I was happily surprise to see this come in the mail today. My favorite item is the Hello Kitty watch 🙂 I was an early reviewer for her first book The Line Between and her upcoming release, A Single Light which is released on September 17th. Check out the blurbs and my review for both books.
Blurb
In this frighteningly believable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tosca Lee, an extinct disease re-emerges from the melting Alaskan permafrost to cause madness in its victims. For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it’s the end she’d always been told was coming.
When Wynter Roth is turned out of New Earth, a self-contained doomsday cult on the American prairie, she emerges into a world poised on the brink of madness as a mysterious outbreak of rapid early onset dementia spreads across the nation.
As Wynter struggles to start over in a world she’s been taught to regard as evil, she finds herself face-to-face with the apocalypse she’s feared all her life—until the night her sister shows up at her doorstep with a set of medical samples. That night, Wynter learns there’s something far more sinister at play and that these samples are key to understanding the disease.
Now, as the power grid fails and the nation descends into chaos, Wynter must find a way to get the samples to a lab in Colorado. Uncertain who to trust, she takes up with former military man Chase Miller, who has his own reasons for wanting to get close to the samples in her possession, and to Wynter herself.
Filled with action, conspiracy, romance, and questions of whom—and what—to believe, THE LINE BETWEEN is a high-octane story of survival and love in a world on the brink of madness.
My Review 5 out of 5 stars
This was a total home run for me. What an absolutely engaging, thrilling and terrorizing novel. I couldn’t put this book down. We all fear doomsday might just be around the corner, now imagine you being part of a cult that tells you the end is near and then you become an outcast from that environment. To then have to experience the apocalypse while saving the world and your family. Wynter was that badass character we all wish we could be. She had to see for herself that Magnus wasn’t the prophet she thought he was. I feared each moment Wynter went through this novel. Survival mode truly is instincts. Tosca is a wonderful storyteller with an avid imagination. The plot in this novel was superb. She brought us a book for us all to fear the possibility of an apocalypse due to an ancient disease. Life will bring you roadblocks but fighting to survive will make you stronger. This novel made you feel the terror, desperation and will to survive from the very beginning. This was an amazing thriller.
Blurb
In this gripping sequel to The Line Between, which New York Times bestselling author Alex Kava calls “everything you want in a thriller,” cult escapee Wynter Roth and ex-soldier Chase Miller emerge from their bunker to find a country ravaged by disease, and Wynter is the only one who can save it.
Six months after vanishing into an underground silo with sixty others, Wynter and Chase emerge to find the area abandoned. There is no sign of Noah and the rest of the group that was supposed to greet them when they emerged—the same people Wynter was counting on to help her locate the IV antibiotics her gravely ill friend, Julie, needs in order to live.
As the clock ticks down on Julie’s life, Wynter and Chase embark on a desperate search for medicine and answers. But what they find is not a nation on the cusp of recovery thanks to the promising new vaccine Wynter herself had a hand in creating, but one decimated by disease. What happened while they were underground?
With food and water in limited supply and their own survival in question, Chase and Wynter must venture further and further from the silo. Aided by an enigmatic mute named Otto, they come face-to-face with a society radically changed by global pandemic, where communities scrabble to survive under rogue leaders and cities are war zones. As hope fades by the hour and Wynter learns the terrible truth of the last six months, she is called upon once again to help save the nation she no longer recognizes—a place so dark she’s no longer sure it can even survive.
Fast-paced and taut, A Single Light is a breathless thriller of nonstop suspense about the risks of living in a world outside the safe confines of our closely-held beliefs and the relationships and lives that inspire us.
My Review 4 out of 5 stars
The apocalypse has continued. This next book in the series, will have you running for your life to the very end. This book was action packed. Wynter is a fierce woman who learned to fight and survive in just a few days from being released from the enclave, which was a cult. In just a few days she was in the middle of a war zone needing to fight to survive in order to save those who she love, while being creative and burning and exploding her way out of towns that had overpowering and cruel leaders. Wynter and Chase were under attack throughout most of the book. Wynter was determine to save Julie at whatever cost. The evil in the world has increased due to the virus that gives you advance dementia. Everyone left in the towns are starving and looking for supplies to survive. Wynter and Chase had to work together to survive and find antibiotics to save Julie. We lost some wonderful characters throughout the story. I loved how my beautiful island of Puerto Rico is part of this story. Wynter finally got to see the ocean.
