Tag Archive | death

W for Where the Broken Heart Still Beats, by Carolyn Meyer (book review) – captured by Indians, captured by family

Apr26

book cover of Where the Broken Heart Still Beats by Carolyn Meyer published by HarcourtWho does the land belong to?
Who is closer – family of blood or family by adoption?
Who decides which child a mother must be separated from?

While kidnapping of settlers’ children and wives by Native Americans was not uncommon on the Western frontier, bringing any back to their white families certainly was. Of course, it didn’t matter to her uncle and his family that Naduah had no interest in them or their strange customs and uncomfortable shoes.

Reunited with her children after death, Cynthia Ann is now buried in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, beside her Comanche warrior son Quanah and young daughter Topsannah.

Author of many historical fiction books for young adults, Carolyn Meyer was inspired to write Cynthia Ann’s story when she moved to Texas in the early 1990s, as she notes in this interview. Recently reissued with new cover art, Where the Broken Heart Still Beats  is a timeless tale of love, family, and conflict.

Which do you prefer – historical fiction or factual biographies?
**kmm

 local library  or independent bookstore

Book info:  Where the Broken Heart Still Beats: the Story of Cynthia Ann Parker (Great Episodes series) / Carolyn Meyer. Harcourt, 1992. [author site]  [publisher site]

My recommendation: Kidnapped not once but twice, a young girl in frontier Texas becomes the mother of a great Comanche warrior, yet feels like a prisoner as she dies among her blood relatives, far from those she loves.

Captured from her uncle’s settlement by Comanche raiders who killed many of her relatives, nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker soon adapted to life with the People, moving across the land as the seasons changed, growing into a strong young woman called Naduah who married chief Peta Nocona and bore him sons and a daughter.

Her Parker relatives never stopped searching for Cynthia Ann, as rumors of a light-eyed girl in the Comanche camps reached them through traders over the course of twenty-five years. But the elder chiefs would not accept any amount of trade goods for this hard-working daughter of the People, no matter what the white men asked.

Finally, the Parker men raided the Comanche camp when the warriors were hunting buffalo, almost shooting Naduah in their quest to remove the “Indian threat” from lands they wanted to settle. When they saw her light eyes, they realized this could be their long-gone cousin, and her startled response to the name ‘Sinty Ann’ showed they were right.

Now, Naduah and baby daughter Topsannah are securely within the Parker family compound, and her 12-year-old cousin Lucy tries to reawaken her memory of the English language and ‘civilized’ behavior. All Naduah wants is to return to her husband and sons, so she tries again and again to escape, but is always thwarted.

How long can her family keep her away from her family?
Who has rights to the land which has supported the Comanche for so long?
How long can a mother live without hearing her children’s voices?

Told in the alternating voices of cousin Lucy’s journal and Naduah’s reminiscences, this true episode from history captures the uneasy ebb and flow of relations between Native Americans and settlers in north Texas as the Lone Star State is on the brink of entering the Civil War.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

V for Versified in Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses, by Ron Koertge (book review) – brief and bitter fairy tales

Apr25

book cover of Lies Knives and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge published by CandlewickLies can morph into dark truths,
Knives can wound as much as they protect,
Girls in red dresses… red for romance? red for blood?

It’s Novels in Verse Week, so try some lies in Audition,  by Stasia Ward Kehoe, or travel through the blood shed in Karma,  by Cathy Ostlere, then watch out for the knives in this book, whose verses are as cuttingly sharp as its silhouette illustrations.

What other novels in verse have you read during National Poetry Month?
**kmm

Book info: Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses / Ron Koertge; illustrated by Andrea Dezso. Candlewick Press, 2012.  [author site] [artist site]  [publisher site] [book trailer]

My recommendation: Twenty fairy tales, twenty chances for freedom and redemption, so many choices, but rarely the right one.

Here “Godfather Death” has a Heisman Trophy winner for a godson, there “The Little Match Girl” tries to sell her CDs on a slum street corner. The offer of a “Bearskin” that will take away the wearer’s nightmares comes to a wounded soldier in the VA hospital.

