"Chloe Kwon can't stand Peter Li. It's always been that way. Their families don't get along either: their parents operate rival restaurants in the Riverwood Mall food court--Korean food for the Kwons and Chinese food for the Lis. Now it's the holiday season and Chloe's the photographer at the mall's Santa Land, and Peter works at the virtual reality North Pole experience right across the atrium. It's all Chloe can do to avoid Peter's smug, incredibly...

"Theo Mori and Gabriel Moreno have always been at odds. Their parents own rival businesses-an Asian American café and a Puerto Rican bakery-and Gabi's lack of coordination has cost their soccer team too many games to count. Stuck in the closet and scared to pursue his own dreams, Gabi sees his parents' shop as his future. Stuck under the weight of his parents' expectations, Theo's best shot at leaving Vermont means first ensuring his parents' livelihood...

Fifteen-year-olds Mack, a high school drop-out but a genius with dogs, and Céce, who hopes to use her intelligence to avoid a life like her mother's, meet and fall in love at the restaurant where they both work, but when Mack lands in prison he pushes Céce away and only a one-eared pit-bull can keep them together.

Sixteen-year-old Beck rediscovers herself while working with a group of misfits at the local pizza parlor where she was born.

"Working as a Wench--i.e., waitress--at a cheesy medieval-themed restaurant in the Chicago suburbs, Kit Sweetly wishes she could be a Knight like her brother. She has the moves, is capable on a horse, and desperately needs the raise that comes with knighthood, so she can hold a spot at her dream college and help her mom pay the mortgage. Company policy allows only guys to be Knights. So when Kit takes her brother's place, clobbers the Green Knight,...