Priya Sridhar Boeken

Curiosities returns with new steampunk stories of mysterious machines, curios contraptions, mannerly magicks, and tea. Ever so much tea. Illustrative collages by Martini Discovolante. The stories: Dorothea Defies Convention by A.J. BrennanThe Death Trade by Natasha C. CalderThe Instant by Harris CoverleyMary Shelley and the St Pancras Ghoul by Ian C. DouglasInkec by MM SchreierThe There-It-Is Store by Adam GaylordShards by JL GeorgeA Rainy Day at St Bartholomew's by Philip Brian HallEuphonia by Jason J. McCuistonSeven Cups of Tea by Gwen KatzThe Taste of Storms by Priya SridharThe Mirror Crack'd by Jordan TaylorThe Night Bazaar by Shaun van RensburgNonfiction: Gwen Katz interview

Kelli's powers of telekinesis, and her ability to speak to and understand inanimate objects has often seemed to mess things up, including causing her father to desert her and her mother; but now he is trying to get back into her life, and she is torn between anger, resentment, and maybe hope, emotions that are not improved when he immediately dumps her off at a tennis day camp, where one of the older girls seems to want to humiliate her--a situation that leads her to use her powers (with the enthusiastic assistance of her tennis ball and racket) to retaliate, and ultimately causes her to blow-up at her neglectful father

Kelli Paramar attends a charity auction at a haunted theater and is anxious to use her paranormal powers to talk to the mysterious black diamond to find out if it can shed light on her own powers, but after the auction the diamond is stolen from the art museum; at first Kelli suspects the strange man she noticed among the bidders, a man that apparently nobody else saw--but the other artifacts inform her that the man is Sturgeon Rackham who disappeared in 1900, and that the thief was a woman, who may be planning to use the diamond's aura against people like Kelli.

Thirteen-year-old Kelli Paramar has always kept her ability to talk to and hear objects a secret (especially after her father walked out after she told him years ago), but when she hears about Project Epiphany, which is studying the possibility of ESP and telekinesis by doing brain scans, she is interested--though she does not entirely trust the psychology professor in charge, it is only when some of the other test subjects start to vanish, that she realizes her suspicions are fully justified, and in fact the situation may be far worse than she imagined.

Thirteen-year-old Kelli Paramar is eager to join a gaming tournament with a team of other girls, despite a nasty team of boys that uses hacking not only to threaten the girls on the team, but to give themselves an advantage by adding extra powers to their avatars--Kelli finds out what is going on by using her power to talk to objects, but she is determined to expose the boys cheating without revealing her own secret