The United States is now divided into Believers and Non-Believers, thanks to the magnetic Pastor Frick, founder of the powerful Church of America. Seventeen-year-old Vivian Apple spends the night before the predicted Rapture with her best friend, Harpreet Janda, at a mock-countdown party in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But when she returns home the next morning, her parents are gone and there are two holes in their bedroom ceiling. Is it some sort of trick? Or . . . real? Viv and her friends decide to find out, and their dangerous road trip across a paranoid and panic-stricken America makes for a darkly entertaining, grip-the-steering-wheel ride.
Archives
Zac and Mia
“When I was little I believed in Jesus and Santa, spontaneous combustion, and the Loch Ness monster. Now I believe in science, statistics, and antibiotics.” So says seventeen-year-old Zac Meier during a long, grueling leukemia treatment in Perth, Australia. A loud blast of Lady Gaga alerts him to the presence of Mia, the angry, not-at-all-stoic cancer patient in the room next door. Once released, the two near-strangers can’t forget each other, even as they desperately try to resume normal lives. The story of their mysterious connection drives this unflinchingly tough, tender novel told in two voices.
Buzz Kill
When seventeen-year-old Millie Ostermeyer makes a list of all the people who would want the football team’s notorious Coach Killdare dead, she never dreams someone would actually murder him. As if one mystery weren’t enough for this Nancy Drew–obsessed school reporter to solve, enter the divinely gorgeous Chase Albright, star quarterback. Who is this mysterious jock who speaks excellent French and casually uses words like “tirade”? And why is he giving geeky Millie the time of day when the supermodel-pretty cheerleader Vivienne Fitch is clearly throwing herself at him? Mystery and romance collide in this fun, witty murder mystery.
A Death-Struck Year
For Cleo Berry, the Spanish influenza devastating the East Coast feels far from the safety of Portland, Oregon. But then the disease comes west. Headstrong and foolish, seventeen-year-old Cleo is determined to ride out the pandemic at home rather than in her quarantined boarding school. But when the Red Cross pleads for volunteers, she can’t ignore the call. In the grueling days that follow her decision, she risks everything for near strangers. Strangers like Edmund, a handsome medical student. Strangers who could be gone tomorrow. And as the bodies pile up, Cleo can’t help but wonder when her own luck will run out.