Breaking Twig


Deborah Epperson - 2011
    Not even Twig’s vivid imagination, keen wit, and dark sense of humor is enough to help her survive the escalating assaults of Helen and a new stepbrother, but help comes from an unexpected source—Frank, her stepfather. Sometimes, having one person who loves and believes in you is all a girl needs to keep hope alive. Often raw and irreverent and sprinkled with all the Southern flavoring found in a good bowl of chicken and dumplings, BREAKING TWIG, is about finding love where we least expect it, destroying lives with easy lies, and realizing each of us determine our own truth. (Taken from author's website.)

Connected by the Sea


E.L. Todd - 2014
    Her best friend, Henry, has an invested interest in her, but Sydney never seems to notice. While Henry is the perfect man, she only dates the wrong guys. Her ex-boyfriend cheated on her, broke her heart, and now she’s too shattered to give anyone a chance. Until Coen… A sexy bad boy with a tattoo, he elicits dark desires Sydney hasn’t felt in so long. His intense eyes, the color of the sea, capture her sight, making it impossible to look away. She tries to avoid him, knowing he’s no good for her, but Coen, who always gets what he wants, doesn’t take no for an answer. Will Sydney regret this decision? Or will she find what’s been missing her entire life? The family she lost, the loves she misses, and the trust she never thought she could have for someone else?

The Secret of Lies


Barbara Forte Abate - 2010
    Days later, lost and floundering in a dreary motel room without plan or destination, it is a long ago song playing on the radio that gently tugs Stevie back through the dust of remembrance. 1957 - The last summer spent at the ancient house overlooking the North Atlantic. A season which had unfolded with abundant promise, but then spiraled horribly out of control - torn apart by a shattering tragedy that leaves a family impossibly broken ... "This is a coming-of-age story at its best." "It was as if I could smell the sea air as the words unfolded from the page and danced around me. It was really breathtaking." "An impressive and detailed story of love, loss, and betrayal ... " "An amazingly accurate account of how many lives can be affected by one single moment in time, and how long the repercussions can last." "The imagery and character depths capture the reader by both hands with the author not letting go, even at the very end." "I recommend this book for anyone who appreciates the beauty of the written word and a story well-told."

So I'm a Double Threat


Julie Prestsater - 2009
    Expectations and hopes are high for their Freshman year. Meggie wants nothing more than to experience all high school has to offer – growing freedom, hot boys, parties, make-out sessions, and did I mention hot boys? Enter Alex Aguilar. At seventeen, he is Carver High’s sports superstar and dreamy superstud. Yet, despite the hype, Alex is undeniably sweet, and Meggie is beyond smitten. But, of course, he is a SENIOR. So, ought to be completely off limits for a ninth grader, right? Age doesn’t always dictate whom you will love, though. So I’m A Double Threat is the start of their journey. Will young love survive the challenges presented them or is friendship all they can only really hope for? Backs will be stabbed, hearts will be broken, tears will be shed. But, despite this, Meggie’s strong-willed determination, loyalty, and zest for fun, will ensure the ride is a memorable one. (This book has mature content intended for older young adult audiences.)

Sleepers


Megg Jensen - 2011
    Now she's filled with uncontrollable rage and access to magic she thought had been bled from her people years ago. Even her years of secret training in elite hand-to-hand combat and meditation can’t calm the fires raging inside her.Her heart is torn between two boys, the one she’s always loved and the one who always ignored her. But when the kingdom threatens to tear itself apart due to rumors surrounding the queen’s alleged affair, who will Lianne protect and who will she destroy?

Forever & Always


Jasinda Wilder - 2013
    Even if it’s just random stuff, nothing important, they’re important to me. Gramps is great, and I love working on the ranch.But…I’m lonely.I feel disconnected, like I’m no one, like I don’t belong anywhere. Like I’m just here until something else happens. I don’t even know what I want with my future. But your letters, they make me feel connected to something, to someone. I had a crush on you, when we first met. I thought you were beautiful. So beautiful. It was hard to think of anything else. Then camp ended and we never got together, and now all I have of you is these letters.S**t.I just told you I have a crush on you. HAD. Had a crush. Not sure what is anymore. A letter-crush? A literary love? That’s stupid. Sorry. I just have this rule with myself that I never throw away what I write and I always send it, so hopefully this doesn’t weird you out too much. I had a dream about you too. Same kind of thing. Us, in the darkness, together.Just us.And it was like you said, a memory turned into a dream, but a memory of something that’s never happened, but in the dream it felt so real, and it was more, I don’t even know, more RIGHT than anything I’ve ever felt, in life or in dreams. I wonder what it means that we both had the same dream about each other. Maybe nothing, maybe everything. You tell me.Cade----------------------------------------------------------------Cade,We’re pen pals. Maybe that’s all we’ll ever be. I don’t know. If we met IRL (in real life, in case you’re not familiar with the term) what would happen? And just FYI, the term you used, a literary love? It was beautiful. So beautiful. That term means something, between us now. We are literary loves. Lovers? I do love you, in some strange way. Knowing about you, in these letters, knowing your hurt and your joys, it means something so important to me, that I just can’t describe. I need your art, and your letters, and your literary love.If we never have anything else between us, I need this. I do. Maybe this letter will only complicate things, but like you I have a rule that I never erase or throw away what I’ve written and I always send it, no matter what I write in the letter. Your literary love,Ever

