ambition

Fifteen-year-old Angela Jenkins accepts Shayla Mercer's offer to make sure Angela wins the holiday fashion show competition, but she soon learns that the price of instant popularity can be very high.

Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she's finally gained the control she's always sought--and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She'll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other. With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity--and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.

Victor breaks out of prison with the help of a young girl with great abilities to find his college roommate, when he discovers that their thesis about how adrenaline, near-death experiences, and supernatural events can make someone gain extraordinary abilities under the right conditions is being used by his college friend.

"Ellie de Florent-Stinson is celebrating her fortieth birthday with a grand celebration in her fabulous house in Palm Springs. At forty, it appears Ellie has everything she ever wanted: a handsome husband; an accomplished, college-age stepdaughter; a beautiful ten-year-old girl; two adorable and rambunctious six-year-old twin boys; lush, well-appointed homes in Los Angeles, Park City, and Palm Springs; a thriving career as a well-known fashion designer of casual women's wear; and a glamorous circle of friends. Except everything is not quite as perfect as it looks on the outside--Ellie is keeping many secrets. This isn't the first birthday celebration that hasn't gone as planned. There's a certain sixteenth birthday that she's tried hard to forget. But hiding the skeletons of her past comes at a cost, and all of Ellie's secrets come to light on the night of her fabulous birthday party in the desert--where everyone who matters in her life shows up, invited or not"--Provided by publisher.

"High schooler Akiko has big plans to become a popular mangaka before she even graduates, but she's got a lot to learn if she ever wants to reach her goal. Looking for an easy fix, she signs up for an art class, thinking all her problems will soon be solved. She's in for a surprise: her new instructor is a bamboo sword-wielding taskmaster who thinks her drawings are crap. But maybe this unconventional art teacher is just what she needs to realize her dreams!"--Back of cover.

Twelve-year-old Mischa "Ish" Love's longtime dream has been to someday live on Mars, but when she collapses on the first day of seventh grade, Ish receives a diagnosis which threatens her future plans.

Allie, Bella, Carly, and Marlo, eight-year-old performers in the Stardust Circus, are normally best friends--but when a film crew comes to do a television special on the circus, Allie's dreams of being a Hollywood star threaten to drive a wedge between them.

"Based on interviews with over forty women about their experiences in the twenty-five years since they graduated from college, the book discusses topics such as ambition, mixing career and family, and sexism in the workplace"--OCLC.

Katie and Eric Knox are parents to Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful. But when a violent death turns their close-knit gymnastics community upside down, rumors swirl, and Katie finds herself irresistibly drawn to the crime. And as tensions escalate, Katie must consider whether there's anything she wouldn't do to help Devon achieve her dreams.