I felt like the story abruptly went from Puerto Rico to the enclave. I think the ending needed a little more feedback on whats to come. Will the disease keep spreading, will it evolve and will they live to survive? We will have to wait and see.
Author Biography
osca Lee is the award-winning, New York Times, IndieBound, and Amazon bestselling author of twelve novels including THE LINE BETWEEN, THE PROGENY, FIRSTBORN, THE LEGEND OF SHEBA, ISCARIOT, and the Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages and been optioned for TV and film. A notorious night-owl, she loves movies, playing football with her kids, and sending cheesy texts to her husband.
You can find Tosca at ToscaLee.com, on social media, or hanging around the snack table. A SINGLE LIGHT, the highly-anticipated sequel to THE LINE BETWEEN, releases September 2019 and is available for preorder now.
Researching Your Novel: How to Get the Details Just Right
with Taylor Jenkins Reid
Sept. 17, 2019 | 7pm ET
In order to write believable fiction that transports your reader to another time or place, you must focus on the details. In this class, Taylor Jenkins Reid supports writers to know what details to look for, how to zero in on the most effective details, and what is arguably the hardest part of researching: knowing when to stop and learning what not to include. Jenkins Reid will share her own process that’s resulted in two best-selling novels, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugoand Daisy Jones & The Six. While this course will focus on fiction examples, memoirists can also benefit from understanding how research can inform your writing process—how to maximize it, integrate it, and when to leave it so your story can take centerstage.
I would love to thank Eva Pohler for putting this wonderful event together. It’s a true pleasure being part of this event. We have lost and continue losing so many amazing people because of suicide. They could be family, friends, children and celebrities . Everyone has their own struggles, whether it’s a mental health issue, bullying, substance or alcohol abuse that has lead our loved ones to choose the one option that you cannot turn back from. As more people open up about their struggles, this will help others with their own mental health issues and help them seek help. Having suicide awareness and sharing resources will help others look for help.
I know the feeling of pain, sadness and depression. After I graduated high school I was having chronic pain all over my body. The one thing I enjoyed doing, I was slowly not being able to do. Dancing or exercising ended with me not being able to walk or move and pain all over my legs and body. My muscles would be stiff and I would miss days of work every time these flares would happen. It started with my neck getting stiff and twisted from one side to my legs being stiff and not being able to walk. I finally went to the doctor and the doctor was very concerned with what they found. I needed to go through more test to see if I had an autoimmune disease. After all the other exams were done, they said I had Fibromyalgia. Of course, me being young and not going back to the doctor for another year, I didn’t know it at the time what I had. I went another year with the tremendous pain and agony. Then I started to have problems with my back. Between these two things going on at the same time for a number of years, I seriously thought it would continue. When I returned back to the doctor I was prescribed medication which didn’t help. I decided I would live with the pain and move along. As time went on I started to get better. If I dance I still pay for it with pain for a week, but I still do it anyway. I can’t wear heels like I used to, since I have issues with muscles on my feet. I know Fibromyalgia has been more common in the last 10 years.
I saw this book name (Don’t Call Me Crazy) and decided to read and share my review with everyone. It has 33 different stories of people with different mental health issues who share their struggles and how they have coped.
Goodreads Blurb
Who’s Crazy?
What does it mean to be crazy? Is using the word crazy offensive? What happens when such a label gets attached to your everyday experiences?
In order to understand mental health, we need to talk openly about it. Because there’s no single definition of crazy, there’s no single experience that embodies it, and the word itself means different things—wild? extreme? disturbed? passionate?—to different people.
(Don’t) Call Me Crazy is a conversation starter and guide to better understanding how our mental health affects us every day. Thirty-three writers, athletes, and artists offer essays, lists, comics, and illustrations that explore their personal experiences with mental illness, how we do and do not talk about mental health, help for better understanding how every person’s brain is wired differently, and what, exactly, might make someone crazy.