Each tale is accompanied by Andrea Dezso’s silhouette illustrations, all black and white, lines and spaces, the better to imagine where the red-hooded girl meets the wolf, where the blood of ogres and slain wives flows, where sunset will soon leave the city in dangerous darkness.

Sharp and slim as a silver dagger, Koertge’s free verse slices away the sentimental layers added to the original Grimm Brothers’ tales to make dangerous situations and dire circumstances more palatable to modern audiences. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

S for Sisters in Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood, by Abby McDonald (book review) – Sense and Sensibility and sunscreen

Apr22

book cover of Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood by Abby McDonald published by CandlewickPoor relatives can’t be picky about things,
Change can be painful…
but landing on your feet in Beverly Hills – wow!

Hallie and Grace’s very rich stepmother sells the sisters’ home so that their half-brother will “be provided for” – curses on Dad for dying without a valid will!

And Grace is attracted to stepmother’s brother (her step-uncle?) who appreciates her love of science combined with art.

You can read the first three chapters  free here, then be ready to head for your local library or independent bookstore because you’ll want to read the rest of this updated version of Sense and Sensibility ! While you’re there, look for other titles by McDonald, like Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots  (my no-spoiler recommendation here).

What other modernized classics have you read lately?
**kmm

Book info: Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood / Abby McDonald. Candlewick Press, 2013. [author site] [publisher site]

My recommendation: Dad suddenly died and left everything to his new wife, including their childhood home. So Mom, Grace, and Hallie leave the misty cool of San Francisco and move in with Mom’s cousin – in his Beverly Hills mansion. Reinvent themselves or stay the same?

So weird to meet their stepmother’s brother at Dad’s wake – he’s just a bit older than the sisters. Theo and Grace visit all her favorite places in San Francisco one last time before she moves to L.A. and he heads back east to college. They were getting along so well…

Sometimes, Grace feels like the parent as big sister is dramatic to extremes and mom is artistic, laid-back. For them, being in Cousin Auggie’s guesthouse is starting anew; for shy Grace, it’s anguishing to change, no matter how nice their cousin’s young starlet wife is to them.

Hallie can’t wait to start her acting career, but agencies won’t even let her in the door. A chance encounter on the beach gets her into an exclusive circle of young actresses where she meets Dakota, lead singer for the hottest band, new love of her life! She’ll be his inspiration now, and life is very, very good. Never mind scarred Brandon next door, offering to photograph her for agency headshots, trying to get over his tour in Iraq.

Grace stays by the pool at Auggie’s all summer, then tries to find her place among the rich and ritzy at her new high school. Her lab partner Harry at least does his share of work and business-builder Palmer is a crazy-fun antidote to the celebrity gossip around them. Mom is so wrapped up in painting a new portrait series that she honestly has no idea what her daughters are experiencing, aside from the careful comments they make during family Sunday brunch.

Will Hallie ever get an audition? Will Dakota stay true to her?
Can Grace get over what might have been with Theo?
What happens when the in-crowd gossip hits a little too close to home?

Yes, this is Sense and Sensibility  transplanted into 92010 with all the social posturing and misunderstandings intact – and an added dose of sunscreen, rock music, and current events.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Q for Quest – Exile, by Rebecca Lim (book review) – amnesiac angel on a mission

Apr19

book cover of Exile by Rebecca Lim published by Hyperion TeenWaking up in a daze, again.
In someone else’s body, again.
Clinging to a thread of her own memory again.

An exiled angel, a desperate man, hints of other powers thwarting Mercy’s attempts to remember Luc or Ryan or why she cared for them – add this to a dead-end coffee shop job and a dying mother… how will Mercy resolve Lela’s situation and give the Melbourne teen her body back?

You’ll understand more of Mercy’s predicament if you read Mercy  first (see my no-spoiler recommendation) and sneak a peek at chapter 1 of Exile here. Hoping that Muse (book 3) and Fury  (book 4) get to the USA from Australia soon!

