In Caroline Bock's Before My Eyes, Claire has spent the last few months taking care of her six-year-old sister, Izzy, as their mother lies in a hospital bed. Claire believes she has everything under control until she meets a guy online who appears to be a kindred spirit. Claire is initially flattered by the attention but when she meets Max, the shy state senator's son, her feelings become complicated. Working alongside Max at a beachfront food stand is Barkley. Lonely and obsessiv...

In the entertainment world, the spotlight shines on the beautiful— but behind the scenes are those who make the magic happen. Amy Greene is one of them. As head of marketing and public relations at the Cinema Channel, a beloved yet struggling cable network devoted to classic and independent films based in midtown Manhattan, Amy is at the height of her career— but her life is anything but steadfast. Torn between her charismatic boss, Owen Orski, and her husband Jack, Amy' s world schisms wi...

AMERICA'S FUTURE: poetry & prose in response to tomorrow features 164 bold, thought-provoking writers. The anthology arrives at an urgent moment in our nation's history, when many are anxiously questioning: What are the possibilities for the future? Some pieces turn to our past, reckoning with the wounds we still carry in today's scars before questioning the future. Others turn their gaze forward, imagining the ways hope and reinvention can carve new paths. A must...

Everybody knows, nobody's talking. . . .Seventeen-year-old Skylar Thompson is being questioned by the police. Her boyfriend, Jimmy, stands accused of brutally assaulting two young El Salvadoran immigrants from a neighboring town, and she's the prime witness. Skylar is keeping quiet about what she's seen, but how long can she keep it up?But Jimmy was her savior. . . .When her mother died, he was the only person who mad...

Forty-seven stories-from flash fiction to full-length works, deeply felt, autobiographical fiction-unfold across the decades from the 1960s to the present day and reveal a family's hopes and fears, truths and lies, and love. "With vivid, compact prose, the author Caroline Bock transports the reader to multiple generations of her Jewish-Italian-American family story and beyond. This collection is a tender, compassionate, and wise meditation on family, loss, and love." Winner of the ...

When her doctor told her she could suffer a stroke just by walking across the street, Susan Blech knew drastic action was called for. She was only 38 years old, and the scale registered a life-threatening 468 pounds. Rejecting the idea of gastric bypass surgery, Susan relocated to Durham, North Carolina, giving up all that was familiar and $70,000 of her life savings to devote herself to losing weight and getting healthy on the famed Rice Diet.In Confessions of a Carb Queen,

When high school senior Paul Wagoner walks into his school library with a stolen gun, he threatens his girlfriend Emily Beam, then takes his own life. In the wake of the tragedy, an angry and guilt-ridden Emily is shipped off to boarding school in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she encounters a ghostly presence who shares her name. The spirit of Emily Dickinson and two quirky girls offer helping hands, but it is up to Emily to heal her own damaged self.This inventive story, told in ...

In the tradition of The Fault in Our Stars, critically acclaimed author Melissa Kantor masterfully captures the joy of friendship, the agony of loss, and the unique experience of being a teenager in this poignant new novel about a girl grappling with her best friend's life-threatening illness.A person's whole life, she's lucky to have one or two real friends. Friends who are like family… For Zoe, that someone is Olivia. So when Olivia is diagnosed with leukemia, Zoe is determined t...

The war is over, but for thirteen-year-old Rachel, the battle has just begun. Putting childhood behind her, she knows what she wants - to prove she has acting talent worthy of the school drama club, and what she doesn't want - to romantically fall for someone completely inappropriate. Worries about her veteran brother's failing health and repugnance at her mother's unexpected and unwanted pregnancy drive her to seek solace from a seemingly sympathetic, but self-serving teacher. The lies sh...

The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he's in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it's not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there's no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it's just harmless fun.That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two yea...

One of School Library Journal's Best Fiction Books of 2011If a violent battle destroyed the only world you've ever known, would you be brave enough to save who was left? Would love be strong enough to survive the fight? Either way, there's no turning back.The Empyrean is the only home 15-year-old Waverly has ever known. Part of the first generation to be successfully conceived in deep space, she and her boyfriend Kieran will be pione...

Kiss Me Again, the sequel to Rachel Vail's beloved contemporary teen romance If We Kiss, follows Charlie (Charlotte) Collins as she struggles with her feelings for her longtime crush Kevin Lazarus after their parents marry and he becomes her stepbrother.It was complicated enough when their parents were only dating and Kevin was going out with Charlie's best friend, Tess. Now, living under one roof, Charlie and Kevin are crossing paths and crossing lines, sneaking around at night an...