If you’ve ever struggled with your mental health, or know someone who has, come on in, turn the pages, and let’s get talking.
My Review: Rated 5 out of 5 stars
A book that will make you see mental health in a new light.” Call Me Crazy” will leave you feeling distressed with everyone’s deep feelings, thoughts, challenges, while you will feel overwhelmed and helpless while reading, you will learn how each writer has been able to seek help and learn to manage their illnesses. This book is an anthology of essays written by different people who suffer from different types of mental illnesses. Each writer puts there personal life, thoughts and feelings out in the open for others to see all their secrets and struggles, but they also teach you how each person has manage to find peace, acceptance and be strong even with the challenges they face. I love that we are starting to open up about mental health and that our society is being more accepting and not keeping it locked in a closest. If we can talk about how different types of mental health affect others and learn about them, we can help others that might be going through the same thing. Thank you, for sharing all you stories, they will help others who are in need of guidance and assistance.
Online Resources
American Foundation of Suicide Prevention www.afsp.org
Okay guys, seriously, aren’t these shirts just fabulous? Today is the last day to save 5.00 off on any Sesame Street Shirt’s. They have so many to choose from in different colors with different characters.
They cost 25.00 after the 5.00 coupon, plus they have a few options for children. I will need to pick up a few since I have a fabulous pins, necklace and brooch collection from Erstwilder in Australia. You can visit there page at http://www.erstwilder.com Check out my collection below.
Erstwilder Products
They are just fabulous. There products are super amazing. I recommend you check out there website.
Mom and me at Bookcon I wish I had one of the shirts from Out of Print that day 🙂
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Doubleday/Talese, Sept.) – In this sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood picks up 15 years after Offred stepped into the unknown.
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World, Sept.) – Coates’s first novel, set in mid-19th-century Virginia, is about a man born into bondage who develops a mysterious power after nearly drowning, joins an underground resistance, and plans his escape.
Find Me by Andre Aciman (FSG, Oct.) – Aciman revisits the characters of Call Me by Your Name two decades after their first meeting. Elio moves to Paris and has a life-changing affair, while Oliver, now a New England professor with a family, contemplates a trip back across the Atlantic.
Grand Union by Zadie Smith(Penguin Press, Oct.) – The 10 stories in Smith’s first collection range from historic to vividly current and slyly dystopian.
The World Doesn’t Require You by Rion Amilcar Scott (Liveright, Aug.) – In this collection—starred by PW—intelligent robots fail to behave as programmed and the last (and least exalted) son of God tries to redeem himself by leading a gospel band at his elder brother’s church.
Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming by László Krasznahorkai (New Directions, Sept.) – At the end of his life, Baron Bela Wenckheim returns from exile in Buenos Aires to his birthplace, a provincial Hungarian town, hoping to reunite with his high school sweetheart. The town—a morass of gossip, con men, and politicians—heads inexorably toward its contemporary doom.
Mystery/Thriller/Crime
Blue Moon: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child (Delacorte, Oct.) – Peripatetic vigilante Jack Reacher lands in the middle of a turf war between rival Ukrainian and Albanian gangs in an unnamed American city in his efforts to help an elderly couple who have fallen prey to vicious loan sharks.
The Deserter by Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille (Simon & Schuster, Oct.) – Two military investigators–Scott Brodie, a hardened ex-soldier with impulsive, rogue tendencies, and Maggie Taylor, a cunning by-the-book Army cop–go in search of Delta Force Capt. Kyle Mercer, who has deserted his post in Afghanistan and fled to Venezuela.
Quantum by Patricia Cornwell (Thomas & Mercer, Oct.) – On the eve of a top secret space mission, NASA pilot, quantum physicist, and cybercrime investigator Calli Chase detects something amiss in the tunnels below a NASA research center. Clues suggest that Calli’s missing twin sister, Carme, may somehow be involved.
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror
A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker (Berkley, Sept.) – Pinsker’s smashing debut, which celebrates human connection and the power of music in a near-future era of isolation and anxiety, brings a much-needed dose of realistic optimism to the post-apocalyptic genre.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron, Oct.) – YA powerhouse Bardugo’s first novel for adults sends a broke, desperate teen to Yale, where she discovers the secret societies work nefarious magic. The ghosts and necromancers are spooky, but privilege and power are the real sources of terror.
