Book picks similar to
The Concrete by Daniel Abbott
fiction
young-adult
wtr
mystery-crime
Raft of Stars
Andrew J. Graff - 2021
Will the adults trying to find and protect them reach them before it’s too late?It’s the summer of 1994 in Claypot, Wisconsin, and the lives of ten-year-old Fischer “Fish” Branson and Dale “Bread” Breadwin are shaped by the two fathers they don’t talk about.One night, tired of seeing his best friend bruised and terrorized by his no-good dad, Fish takes action. A gunshot rings out and the two boys flee the scene, believing themselves murderers. They head for the woods, where they find their way onto a raft, but the natural terrors of Ironsforge gorge threaten to overwhelm them.Four adults track them into the forest, each one on a journey of his or her own. Fish’s mother Miranda, a wise woman full of fierce faith; his granddad, Teddy, who knows the woods like the back of his hand; Tiffany, a purple-haired gas station attendant and poet looking for connection; and Sheriff Cal, who’s having doubts about a life in law enforcement.The adults track the boys toward the novel’s heart-pounding climax on the edge of the gorge and a conclusion that beautifully makes manifest the grace these characters find in the wilderness and one another. This timeless story of loss, hope, and adventure runs like the river itself amid the vividly rendered landscape of the Upper Midwest.
Anakisha's Dragon
Eileen Mueller - 2021
A dashing dragon rider in the right place at the wrong time. And an unlikely pirate captain with nothing left to lose.Being a dragon rider is not in Anakisha’s plans. And Anakisha’s stubborn. She’s not giving up her dreams anytime soon.When Anakisha’s brother is murdered by a gang, she joins the Night Wings, a team of local vigilantes, and takes to the streets to avenge him. With a soft spot for defending underdogs, she’s found her niche.The Night Wing’s leader is the dreamy golden-haired son of the village arbitrator — a fine catch. If she can impress his father, she can marry him and improve her family’s fortune. But the underbelly of Fieldhaven is rife with politics and deceit. Although Anakisha is good with a bow and a dagger, she’s not always the best judge of character…And her plans do not include a dragon.But then, the King’s Rider appears on his sleek onyx dragon.And a bloodthirsty pirate captain rises to power, spreading terror on the Naobian Sea.Leaving Anakisha torn between her dream and her duty…
Careless
Anne Cassidy - 2007
Lesley Cozens wrote Nicky a letter before she died, the contents of which the reader does not know until much later in the novel, but the letter triggers a rage in Nicky that could have had tragic consequences if Chloe had not got involved. When Nicky begins hanging around Chloe's house with a mixture of curiosity and anger that she has had a happy life compared with his, he is prepared to hate her, but instead the two of them form a strange kind of bond. Chloe is her mother's daughter, and finds herself wanting to help Nicky find his real mother, the one who abandoned him at birth. Ironically, the clues she pieces together about what happened lead her back to her mother's home town, and to her childhood friend, Sonia, who is keeping a painful secret of her own. Chloe finds comfort in helping Nicky, a boy who is almost like a brother in that her own mother looked out for him for so long, and Nicky discovers that sometimes you have to trust in people in order to move on and build a life...
December Park
Ronald Malfi - 2014
Newspapers call the abductor the Piper because he has come to lead children away, while kids whisper darker names for him in the school halls. Angelo Mazzone and his friends discover a link to the dead girl and take up the search for the killer, vowing to stop the Piper's reign of terror. Their teenage pledge becomes a journey of self-discovery and an odyssey into the darkness of their own hometown.
Out of the Easy
Ruta Sepetys - 2013
Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street. Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test. With characters as captivating as those in her internationally bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys skillfully creates a rich story of secrets, lies, and the haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny.
Everything You Want Me to Be
Mindy Mejia - 2017
But Hattie wants something more, something bigger, and ultimately something that turns out to be exceedingly dangerous. When she’s found brutally stabbed to death, the tragedy rips right through the fabric of her small-town community.It soon comes to light that Hattie was engaged in a highly compromising and potentially explosive secret online relationship. The question is: Did anyone else know? And to what lengths might they have gone to end it? Hattie’s boyfriend seems distraught over her death, but had he fallen so deeply in love with her that she had become an obsession? Or did Hattie’s impulsive, daredevil nature simply put her in the wrong place at the wrong time, leading her to a violent death at the hands of a stranger?Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town’s darkest secrets come to the forefront…and she inches closer and closer to death.Evocative and razor-sharp, Everything You Want Me to Be challenges you to test the lines between innocence and culpability, identity and deception. Does love lead to self-discovery—or destruction?
Bright Girls
Clare Chambers - 2009
They have been forced to leave their home in Oxford, where they live with their father, because of threats to their safety.