Can you truly remember love when all other memories are gone?
**kmm

Book info: Exile (Mercy, book 2) / Rebecca Lim. Hyperion, 2012. [author info]  [publisher site]

My recommendation:  Slammed awake in yet another body, Mercy now must answer to the name Lela, to care for ‘her’ mother dying of cancer, to work at ‘her’ dead-end job at the rundown café, to discover why she’s been called into this particular body at this exact time.

She has fragmentary memories of inhabiting a young singer’s body in another country, of being loved by a young man even after he realized she was not the real Carmen…why can’t she remember more of her time there? And just a flash of celestial Luc’s searing kisses in her dreams.

Poor Lela has had such a hard-luck life in this dreary Australian city, and now this, her mother withering before her very eyes. Perhaps Mercy was brought into her body to ease the pain of Mum’s passing, or she’s supposed to help Justine escape her terrible boyfriend, maybe turn co-worker Reggie into a decent human being (nah, impossible).

Mercy lets Lela’s muscle-memory take over coffee orders called to the barista, the best ways to ease around her grumpy boss and terrifying Sulaiman the cook. One man uses the café as his mid-morning office and helps her search for Carmen’s name on his computer in exchange for a dinner date. Very twitchy and OCD, this Ranald. Lela has turned him down for dates several times, it seems.

Rushing home when Lela’s mother takes a turn for the worse, Mercy is accosted by a small patch of energy, a being who’s as trapped here as she is, who gives her a tiny clue about who or what she might truly be. But there are larger problems ahead as a crazed customer threatens to kill everyone in the café, Justine’s boyfriend gets abusive, and Mercy’s online search for Carmen and Ryan is attracting unwanted attention in the city and elsewhere.

Could she really love Ryan, or is Luc right about the past she cannot remember?
Who is she? What is she? Why is Mercy right here, right now?
As Mercy journeys from body to body, can she ever find out where she truly belongs?

This second book in the Mercy series by Australian author Rebecca Lim is followed by Muse.  While Exile  can stand alone, read Mercy  first for maximum enjoyment. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher through NetGalley.

L for Lost Crown, by Sarah Miller (book review) – Romanov grand duchesses, sisters, doomed

Apr13

book cover of The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller published by Atheneum Books for Young ReadersOlga and Tatiana,
Maria and Anastasia.
Royal blood unites them,
Royal blood dooms them.

The sisters Romanov truly believed that the Russian people loved them and their ailing young brother, the Crown Prince. But World War I revealed the truth, and their lives went from merriment and joy to grim gratitude for being allowed to stay together under house arrest in Siberia during the Revolution.

And does author Sarah Miller think that Anastasia survived? Read The Lost Crown  at your local library or independent bookstore to find out for yourself!
**kmm

Book info:  The Lost Crown / Sarah Miller.  Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2012.  [author site]  [publisher site]  [author interview video]

My recommendation: Sailing on the imperial yacht that 1914 summer day, none of the sisters could imagine that their world would soon erupt in war, that the whole world would go to war, that the people’s love for their papa would turn to hate and “Down with the Tsar!” would sound throughout Russia.

When war is declared, the four grand duchesses – eldest Olga, prim Tatiana, peacemaker Maria, and Anastasia, who wishes she could fight alongside her father – and little Alexei, the Tsarevich, the royal heir, whose hemophilia makes every bruise life-threatening, must stay behind when Nicholas II goes to command the Russian troops.

As their mother, the Tsarina frets over every fever; as Mother of all Russian Children, she agonizes over the waves of wounded soldiers returning from the front. Her increasing reliance on mystic Rasputin and her German heritage condemn her in the eyes of the rebels who overthrow the government in the midst of World War.

The royal guard deserts them, Papa must abdicate the crown, and suddenly the longest family reign in history is broken as the Romanovs are taken from their palace, shifted through different cities secretively, and erased from Russian memory.

Why did the military turn on their Tsar and join the rebel forces?
How long can Alexei endure the rough travel without his doctor?
Will the royal family live through the glory days of the Russian Revolution?

Each chapter tells the fateful story from the viewpoint of a different sister, whose personality shines through, enlivening this pivotal tale of history with everyday customs and Russian endearments whispered by their parents. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

K for Key to the Golden Firebird, by Maureen Johnson (book review) – road trip with their late father

Apr12

book cover of The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson published by HarperTeen K for the key,
Baltimore baseball-loving Dad’s key,
the key to his beloved gold Pontiac Firebird…
but what’s the key to the teen Gold sisters coping with life without him?