The Institute by Stephen King (Scribner, Sept.) – This lean and toothy horror novel pits psychic kids against exploitative adults. This variation on one of King’s favorite themes displays his talent for writing intimate, personal narratives without a wasted word.
Romance
Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (Avon, Nov.) – Dynamic protagonists fuel this delightful, heartfelt contemporary, in which a chronically ill woman trying to improve her life unexpectedly falls in love with the man who’s helping her work her way through her bucket list.
Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore (Berkley, Sept.) – Strange bedfellows—a duke toeing the Tory Party line and a penniless suffragette breaking the glass ceiling at Oxford—turn out to be deliciously compatible in Dunmore’s pitch-perfect Victorian romance.
Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane (Morrow, Sept.) – Beneath this rom-com’s wry humor are immense emotional depths as reunited high school sweethearts try to bridge the gap between their very different memories and interpretations of shared events.
Poetry
Arias by Sharon Olds (Knopf, Oct.) – Olds has long made a career of addressing the taboo and reconsidering the mundane. The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet considers political consciousness and internal lives through “arias,” each defined by its own particular music.
Father’s Day by Matthew Zapruder (Copper Canyon, Sept.) – The fifth book from Zapruder investigates what it means to be a father and citizen amid the 21st century’s uncertainties. His humor and lyrical precision lend themselves to questions about the present and our collective future.
The Problem of the Many by Timothy Donnelly (Wave, Oct.) – Contemporary and capacious in their scope, Donnelly’s poems examine civilization, calling upon figures including Alexander the Great and Prometheus in the poems’ wild, imaginative examinations.
Feed by Tommy Pico (Tin House, Nov.) – Exploring the separation between solitude and loneliness, the fourth book in Pico’s Teebs tetralogy asks universal questions through poems of formal and tonal diversity rich with striking juxtapositions.
Comics/Graphic Novels
Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shameby Erin Williams (Abrams ComicArts, Oct.) – This “sharp and splendidly drawn memoir will strike a strong chord in the current moment,” per PW’s starred review of Williams’s narrative of her daily commute through the gaze of men, with piercing flashbacks.
Making Comics by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly, Nov.) – Influential indie cartoonist Barry follows up her bestselling Syllabus. Professor Skeletor (as she calls herself) doodles comics-making exercises, inspiring students to tap their inherent creativity.
Rusty Brown, Part Iby Chris Ware (Pantheon, Sept.) – Sui generis stylist Ware details the painfully ordinary lives of Nebraskan Rusty Brown, who loves Supergirl, and his family, teachers, and classmates, in dizzyingly telescoping detail that crosses time and genres.
Memoir
Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA by Amaryllis Fox (Knopf, Oct.) – Fox delivers a gripping memoir about the near decade she spent working for the CIA to help stop terrorism.
On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey by Paul Theroux (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Oct.) – Travel writer Theroux finds a Mexico that’s vibrant but shadowed by violence, corruption, and America in this dark-edged but ultimately hopeful travelogue.
Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz (Algonquin, Oct.) – Díaz’s strong debut memoir charts her poor, violent childhood in Puerto Rico and Miami and her bumpy transition from girlhood to womanhood.
Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me by Deirdre Bair (Doubleday/Talese, Nov.) – By turns scholarly and salacious, biographer Bair has loosened decades of polite tongue-biting to write the backstory in what she calls a “bio-memoir” of two influential writers.
Literary Essays/Criticism/Biographies
Axiomaticby Maria Tumarkin (Transit, Sept.) – In a remarkable tour de force, cultural historian Tumarkin presents five extended essays which pick apart commonplace sayings and tease out the lingering effects of trauma and grief.
Elements of Fictionby Walter Mosley (Grove, Sept.) – Mosley, the prolific author of the Easy Rawlins detective novels, presents his second writing guide, after 2007’s This Year You Write Your Novel, with a monograph whose richness of insight belies its short length.
Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem by Michael Schmidt (Princeton Univ., Sept.) – Schmidt shares the multi-millennia story of one of the world’s oldest known works of literature, an epic at once unimaginably ancient and enduringly relevant.