Mask of the Fallen: A Cultivation/Progression Fantasy Series: (War Priest Book One)
Harmon Cooper - 2021
Innercity Girl Like Me
Sabrina Bernardo - 2008
There, she is surrounded by kids who roam the apartment blocks, smoking and drinking and doing drugs. she meets Jessica and Gina, who become her best friends, and gets to know Gina’s older brother, Roland, founder of the Central outfit of the Diablos gang. As a young teen she is initiated into the Diablos and starts joining their campaign against the rival gang, the street Ryders (so named because they make their money pimping out girls). embracing the solidarity of gang membership, G Child feels loved and part of a family. But the stakes rise when the street Ryders kill a friend, and as G Child gets in deeper, moving in with her fellow gang girlfriends and selling crack to make money, she finds herself questioning her lifestyle.When someone she trusts reveals a dark, abusive streak, G Child knows it’s time to get out. But can she escape gang life before it kills her? A compelling read based on real-life experience, Innercity Girl Like Me is a brutally authentic look at gang life in Canada.
Mary's the Name
Ross Sayers - 2017
That must’ve been why the robbers used hammers.”Orphaned Mary lives with her granpa, but after he is mixed up in a robbery at the bookies where he works, they flee to the Isle of Skye. Gradually, Mary realises that her granpa is involved. And the robbers are coming after him–and their money.Mary’s quirky outlook on life, loss, and her love of all things Elvis, will capture your heart. Full of witty Scots banter, Mary’s the Name will have you reaching for the hankies, first with laughter, then with tears.Heart-warming and heart-breaking, this darkly comic debut is from a fresh voice set to become Scotland’s answer to Roddy Doyle.
A Crucible of Souls
Mitchell Hogan - 2013
With nothing to his name but a pair of mysterious heirlooms and a handful of coins, he must prove his talent to earn an apprenticeship with a guild of sorcerers.But he soon learns the world outside the monastery is a darker place than he ever imagined, and his treasured sorcery has disturbing depths.As a shadowed evil manipulates the unwary and forbidden powers are unleashed, Caldan is plunged into an age-old conflict that brings the world to the edge of destruction…
The Most Beautiful Thing
Fiona Robyn - 2012
14 years old, obsessed with birds & the weather, and perplexed by humans. Spend the Summer in Amsterdam with his chaotic artist aunt Nel. Come back fifteen years later, witness a tragedy, and discover a secret which will change everything...
Pretending to Be Erica
Michelle Painchaud - 2015
Violet shares a blood type with Erica; soon, thanks to surgery and blackmail, she has the same face, body, and DNA. She knows every detail of the Silvermans’ lives, as well as the PTSD she will have to fake around them. And then, when the time is right, she “reappears”—Erica Silverman, brought home by some kind of miracle. But she is also Violet, and she has a job: Stay long enough to steal the Silverman Painting, an Old Master legendary in the Vegas crime world. Walking a razor’s edge, calculating every decision, not sure sometimes who she is or what she is doing it for, Violet is an unforgettable heroine, and Pretending to be Erica is a killer debut.
Bone Music
David Almond - 2021
Under a boundless starry sky, the unforgettable Sylvia Carr reconnects with the ancient past and discovers what it really means to be young in the world today.Sylvia, brave hearted and rebellious, moves into wild Northumberland from the city of Newcastle. She feels alien in this huge, silent, seemingly empty landscape, but then she meets Gabriel, a strange yet familiar boy. As they roam the forests and fells together, she sees nature with new eyes. She becomes aware that the past is all around her, and is deep inside herself. From the wing of a dead buzzard, they create a hollow bone - the kind of flute that was created and used in rituals in the distant past. This is a book of hope and joy - a book that celebrates humanity and explores the deep connections between ourselves and nature. It is timely and original. It speaks to young people about what it really is to be a human being alive today.
Sniper
Vaughn C. Hardacker - 2014
Amidst the blood and terror, Houston discovers similarities, likenesses—the killer’s positioning, his choice of victims, and his code of ethics—between the crime scene and his own training as a US Marine scout and sniper. And with the staging of the scene set for prime shock value, Houston has to wonder what it is this murderer intends to accomplish.The connection is confirmed in the worst possible way when the sniper strikes again, this time killing Houston’s ex-wife, severing what’s left of the bond between Houston and his estranged daughter, Susie. It’s personal now, and as the death toll rises, Houston and Bouchard will stop at nothing to find the cold-blooded sniper who’s making a mockery of their department. In a final gesture of cat and mouse depravity, the killer kidnaps Susie, luring Houston to an island on a remote lake in Maine for a deadly, sniper-to-sniper showdown.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.