Young Adult Fiction

Ellie Quinn has spent most of her sixteen years behind the scenes, helping her father manage a crew of four-legged movie stars. Although she longs to be acknowledged as an animal trainer in her own right, she often gets stuck babysitting actors’ personal pets and is known around the studio as “the dog sitter for the stars.”

When teen megastar Kate Montgomery’s sidekick gets fired while filming a pilot, Ellie is forced to temporarily fill-in. The producers seem to be enamored with Ellie—and so do Kate’s two love interests on the show, “it boy” Logan Canfield and brand-new actor Cam Alvarez—causing trouble on and off the set.

Now Ellie must decide between living the drama in front of the camera or behind it. If she quits and the pilot fails, she and her father will have to close their failing business and move to her grandfather's lettuce farm. But if she stays on the road to stardom, it could mean losing the boy she's fallen for—and herself—in the process. Can she save the TV show and her father's business without losing everything else?

The summer before her junior year, paleontology geek Natalie Page lands a coveted internship at an Ice Age dig site near Austin, Texas. Natalie, who’s also a plus-size fashion blogger, depends on the retro style and persona she developed to shield herself from her former bullies, but vintage dresses and designer heels aren’t compatible with digging for fossils.

But nothing is going to dampen her spirit. She’s exactly where she wants to be, and gets to work with her hero, the host of the most popular paleontology podcast in the world. And then there’s Chase, the intern, who’s seriously cute, and Cody, a local boy who’d be even cuter if he were less of a grouch.

It’s a summer that promises to be about more than just mammoths.

Until it isn’t.

When Natalie’s paleontologist hero turns out to be anything but, and steals the credit for one of her accomplishments, she has to unearth the confidence she needs to stand out in a field dominated by men. To do this, she’ll have to let her true self shine, even if that means defying the rules and risking her life for the sake of a major discovery. While sifting through dirt, she finds more than fossils—she finds out that she is truly awesome.

In this epic conclusion to The Ables series, old and new generations of Ables must overcome their personal challenges and work together to stop a sinister plot to destroy all of the world’s custodian heroes.

For many years, Phillip Sallinger was one of the greatest custodians on Earth, using his superpowers to save countless lives. But after a personal tragedy, Phillip has spent the last decade living off the grid with his two children, Winnie and Henry. Phillip tries to ignore his powers and the increasing destabilization of the country, stubbornly believing he can shelter his family from harm simply by staying out of the public eye. But when Phillip is visited by a rush of familiar faces, they reveal the undeniable devastation of the looming crisis. The country’s leader, calling himself the Superintendent, has hatched a diabolical plan to rid the world of custodian heroes once and for all.

Finally convinced of the unprecedented threat to humanity, Phillip can no longer pretend that his family is safe. Actively hunted by evil government forces and dealing with a host of new and complicated relationship dynamics, Phillip must cut through the noise of his own self-doubt and join the fight to save the world one more time.

“smart, thought-provoking, and unique… readers won’t want to put this eye-opening, explosive story down.” —School Library Journal

In a world of secret superheroes who protect mankind unknowingly, Phillip and his friends —the Ables— must overcome more than villains if they are to defeat the growing evil threatening humanity.

I did have fantastic hearing, mostly by virtue of being blind. But that couldn't actually mean that he's trying to tell me I have super powers, right? Because that would be ridiculous.

It wasn't the "sex talk" he expected. Phillip Sallinger's dad has told him he's a custodian--a guardian--and his genetically inherited power is telekinesis. He'll learn to move objects with his mind. Excited to begin superhero high school until he discovers he's assigned to a "special ed" class for disabled empowered kids, he suddenly feels like an outsider. Bullied, threatened, and betrayed, Phillip struggles, even as he and his friends--calling themselves the Ables--find ways to maximize their powers to overcome their disabilities, and are the first to identify the growing evil threatening humanity. As vital custodians disappear and the custodian leadership is mired in indecision, a mysterious and powerful figure taunts Phillip, and the enemy is poised to strike. But what if the next "one who does all," the multi-gifted custodian predicted to come, is one of the Ables?

“…a stunning read.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Escape of Light is a compulsively-readable marvel that demands to be read in one sitting."—Dan Loflin, screenwriter, the CW’s SUPERNATURAL and THIS IS JANE

Wilder Tate just wants a normal life with a normal face...

Burns have disfigured him, his father has passed away, and his mother now works so many jobs, he feels like he’s living alone. He expects more of that same loneliness as he starts at a new high school, but Wilder surprises even himself as he finds a new best friend, discovers a knack for basketball, and catches the eye of the coolest girl in school. All the cruelty and bullying seems reserved for the enigmatic Lane McKenzie, and Wilder is all too happy to let her take the heat. But sometimes Wilder is his own worst enemy, and his scars run far deeper than just physical damage. He’s haunted by a secret he thinks he can erase with a bold and risky plan to fix his disfigurement for good—a plan that may cost him far more than he ever imagined.

