Young Adult Fiction

Will she ever find her mother?

Life for eleven-year-old Linh was hard enough during the years post Vietnam war, but to be separated from her mother during an attempt to escape Vietnam in 1979 was unimaginable. 

But it happens and now they have no idea where her mother and baby sister are, or whether they survived. Soon she and her remaining family (father and brother) make a second attempt to escape, unsure who will make it this time or what will become of them. She questions both Mr. Moon and God, and then all the people she meets along the way, the big questions sticking in her mind even as she explores the shores and mountains near the refugee camp where they must remain until they hear whether they will be allowed to immigrate. She and her brother make friends with other refugees and try to survive, but Linh worries when her father’s wedding ring disappears and he becomes good friends with another female refugee. Will she ever be reunited with her mother?

Venice, Florida isn’t cool. The vibe in Venice, California is.

It’s 1968 and Jack Walsh has just graduated from high school. A surfer in Venice, Florida, Jack’s dream is to hitchhike across the United States to Venice, California, in search of the perfect wave. Along the way, the naive teenage surfer-wannabe encounters mysterious, beautiful, and terrible strangers, highlighting the social norms and cultural realities of America of the late 60s, transforming the young man into the adult he desires to be. 

In a time of great war, two Irish teens become the heirs to an ancient prophecy—and must fend for their lives in a battle between realms.

1924, Ireland

Dragged from Dublin to live with distant family in the countryside, fifteen-year-old Virginia is out of her depth. But when a great beast chases her into a strange world underground, she’ll need to forge new allies and bold schemes to stay alive in a kingdom of cruel fairies, warrior leprechauns, and mercurial gods.

At seventeen, Connell is reeling from the death of his soldier brother and falling for the new girl in town. When Virginia disappears, Connell is the only one who knows where she’s gone, and soon finds himself apprenticed to a legendary hero, tasked with saving a realm—and fulfilling a destiny—he barely understands.

Intricately woven with Irish mythology, this thrilling YA fantasy debut transports readers to Otherworld, where two human teens become unwitting pawns in a dangerous game between gods and men.

In the chaos of disaster, finding other people may bring salvation or a new set of dangers where menace, death, friendship, and love are found in the surprising fissures of a drowning world. 

18-year-old Jack wakes from a blackout to find an apocalyptic landscape, the earth split open and a violent flood engulfing the farming valley where he lives. Orphaned and homeless, Jack begins searching for signs of life. But someone, or something, is stalking him. Through flooded farmlands and mountain terrain, survival rests on a razor-thin edge, the loss or discovery of food and tools the difference between life and death. Jack struggles through a transformed world and into a new life, haunted by the demons and scars of the old.

Set in the near future, Ship in the Sky is a coming-of-age literary work of fiction. Cormac McCarthy's The Road for young adults.

A Booklist Starred Review 

A big-hearted coming-of-age debut about a tiger, a Russian, a model airplane, unexplainable disaster, and a bewildered twelve-year-old boy just trying to find his place in the world.

It’s 1981 in Texarkana, Texas, and Noah Ellis is trying hard to remember. Still reeling from the loss of his father in a suspicious tragedy, Noah is in a tragedy of his own—one that results in another inexplicable death, this time leaving Noah to suffer from severe amnesia. 

After that day, everything changes. Noah becomes an unwitting star in a highly publicized trial. Girls start to notice him, and kids who once bullied him now allow him to run with their pack—at a cost. Standing as always in his big brother’s shadow, Noah also has a little sister he must look out for. But Noah’s still stuck on that day and the accident he can’t remember. As town secrets come to light and summer draws to a close, Noah must find a way to salvage all that he’s lost, and to learn what is truly precious.