Things get interesting when May starts thinking of Pete as more than just the annoying practical-joker boy-next-door during their driving lessons.

Maureen Johnson’s tale of the three sisters’ summer of tough love, rough breaks, and glimmers of new hope holds up well several years after its initial publication in 2004 (with a different cover; this is the 2008 version) and is a great choice for National D.E.A.R. Day as you “Drop Everything And Read” (which I hope you do every day).

Is it always this difficult to pick up the pieces after an unexpected loss?
**kmm

Book info:  The Key to the Golden Firebird / Maureen Johnson.  Harper Teen, 2008.  [author site]  [publisher site]

My recommendation: The heart attack that took their dad a year ago also shattered life for the three Gold sisters. No more cheering at their softball games, no more road trips to baseball games, no more of lots of things since Dad’s life insurance didn’t cover much. It’s still up to May to watch out for everyone; maybe she can find some time for herself…someday.

Now Mom works double-shifts at the hospital to keep the family afloat, older sister Brooks is coping by drinking instead of starring on the softball team, 14-year-old Palmer rejects almost anything that she should eat, and middle sister May is going crazy trying to take care of them and keep up her grades. To stop depending on wildly undependable Brooks for a ride to work, May must get her driver’s license, but has failed her first test – ever.

It’s finally come down to this, asking Pete for help – Pete, whose pranks pulled at May’s expense are legendary – desperate times indeed, if she has to get her life-long nemesis to teach her to drive. And so the summer begins, with May stalling out at stop signs, listening to Nell at work chronicle her dates with Pete, telling Palmer to turn down the television over and over, worrying about Brooks, wondering about this new friendship with Pete.

When Palmer discovers something they’d almost forgotten about, the sisters realize that they have to make one more road trip in Dad’s beloved Firebird before they have to sell the classic car.

Can they honor their dad’s love of baseball without tearing themselves apart?
Can they pull off the trip without Mom learning about it?
Can they put their family back together before it’s too late?

Maybe family and friendship can overcome the odds in this story of finding what’s important in the midst of sorrow for this trio of sisters, named after baseball greats by the dad they adored.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Book in my personal collection. Cover image courtesy of the publisher.

I for In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters (book review) – dead man’s worries, live girl’s fears

Apr10

book cover of In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters published by AmuletSpirit photography,
Searching for answers,
Trying to find meaning for all those deaths…

Between the ongoing “Great War” (World War I) and the sudden Spanish Influenza epidemic, fall 1918 was a dangerous and desperate time in the USA. Researchers were trying to ascertain the weight of the human soul, wondering yet again what animates life.

Read the wartime poetry of Isaac Rosenberg to imagine what life in the trenches was like for Stephen, consider that scientists are still puzzled about how the Spanish Flu killed so many healthy 20- to 40-year-olds, and you too might wish to see the image of a dead loved one when the photographer’s glass plate negative was developed.

Just published on April 2, 2013 – don’t miss it!
**kmm

Book info: In the Shadow of Blackbirds / Cat Winters. Amulet Books, 2013.  [author site]  [book site]  [publisher site]  [book trailer]

My recommendation: When Mary was sent to her aunt’s house in San Diego, her father thought she would be safe from the influenza epidemic, from the authorities who imprisoned him when he spoke out against the war, from fear. He couldn’t know that her sweetheart’s ghost would visit her and cry out for justice.

Schools, theaters, dance halls – all closed to keep the contagion from spreading, but in autumn 1918 the death toll is mounting here and over in Europe where countless soldiers are dying. Aunt Eva lost her husband in the earliest days of the epidemic and is trying to contact him through spirit photography and séances.

Stephen told Mary that his brother Julius used trickery to create the spirit photographs, but after her sweetheart left for the war, she visited the studio with her aunt anyway. An expert who debunks spirit photographers has found nothing fraudulent in Julius’ work where ghostly images appear next to the living.