Filled with twists, heart, and humor, The Escape of Light is a bold and unexpected story of resilience, love, and basketball from the acclaimed author of The Heart Does Not Grow Back.

Gold Medal Winner, Young Adult Fiction — Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Independent Publisher's Moonbeam Children's Book Awards

One thousand years after a cataclysmic event leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, the descendants of the chosen survivors take refuge in thirteen contingency shelters buried deep underground, at the bottom of the ocean, and in the far reaches of outer space. In the underwater 13th Continuum, sixteen-year-old Myra Jackson has heard rumors and whisperings all her life of a magical place called "The Surface” where people could breathe fresh air, feel the warmth of something called sunlight on their skin, and see things known as stars and trees and mountains. Myra has never dared to ask whether the stories are true, since the act of speaking such words aloud is an offense punishable by death. But after she discovers that the air supply aboard her underwater colony is running out, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to find this mysterious place. To get there, she must first recover the only guide to the Surface—the Beacon, an ancient device that also connects her to Captain Aero Wright, a dashing young soldier from one of the only remaining space colonies. With the fate of all humankind depending on them, Myra and Aero must escape the tyrannical forces that rule their colonies, journey through the black depths of the ocean and across the cold void of space, to find each other on the Surface that their ancestors once called home.

After being magically transported to another world with two other high school students, perennial outsider Billy Smith has become the unlikely king of a goblin civilization. With the help of his first day of high school crush, Lexi Aquino, now a powerful wizard, quarterback turned warrior Kurt Novac, and a cowardly but wily goblin named Hop, Billy has successfully repelled a human invasion of the goblins’ underground city, Kiranok. But the leader of the attacking Hanorian Army, Lord Marshal Jiyal, has returned to the Hanorian capital, Gran Hanor, where he’s preparing for a second invasion. Billy decides the only way to end the war is to neutralize Jiyal’s powerful ally, a young wizard named Mig. Billy and Kurt set off for Gran Hanor to find Mig and trick her into drinking a potion called the Final Drop which will nullify her magic forever. But after their departure, the Dark Lady, the mad elven wizard who started the war, reappears in Kiranok and reclaims her place as the goblins’ leader. She coerces Lexi, who’s struggling with madness from using too much magic, into helping her raise a skeletal army, then she and her Marching Dead force the goblins to march on Gran Hanor. Now Billy must find a way to stop the Dark Lady and her skeletal army, neutralize Mig, help Lexi regain her sanity, save the goblins, and make peace with the Hanorians before a cataclysmic final battle destroys them all.

Reaching the surface was just the beginning.

As Myra Jackson and her friends set out to find the First Continuum, Captain Aero Wright and two companions from the outer space Second Continuum find themselves banished for treason and stranded on Earth. Wright has vowed to complete his late father’s mission to recolonize their ancestral planet, but his true mission is to find the mysterious girl who haunts his dreams. Meanwhile, Myra and the young refugees of the underwater Thirteenth Continuum must make an unlikely ally if they are going to survive the hostile surface world and reach their destination, the nexus of humanity’s hope for survival. As their paths begin to converge, the Beacons that guide and connect Myra and Aero begin to prove their power, and a shadowy force with a centuries-old grudge reveals itself.

“Smart, thought-provoking, and unique… readers won’t want to put this eye-opening, explosive story down.” —School Library Journal

"Jeremy Scott brings his familiar snark from his CinemaSins YouTube channel to the book’s epic battles, plot-twists and super-villains.”—San Francisco Book Review

Three years after the showdown with Finch razed their hometown of Freepoint and changed their lives forever, Phillip & the rest of The Ables gang find another school year interrupted by a growing threat. Relations with the government have never been more strained and the political rhetoric has shifted to a more hostile tone when discussing those with special abilities. A new branch of Homeland Security has been empowered to investigate custodial acts of heroism and even detain suspects indefinitely. While juggling his leadership responsibilities over the dozens of Ables members, a new crush, and a growing anxiety problem... Phillip will have to decide how much of The Ables' time will be spent training for simulation games and how much will be spent stepping into the real-world crime-fighting holes created by the custodians that have disappeared--presumed to be imprisoned or worse. Confronted with a mysterious new villain wielding a previously unknown power, Phillip, Bentley, & Henry will be forced to stretch their abilities and their bonds further than ever before.

