landscape ruled by the Mazikin.

Ernestine “Ernie” Terwilliger never intended to live among the Immortal Dealers, much less to be party to an ongoing battle where the fate of humanity is in the draw of a card. And the stakes have gotten only higher now that a shady new Forger has been crowned. Virginia may be in charge of creating the chaos that makes the universe tick, but her assignments have been noble - each one in the aid of strangers. But when Ernie discovers Virginia’s true purpose, she realizes it’s going to take an entirely new kind of play to stop her.

In a future United States where those who control technology control the wealth, 17-year-old Marguerite's viral video propels a populist candidate to presidential victory on a platform of "tech for all". But as the mouthpiece of the new leader determined to break the elite stronghold, Marguerite finds herself on the opposite side of the divide in a new high school full of technocrat teens. When the enigmatic Percy, with his flamboyant fashion sense, sharp wit, and tragic past, takes an interest in her, she is suspicious.

Sixteen-year-old Wen assists her father in his medical clinic, housed in a slaughterhouse staffed by the Noor, men hired as cheap factory labor. Wen often hears the whisper of a ghost in the slaughterhouse, a ghost who grants wishes to those who need them most. And after one of the Noor humiliates Wen, the ghost grants an impulsive wish of hers - brutally.

In the year since the collapse of the slaughterhouse where Wen worked as her father’s medical assistant, she’s held all her secrets close. She works in the clinic at the weapons factory and sneaks away to nurse Bo, once the Ghost, now a boy determined to transform himself into a living machine. Their strange, fragile friendship soothes some of the ache of missing Melik, the strong-willed Noor who walked away from Wen all those months ago - but it can’t quell her fears for him.

Vor einer Woche hat sich Lela Santos' beste Freundin Nadia das Leben genommen. Heute steht Lela nach einem missglückten Abschiedsritual im Paradies und blickt zu einer gigantischen ummauerten Stadt in der Ferne auf - der Hölle. Niemand durchschreitet freiwillig das Selbstmordtor, um an einen Ort zu gelangen, der in Dunkelheit erstickt und von verkommenen Geschöpfen heimgesucht wird.