Human Relations and Other Difficulties: Essays by Mary-Kay Wilmers (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Oct.) – This collection from the longtime London Review of Books editor showcases a distinctive sensibility—astute, eclectic, and often acidic—in essays which often consider “difficult” women, including Germaine Greer, Patty Hearst, Marianne Moore, and Jean Rhys.
Country Music: An Illustrated History by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns(Knopf, Sept.) – This voluminous and hugely entertaining introduction to country music coincides with the release of the eponymous PBS series, by producer and writer Duncan and producer and filmmaker Burns.
Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America by James Poniewozik. Liveright, Sept.) – PW’s review called this cultural history, which juxtaposes Trump’s rise with television’s evolution from a three-network monopoly to a series of echo chambers, “trenchant” and “brilliantly witty.”
Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream by Nicholas Lemann (FSG, Sept.) – Lemann recounts the changing organization of American society, politics, and business by profiling FDR “brain trust” member Adolf Berle, Harvard Business School professor Michael Jensen, and LinkedIn cofounder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman.
The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us by Paul Tough (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Sept.) – Education journalist Tough questions the American belief that college is the great economic equalizer in a study that PW’s review called “well-written,” “persuasive,” and “fascinating.”
Music
Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren (Simon & Schuster, Oct.) – In this excellent biography, George-Warren paints a complex portrait of singer Janis Joplin.
Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith (Knopf, Sept.) – As she wanders between waking and dreaming in a year filled with the death of a close friend and the political turmoil of the 2016 election, musician and National Book Award–winner Smith contemplates dreams and reality in this luminous collection of anecdotes and photos.
Face It by Debbie Harry (Dey Street, Nov.) – The singer of the New Wave band Blondie and star of art-house movies Videodrome and Hairspray looks back on lots of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll in this rough-and-tumble memoir.
Science
The Hidden World of the Foxby Adele Brand (Morrow, Oct.) – Brand shares a lifelong fascination with the red fox, from childhood to her adult work as a mammal ecologist, in this smart and accessible book.
How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problemsby Randall Munroe (Riverhead, Sept.) – The former NASA roboticist behind the popular webcomic xkcd proposes unusual and unnecessarily elaborate ways of accomplishing mundane tasks (such as, to cross a river, freezing it.)
Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetimeby Sean Carroll (Dutton, Sept.) – In this challenging and provocative book, Carroll, a theoretical physicist, explores what quantum mechanics explains, and leaves unanswered, about how the universe works at a microscopic level.
Astro Poets by Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky (Flatiron, Oct.) – Twitter astrologists with over 500,000 followers Lasky and Dimitrov explain how the ancient practice can relate to modern concerns in this guidebook mined from their popular tweets.
God Land: A Story of Faith, Loss, and Renewal in Middle Americaby Lyz Lenz (Indiana Univ., Aug.) – In the aftermath of the 2016 election and while going through a divorce, journalist Lenz embarked on an investigative trip across the middle of America to understand the evangelical voters who supported Donald Trump. Lenz diligently tracks a “resurgent ‘muscular’ and patriarchal Christianity,” per our starred review.
The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities by Kate Bowler (Princeton Univ., Oct.) – By profiling celebrities in mega-ministries (such as Joyce Meyer, Beth Moore, and Victoria Osteen) as well as other Protestant women, Bowler, associate professor at Duke Divinity School, lays bare the “delicate dance between professed submission to men and implicit independence from them” that many Christian women successfully navigate as they push up against the “stained-glass ceiling” of traditional gender roles.
Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church by Megan Phelps-Roper (FSG, Oct.) – Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, divulges about her childhood, the beliefs of her church, and the Twitter conversations that eventually led her to change her mind.
It’s funny how the book showed up after I did my post earlier. Happy it’s a final hardcover copy with a signed book plate. A suspense thriller that everyone is raving about.
It all begins on a Monday, when four people board an elevator in a Manhattan office tower. Each presses a button for their floor, but the elevator proceeds, non-stop, to the top. Once there, it stops for a few seconds, and then plummets.
Right to the bottom of the shaft.