Ellie Quinn has spent most of her sixteen years behind the scenes, helping her father manage a crew of four-legged movie stars. Although she longs to be acknowledged as an animal trainer in her own right, she often gets stuck babysitting actors’ personal pets and is known around the studio as “the dog sitter for the stars.”

When teen megastar Kate Montgomery’s sidekick gets fired while filming a pilot, Ellie is forced to temporarily fill-in. The producers seem to be enamored with Ellie—and so do Kate’s two love interests on the show, “it boy” Logan Canfield and brand-new actor Cam Alvarez—causing trouble on and off the set.

Now Ellie must decide between living the drama in front of the camera or behind it. If she quits and the pilot fails, she and her father will have to close their failing business and move to her grandfather's lettuce farm. But if she stays on the road to stardom, it could mean losing the boy she's fallen for—and herself—in the process. Can she save the TV show and her father's business without losing everything else?

After being magically transported to another world with two other high school students, perennial outsider Billy Smith has become the unlikely king of a goblin civilization. With the help of his first day of high school crush, Lexi Aquino, now a powerful wizard, quarterback turned warrior Kurt Novac, and a cowardly but wily goblin named Hop, Billy has successfully repelled a human invasion of the goblins’ underground city, Kiranok. But the leader of the attacking Hanorian Army, Lord Marshal Jiyal, has returned to the Hanorian capital, Gran Hanor, where he’s preparing for a second invasion. Billy decides the only way to end the war is to neutralize Jiyal’s powerful ally, a young wizard named Mig. Billy and Kurt set off for Gran Hanor to find Mig and trick her into drinking a potion called the Final Drop which will nullify her magic forever. But after their departure, the Dark Lady, the mad elven wizard who started the war, reappears in Kiranok and reclaims her place as the goblins’ leader. She coerces Lexi, who’s struggling with madness from using too much magic, into helping her raise a skeletal army, then she and her Marching Dead force the goblins to march on Gran Hanor. Now Billy must find a way to stop the Dark Lady and her skeletal army, neutralize Mig, help Lexi regain her sanity, save the goblins, and make peace with the Hanorians before a cataclysmic final battle destroys them all.

“I am the stuff of your nightmares . . . you have been writing my name on the walls of your fear your entire life.”

When seven-year-old Jamie falls down a very long hill, he finds himself trapped in a world of strange creatures, harsh landscapes, and near-perpetual darkness. Lost and confused, Jamie is desperate to get home. The nightmares, fears, and all manner of what-ifs that inhabit this shadow world are unfamiliar to him—all except one: the Lairdbalor, Jamie’s personal nightmare, once relegated to his dreams. In this fantastical land, however, the Lairdbalor and all the fears and nightmares of children are very real.

But Jamie’s nightmare is different. It is the sum total of the anger and anxiety that imprisoned him in his former life, and it threatens to consume and rule the nightmare realm, a place where time passes differently. With each slumber, Jamie finds himself inexorably changed. The farther he travels through this terrifying world, the better he understands the one he left behind.

Crossing genres of folklore, horror, fantasy, and magical realism, The Lairdbalor is a story for anyone who lives with anxiety and fear and has ever wondered “what if?” It is the story of a child not meant for children and a darkly imaginative meditation on life, death, fear, and the nature of reality.

“The lyrical prose style is reminiscent of Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing but the suspension of disbelief and ability to connect to the wacky characters is what readers will find most engaging about the story.”—School Library Journal

"The Art of Dumpster Diving packs a wallop. Glorious storytelling in an authentic voice.”– Adriana Trigiani New York Times bestselling author of Big Stone Gap and Tony's Wife

“A moving and heart-felt  story of family and community, and the symbiotic ways the two can shape and sustain one another.”– Jo Watson Hackl, Author of Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, Winner, Southern Book Prize for Children’s Literature

From award-winning author Jennifer Moses comes an incredible story of the power of family, love and the human-spirit.

Sixteen-year-old James and his little brother, Danny, live in Crystal Springs, Louisiana, with their grandmother, mother, and first cousin, Lila. The family is working class, proud, strict, and church-going. When a big, clumsy boy named Gabriel moves up the street with his minuscule and mysterious “auntie,” James has a new friend who he loves and hates in equal measure. When Grandma dies and Lila runs away, James and Danny’s mother struggles to make things work, but something’s wrong, so wrong that one awful day, James finds his mother lying in her bed, dead. Panicked, he runs to the only person he can think of, his friend Gabriel. Gabriel insists that if the authorities know that there are no adults at home, they’ll send James and Danny away to foster care or worse, and ends up convincing James that the only way to maintain any kind of decent life for himself and his little brother is to carry on as if things are normal. The boys bury the body under an abandoned house, and, as James tries to make ends meet (procuring food from dumpsters) things become increasingly desperate.  