The letters from Stephen stop arriving, a telegram comes for his family, a funeral for yet another fallen young soldier – then he starts visiting Mary in her dreams and her waking moments, begging her to make the blackbirds quit attacking him. She volunteers her time at the veterans’ center, reading to injured soldiers back from the war. One man tells her that Stephen wasn’t killed over there, and 16-year-old Mary begins to wonder what really happened.

Is she truly talking to Stephen’s spirit?
How could blackbirds have caused his death?
Why does he tell Mary to stay away from his family’s house and studio?

The author ably captures the terror of the Spanish flu epidemic which often killed within hours and the longing of people wanting to believe that death is not the end of everything in this historical novel with a psychic twist. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

H for Heath in Catherine, by April Lindner (book review) – music, mystery, star-crossed lovers

Apr9

book cover of Catherine by April Lindner published by PoppyA legendary punk rock club,
Launching new talent, booking the best bands,
Just home-sweet-home…until she disappears.

It’s easy to see why Chelsea wants to find out more about the mother she thought was dead, to discover what made Catherine leave her behind, to learn why she never communicated with them again. What better place than The Underground, where Catherine grew up?

Based on the classic doomed romance of Wuthering Heights  and transported to the punk music scene of New York City, Catherine features alternating chapters by Chelsea now and Catherine then, threaded throughout with missed cues, misunderstandings, and mystery.

Check out “How I Wrote It” article by Lindner here, then read the first two chapters of Catherine  here – you’ll be hooked!

So, why are we so attracted to stories of romance with unhappy endings?
**kmm

Book info: Catherine / April Lindner. Poppy/ Little Brown, 2013.  [author site]  [publisher site]

My recommendation: As a teen Chelsea discovers that her mother didn’t die years ago as Dad told her, but had left to find out something and never returned. What and why are questions that Chelsea vows to answer – now!

Dad never told her much about Mom; it was a letter from her addressed to toddler Chelsea that she finds in a box of old photos that spurs her search. That return address in New York City is her only lead, so away she goes. Turns out that Mom’s family home is a decades-old punk rock club founded by Chelsea’s late grandfather! The Underground launched countless bands in the 70s and now is owned by a moody guy named Hence…who knew Catherine, her mom.

Unwillingly, Hence allows Chelsea to stay in Catherine’s old apartment in The Underground for a few days while she tries to piece together some answers. When Chelsea finds Catherine’s journal among her collection of books, even more questions arise. Now she must locate Mom’s best friend and her brother before it’s time to head home to Dad and school.

Why do folks at the club react so strangely to her mom’s name?
Where did mom’s brother go when he gave up the club after the death of their father?
What exactly is Hence’s connection to Catherine?

As Chelsea discovers more about the mom she never got to know, alternating chapters have Catherine telling her own story of love, music, passion, and betrayal. This updated version of Wuthering Heights,  transplanted from the gloomy moors to New York’s music world, spins through both young women’s lives with all the personal turmoil and drama intact.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

E for Elle in A Conspiracy of Alchemists, by Liesl Schwarz (fiction) – steampunk, magic, love, danger

Apr5

book cover of A Conspiracy of Alchemists by Liesel Schwarz published by Del Rey BooksCorrect steam pressure in airship boiler? Check.
Passenger and cargo aboard? Check.
Clearance from Paris station to cast off? No? No?! Go, go, go, go!!

Being raised as a rational woman by her scientist father, airship captain Elle is most skeptical of Warlock Marsh’s claim that she will soon transform into Pythia as she becomes the world’s next Oracle, just as her runaway mother was…before her untimely death.

A wild chase after an artifact which must not fall into the hands of evil Alchemists takes Elle and Marsh from Oxford to Istanbul via Venice in this first book of The Chronicles of Light and Dark.

Can anyone outrun their destiny?
**kmm

Book info: A Conspiracy of Alchemists (Book One of The Chronicles of Light and Dark) / Liesel Schwarz. Del Rey, 2013. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation:  A routine airship charter flight from Paris to London turns into a quest to close the gateway between evil Dark and the rational scientific world of Light for a young lady pilot in 1903, who little realizes that she is the gate-key that both sides will do anything to possess.