It appears to be a horrific, random tragedy. But then, on Tuesday, it happens again. And when Wednesday brings yet another high-rise catastrophe, one of the most vertical cities in the world — and the nation’s capital of media, finance and entertainment — is plunged into chaos.
Who is behind this? Why are they doing it? What do these deadly acts of sabotage have to do with the fingerless body found on the High Line? Two seasoned New York detectives and a straight-shooting journalist must race against time to find the answers before the city’s newest, and tallest, residential tower has its Friday night ribbon-cutting.
Early Reviews
“An engrossing, fast-moving, well-twisted modern-day plot with believable characters … Fans of psychological thrillers and the author’s previous books will love this. Warning: it might leave some readers a bit uncomfortable next time they enter an elevator.”
Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman and the new story collection Full Throttle, said: “This novel moves as fast as a falling elevator and hits with just as much force. Linwood Barclay is a stone cold pro and Elevator Pitch is a shameless good time.”
Stephen King had this to say: “One hell of a suspense novel.”
And Mark Billingham shared, “You will not put this book down.”
The Ireland and U.K. Tour Itinerary
Saturday, Sept. 7th, 4 PM No Alibis Bookstore, Belfast Tickets are free To reserve, contact david@noalibis.com or call 02890 319601 @NoAlibisBooks
Tuesday, Sept. 10th, 6:30 PM Waterstones Nottingham Tickets £5 / £4 for Waterstones cardholders To book, see Waterstones.com/events or call 0115 947 0069 @WaterstonesNG
Wednesday, Sept. 11th, 6:30 PM Waterstones Edinburgh West End In conversation with Ian Rankin Tickets £3, redeemable against a copy of Elevator Pitch To book, see Waterstones.com/events @Waterstones_Edi
Thursday Sept. 12th, 7 PM Waterstones Newton Mearns, Glasgow Tickets are free To reserve, call 0141 616 3933 @WatNewtonMearns
Friday, Sept. 13th, 6 PM Waterstones Milton Keynes – Midsummer Place Tickets £3, redeemable against a copy of Elevator Pitch To reserve, see Waterstones.com/events or call 01908 395384 @WaterstonesMK
Saturday, Sept. 14th, 2:30 PM Chiswick Book Festival w/ Mark Billingham Tickets £8 To book, see ChiswickBookFestival.net @w4BookFest
The U.S. Tour Itinerary
Tuesday, Sept. 17th, 7 PM Hudson Library & Historical Society 96 Library St. Hudson, OH 44236
Wednesday, Sept. 18th, 7 PM Poisoned Pen 4014 N Goldwater Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Thursday, Sept. 19th, 6 PM Hosted by Booksmart @ Magic City Books 221 E. Archer Tulsa, OK 74103
Friday, Sept. 20th, 3 PM Barr Memorial Library 62 W Spearhead Division Ave., #400 Fort Knox, KY 40121
Saturday, Sept. 21st, 1 PM Kansas City Raven Bookstore 6 E 7th St. Lawrence, KS 66044
Q&A
Bookreporter Interview
Stay tune for my review once I receive the book I won.
Through his journal a boy deals with the death of a classmate, who committed suicide as a result of bullying.
The summer before school starts, Sam’s friend and classmate Morgan Mallen kills herself. Morgan had been bullied. Maybe she kissed the wrong boy. Or said the wrong thing. What about that selfie that made the rounds? Morgan was this, and Morgan was that. But who really knows what happened?
As Sam explores the events leading up to the tragedy, he must face a difficult and life-changing question: Why did he keep his friendship with Morgan a secret? And could he have done something—anything—to prevent her final actions?
As he did in Bystander, James Preller takes an issue that faces every student and school in the country, and makes it personal, accessible, and real.
My Review: I rated 5 out of 5 stars
Stop being a follower and be a leader against bullying! Wow, this had to be a hard book to write. You get to feel each regret, fear, confusion and desperation. I felt horrible for both Max and Morgan. In today’s world there has been so much bullying that has caused teenagers to commit suicide. Sometimes the smallest little irrelevant problem, becomes the issue of torture in every form. This book showed you the thoughts of the bully and how he secretly was a friend to the victim, but due to his friends who started the bullying, he needed to continue or he would be the one being bullied. When your actions takes a life, your life will never be the same. Be kind and love one another. Stand up for others and don’t encourage or stay quiet when someone or a group of people are bullying others.