My Temporary Life


Martin Crosbie - 2011
    Growing up, he's raised by a promiscuous mother who can't stay out of trouble, his best friend is a thirteen-year-old alcoholic, and the masters at his tough Scottish school are always raising their canes in his direction. When he becomes an adult, he escapes, and chooses the safe route, watching the world from a distance.Everything changes the day he meets the beautiful, alluring, green-eyed Heather, and when he learns of Heather's own abusive childhood and the horrific secret she's been carrying, Malcolm decides to help her. And, this time he's not backing down, whatever the cost.

Adventures in Funeral Crashing


Milda Harris - 2011
    At one of these, Kait is outted by the most popular guy in school, Ethan Ripley. Yet, instead of humiliating her for all the world to see, he asks for her help, and Kait finds herself entangled in a murder mystery. Not only is the thrill of the mystery exciting, but more importantly Ethan knows her name! A little sleuthing is well worth that!

Throwaway


Heather Huffman - 2010
    But even if Jessie could walk away from Spence, there are darker forces of evil who won't let her go that easily. In this romantic suspense, author Heather Huffman delivers an adventure from the vibrant streets of St. Louis to the caves of the Ozarks as Jessie discovers whether she can love another, whether she can love herself, and whether any of it is enough.Throwaway is the first installment in the surprisingly warm and funny series The Throwaways, twelve novels that don’t shy away from the dark corners of this world but always shine the light of hope. At the core of the series is a group of strong but often unlikely heroes and heroines coming from all walks of life whose lives intertwine as they fight for justice, for love, and to leave their indelible mark on this world.Immerse yourself in a world of suspense, laughter, and love with The Throwaways.

The Key


Jennifer Anne Davis - 2013
    Nineteen-year-old Darmik is the king’s son and Commander of the King’s Army. He spends his days roving the island, doing his father’s bidding and trying to maintain control over the people.When a chance encounter throws Rema and Darmik together, they share an instantaneous connection, but any sort of relationship between them is strictly forbidden. Darmik’s brother, the Crown Prince, notices Darmik’s interest in Rema and, in a calculated, political move, blackmails her. Faced with an impossible choice, Rema is forced to sacrifice her heart in order to save her family.As Rema is taken to the palace with the Crown Prince, Darmik confronts the growing rumor that a legitimate blood heir to the throne exists and is trying to overthrow Darmik’s family. In Darmik’s quest to hunt down and kill the threat, he discovers that nothing is as it seems. Locked in the king’s castle, Rema finds herself a key player in a massive power struggle. When Darmik shows up, she’s not sure if she can trust him. The line between friends, enemies, and loyalty becomes blurred. As truths are unlocked, Rema understands that she just might be the key to finding the rightful heir and restoring peace to the kingdom… if she can manage to stay alive long enough.

Practice Cake


Dalya Moon - 2011
    All it takes is one of his sly winks or a playful hip-check by the cooler, and she’s incinerating the cookies. Her boyfriend would not approve.When a reality TV crew descends upon the bakery, her simple summer job gets even more complicated. Maddie could become the Bakery Network’s next breakout star, if she can handle the heat of being cast as a show villain. Drew has an alternate idea: run away from everything, with him and his sexy tousled hair. She decides to take the leap, but when she finds out Drew’s been hiding a shocking secret, Maddie looks down at her packed suitcase and takes a moment to think. Should she fly off to Australia with a guy she hardly knows, or should she pick up her suitcase and hit him with it?Chock full of imperfect people behaving badly, Practice Cake is for readers who enjoy a good laugh.

Noah


Elizabeth Reyes - 2012
    After disconnecting with the world two years ago to be at the side of her dying mother, she’s left alone, unemployed, overweight, and feeling a decade older than her twenty-eight years. When her best friend coaxes her into joining the local gym to ditch her depression and rejuvenate her life, she meets Noah. Assigned to help Veronica lose weight, Noah is everything she expected a young trainer to be—perfectly chiseled, supportive and motivating. Add to that, he’s incredibly sexy. He’s everything she’s ever looked for in a man. What she least expected was for him to fall for her, but he has. There's just one glaring problem: Noah is eight years younger.Noah Quintanilla has his eye on a boxing title—someday. Down for a few months with an injury, his maintenance-boy pay at 5th Street Gym won't cut it. He’s finally given the opportunity to train. The catch? His trainee is an out-of-shape woman with a free week pass. Taking on the challenge, Noah stumbles into one of the closest friendships he’s ever known, and before he knows it, he’s in love. But Veronica’s not having it—the age difference is too much. Their platonic relationship means having to watch her date other men—something that would make him crazy. Believing he's the man for her, Noah sets out to prove that age is but an illusion, and there's more to him than just a number.