When a Warlock steals the sealed wooden box just given to her, Eleanor thinks she should have questioned her docking agent Patrice more closely before taking this charter. As gunfire starts at the Paris airfield, the young pilot knows that this is not a routine flight for her steam air-freighter at all, and when she arrives home in Oxford to find that her inventor father has kidnapped, she realizes that all these events are connected somehow.

Her charter passenger Mr. Marsh is really Viscount Greychester, an eminent Warlock on the Council which harnesses the Dark for productive purposes in this world. All signs point to Dr. Chance being abducted by the Alchemists, whose service to the undead Nightwalkers over centuries has made them hungry to unleash the Dark into this world for their own nefarious purposes.

Off go Elle and Marsh in the professor’s experimental gyrocopter, racing to reach the Council in Venice before the Alchemists can get there by train. No, Elle will not discuss her mother, who abandoned the family and was killed. No, Elle couldn’t have inherited her spiritual gifts, can’t possibly be an oracle, the Oracle, the key that would allow access to the full powers of Dark…

Unsatisfactory answers in Venice, reports that the Alchemists’ train is en route to Istanbul, visions appearing in Elle’s dreams… time is growing short, and the box stolen from Elle in Paris holds a magical substance that could allow the Alchemists to start pulling Dark power without the Nightwalkers’ assistance – if Dr. Chance is forced to create the triggering device!

Can they trust former allies in a strange land?
Is Elle truly on the verge of becoming the Oracle foretold?
Is Marsh really walking into her dreams of love?

There’s danger at every turn as Elle and Marsh must battle air pirates, rescue Dr. Chance, and race against time to save the world from Darkness eternal in this steampunk-paranormal start to The Chronicles of Light and Dark. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

D for Doty’s Surviving High School (book review) – school, swim, sleep, repeat?

Apr4

book cover of Surviving High School by M Doty published by Poppy Books Ultra-competitive swim team,
Every life-minute scripted by Dad-the-coach,
Why isn’t big sister Sara here to help Emily cope with her freshman year of high school?

No wonder Emily wants to sidestep the schedule and have some time with Ben. After all, Sara didn’t get to have her first love before dying in that car crash…

Whether you know the mobile game of the same name or not, you’ll agonize with Emily over the choices she has to make and cheer when at least some things go her way. Max Doty’s second book in the series, How to Be a Star, features Emily’s best (and only) friend Kimi and will be published in May 2013.

How far should you push yourself to get to the victor’s stand?
**kmm

Book info: Surviving High School / M. Doty. Poppy, 2012.  [author website]  [publisher website]

My recommendation: Competitive swimming is Emily’s whole life as she enters high school. Gotta keep up her grades to stay eligible, gotta keep her race times fast to stay on top. But what if there’s more to life than this?

Her dad is the high school swim coach, just as he was when her older sister was at Twin Branches, before she died in the car crash. There’s Sara’s name on the state records plaque with her national record time for the backstroke – a lot to live up to, a goal for Emily to beat.

She’ll have to beat Dominique, too, who’s just a trace faster on freestyle and backstroke, just a bit slower than Em in breaststroke and butterfly, way beyond anyone else at school in mean-girl remarks, nicknaming her “Swimbot” on their first day of varsity practice. That article in Swimmers’ World magazine comparing the girls as future Olympians just adds fuel to the fire.

Emily’s entire life is optimized for swim racing – nutrition intake, sleep hours, strength training – and there’s no room for anything else. With the national qualifying meets coming up, she’s got to concentrate. Handsome Ben starts paying attention to her, but can’t understand why she doesn’t have time to see him outside school…sigh.

Could Emily possibly squeeze in a little time with Ben between her honors classes and the ever-increasing demands for perfection from Coach/Dad?

Does senior Nick flinch when he sees Emily because she looks so much like her late sister, who never had time for a boyfriend?

Will she swim through her freshman year or sink from the weight of everything?

This first YA novel from screenwriter/author Max Doty reflects his experience as game writer for the related mobile game, but stands alone as a story of big demands on young athletes – are all the choices theirs to make? (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.