Author Biography
James Preller (born 1961) is the children’s book author of the Jigsaw Jones Mysteries, which are published by Scholastic Corporation. He grew up in Wantagh, New York and went to college in Oneonta, New York. After graduating from college in 1983, James Preller was employed as a waiter for one year before being hired as a copywriter by Scholastic Corporation, where he was introduced (through their books) to many noatable children’s authors. This inspired James Preller to try writing his own books. James Preller published his first book, entitled MAXX TRAX: Avalanche Rescue, in 1986. Since that time, James Preller has written a variety of books, and has written under a number of pen names, including Mitzy Kafka, James Patrick, and Izzy Bonkers. James Preller lives in Delmar, New York with his wife Lisa and their three children.
Dasher is a brave little doe with a wish in her heart. She spends her days with her family under the hot sun in a traveling circus, but she longs for a different life – one in which her hooves tread in soft, cold snow under the glow of the North Star.
And one day, when the opportunity arises, Dasher seizes her destiny and takes off in pursuit of the life she wants to live. It’s not too long before she meets a nice man in a red suit with a horse-drawn sleigh. And soon, with the help of a powerful wish, Christmas will never be the same.
A magical book that will transform dreams, hopes and wishes, to a happily ever after. Santa’s slay was first pulled by a horse named Silver Bell. Dasher and her family were owned by a mean circus owner, who treated them badly. Dasher dreamed of following the North star and finding a location with snow. Dasher found an opportunity to escape and followed the North star, where she was magically surprised to find a jolly man in a red suit, in need of making children happy. She loved children also, since they treated her nice and gave fed her carrots, her favorite. It’s a story that will inspire you to dream and fight for that dream. Children will learn how Santa came about having all the wonderful reindeer’s that guide his slay on Christmas Eve. This book will bring magic and a Christmas miracle.
Author Biography
Matt Tavares was born in Boston, and grew up surrounded by books and reading. From the time he was very young, his mother read to him every night, and his family made countless trips to the public library. Years later, as a studio art major at Bates College, he rediscovered his love for picture books, and decided to try to make his own.
For his senior thesis project, Matt wrote and illustrated a story called Sebastian’s Ball, which eventually became Zachary’s Ball, Matt’s first published picture book. Zachary’s Ball went on to win a Massachusetts Book Award Honor, and was named one of Yankee Magazine’s 40 Classic New England Children’s Books.
Since then, Matt has published eighteen more books and has won several awards, including three Parents’ Choice Gold Awards, an Orbis Pictus Honor, and two ALA Notable books. His artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of American Illustration, the Brandywine River Museum, and the Mazza Museum of Picture Book Art.
When Matt’s not working in his studio on his latest book project, he travels the country speaking (and drawing) at schools, libraries, conferences, and bookstores. He has presented at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Eric Carle Museum, the White House Easter Egg Roll, and he’s even done a few book signings at Fenway Park.
Matt lives in Maine with his wife, Sarah, and their two daughters.
In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born—three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.
But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins.
The last queen standing gets the crown.
My Review
Three queens born, but only one will stand with the crown. It has an interesting plot filled with love, revenge and power. Each queen has a gift and with that gift only one will survive after fighting the other sister’s for the crown. Let the strongest sister win the crown.
Author Biography
Kendare Blake is the author of several novels and short stories, most of which you can find information about via the links above. Her work is sort of dark, always violent, and features passages describing food from when she writes while hungry. She was born in July (for those of you doing book reports) in Seoul, South Korea, but doesn’t speak a lick of Korean, as she was packed off at a very early age to her adoptive parents in the United States. That might be just an excuse, though, as she is pretty bad at learning foreign languages. She enjoys the work of Milan Kundera, Caitlin R Kiernan, Bret Easton Ellis, and Richard Linklater.
She lives and writes in Gig Harbor, Washington, with her husband, their cat son Tyrion Cattister, red Doberman dog son Obi-Dog Kenobi, rottie mix dog daughter Agent Scully, and naked Sphynx cat son Armpit McGee.
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