The Rock Star's Daughter


Caitlyn Duffy - 2011
    After all, he is the lead singer of a world-famous rock band, constantly on the cover of music magazines and giving interviews on MTV. He pays for Taylor to attend the Treadwell Academy, a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts, and provides her mother with monthly checks to cover her basic needs, but has never made much of an effort to play an active part in Taylor’s life. Taylor's mom Dawn is the only family she has ever really known, and because of Dawn's hard-partying Hollywood lifestyle, studious Taylor is happiest on the other side of the country in Massachusetts with her nose buried in a book.When Taylor 's mom unexpectedly dies the summer before Taylor starts her junior year, she receives a crash course in fame. She has no choice but to join her father and his new family on their summer concert tour before she has even had a chance to mourn the loss of her mother. Life as the daughter of a rock star seems like it would be enviable, but Taylor can't figure her dad out. He seems like a supportive authority figure (even if he's kind of a fashion tragedy) , but she is collecting a growing pile of evidence that he's a liar and a cheat. Her stepmother, Jill, can’t seem to decide if she wants to treat Taylor like a girlfriend or a nuisance. Having had no time to grieve and say goodbye to her childhood before being thrust into the limelight, Taylor is suddenly finding herself in situations she could have never imagined before this summer.With no one else to turn to, Taylor falls head over heels in love with Jake, the teenage son of one of the band's touring groupies. Taylor has growing concerns about Jake's background and the suspicious relationship between his mom and her own father, but is desperate for something real in her life onto which she can build a future. When Jake offers Taylor an opportunity to join him on a whirlwind adventure and leave her problems with her father far behind, Taylor has to decide – should she carve out her own way in the world, or try to repair the relationship she has with her only living parent? Over the course of the summer with the band, Taylor learns the depths of her own strength, the difficulty of overcoming loss, and that the definition of family means much more than shared bloodlines.

Blue


Lou Aronica - 2010
    Becky is Chris's fourteen-year-old daughter, a girl who overcame enormous challenges to become a vibrant, vital young woman - and now faces her greatest obstacle yet. Miea is the young queen of a fantasy land that Becky and Chris created when Becky was little, a fantasy land that has developed a life of its own and now finds itself in terrible, maybe fatal trouble. Together, Chris, Becky, and Miea need to uncover a secret. The secret to why their worlds have joined at this moment. The secret to their purpose. The secret to the future. It is a secret that, when discovered, will redefine imagination for all of them. Blue is a novel of trial and hope, invention and rediscovery. It might very well take you someplace you never knew existed.

The Journey Home


Michael Baron - 2010
    Several people are near him when he opens his eyes, all strangers. All of them seem perfectly friendly, but none of them can explain to him how he got there. They offer him a delicious meal and pleasant conversation in a beautifully decorated room. This would be a very nice experience if not for one thing: Joseph doesn't know where he is and he has no way to contact his wife, who he is sure is worried sick over him. Thanking the people for their hospitality, he leaves to make his way back home. The only problem is that whatever happened to him has stripped him of most of his memories. He knows he needs to get back to his wife, but he doesn't know how to find her. He sets out on a journey to find his home with no sense of where he's going and only the precious, indelible vision of the woman he loves to guide him.Antoinette is an elderly woman in an assisted living facility. She’s spent the last six years there since her husband died, and most of those years have been happy. She enjoys the company of others in her situation and her son comes to visit often. But in recent months, she’s had a tougher and tougher time leaving her room. Her friends seem different to her and the world seems increasingly confusing. She spends an escalating amount of time on a journey inside her head. There, her body and mind haven’t betrayed her. There, she’s a young newlywed with a husband who dotes on her and an entire life of dreams to live. There, she is truly home.Warren, Antoinette’s son, is a man in his early forties going through the toughest year of his life. His marriage ended, he lost his job, and in the past few months, his mother has gone from hale to increasingly hazy. Having trouble finding work, he spends more and more time by his mother’s bedside. But her lack of lucidity both frustrates and frightens him. With far too much time on his hands, he decides to try to recreate his memories of home by attempting to cook his mother’s greatest dishes using the rudimentary appliances available in her room. He finds the challenge surprisingly rewarding, especially because the only time he feels his mother is truly with him anymore is when she is eating the meals he prepares for her.Joseph, Antoinette, and Warren are three people on different searches for home. How they find it, and how they connect with one another at this critical stage in each of their lives, is the foundation for a profound and deeply moving story.