It’s Gabriel who comes up with a “master plan” to find a woman who looks enough like the boys’ mother that she can pass for her---and get money out of the bank. They recruit Lucetta from a soup kitchen, and she moves in. For a while, things begin to look up---and then they fall apart completely. But in the process of losing everything, James and his brother Danny gain a new family, one based on grit, faith and hope.

In this epic conclusion to The Ables series, old and new generations of Ables must overcome their personal challenges and work together to stop a sinister plot to destroy all of the world’s custodian heroes.

For many years, Phillip Sallinger was one of the greatest custodians on Earth, using his superpowers to save countless lives. But after a personal tragedy, Phillip has spent the last decade living off the grid with his two children, Winnie and Henry. Phillip tries to ignore his powers and the increasing destabilization of the country, stubbornly believing he can shelter his family from harm simply by staying out of the public eye. But when Phillip is visited by a rush of familiar faces, they reveal the undeniable devastation of the looming crisis. The country’s leader, calling himself the Superintendent, has hatched a diabolical plan to rid the world of custodian heroes once and for all.

Finally convinced of the unprecedented threat to humanity, Phillip can no longer pretend that his family is safe. Actively hunted by evil government forces and dealing with a host of new and complicated relationship dynamics, Phillip must cut through the noise of his own self-doubt and join the fight to save the world one more time.

Praise for Return of the Continuums:

"Strong female and male characters join forces to save what’s left of the world, while a subplot of love triangles adds emotional suspense. Classic themes of loyalty in the face of adversity and good vs. evil underpin this plot-driven science fiction adventure. Although this is the second volume of a trilogy, enough backstory is included to allow teens to pick it up without having read the first installment. Fans of The 13th Continuum will not be disappointed with this lively sequel." - School Library Journal

"Likeable characters, an intricate world, and imaginative settings combine to make a satisfying young-adult read in Jennifer Brody’s Return of the Continuums, the second book of the dystopian Continuum series." - Foreword Reviews

"The pacing and action are noticeably stepped up in this second outing [...] will please fans of the first." Kirkus

"The follow up novel to The 13th Continuum is nothing less than a home run for author Jennifer Brody. It builds on a fully realized universe, dense with an ingenious mythology, from book one, yet manages to take readers to a whole new world (pun intended!). Be ready to be angry at the ending, though, because it’s going to leave you clamoring for the final chapter in The Continuum Trilogy!"—Kirby Howell, author of Autumn in the City of Angels

"Return of the Continuums is a riveting, action-packed sequel that kept me up well past my bedtime needing to know how Myra and her friends would survive the dangers of the surface and reach The First Continuum. With plenty of unfolding secrets and an ever-expanding world, this is a series that just gets better and better." - Stephanie Diaz, author of the Extraction series

Praise for The 13th Continuum:

"Brody writes an intelligent narrative that is entertaining as it is introspective about the human race, its fate and where we might end up."-Roanoke Times

"Fans clamoring for a new dystopian science fiction series may appreciate this latest addition to the genre." - School Library Journal

"This gripping read is recommended not only for advanced teen readers, but for adults who enjoy solid sci-fi dystopian settings." - Donovan's Bookshelf

"A fascinating premise and compulsively readable debut. It totally sucked me in." —Robin Talley, author of Lies We Tell Ourselves

"With meticulous world-building and an epic scope, Jennifer Brody has created a fascinating sci-fi story. Readers will flip the pages, anxious to answer a question that will determine the future of humanity: Will they reach the surface? —Pintip Dunn, author of Forget Tomorrow

"The 13th Continuum manages to be smart, surprising, and a good time, all at once. That's hard magic to pull off, but Jennifer Brody makes it seem easy. Swift and surprising, this novel is such a confident debut. Here's to many more."—Victor LaValle, author of New York Times Notable Book of the Year, The Devil in Silver

In the epic conclusion to the award-winning Continuum Trilogy, Aero leads a group insurgents from the Second Continuum to overthrow his rival, Supreme General Vinick, and unite his space colony’s military forces, while Seeker embarks on a secret mission back to her home colony to reinforce Earth's defenses and protect the First Continuum against an even greater threat. Meanwhile, Myra’s nightmares have become a reality as the Dark Thing hurtles toward Earth with designs on eradicating the planet’s fledgling populace. The only thing standing in the way are the three Carriers and those who would join them to fight against a second coming of the Doom.

After the events of The Ables, Phillip, James & the rest of the gang are still finding a balance between being acceted by the rest of the hero community and just... being teenagers. In The Heroes Journey, we glimpse a single day in their lives, as they fight a dangerous enemy in a heavily populated area and make split-second choices that will impact their lives forever. Hero actions can be big or small, seen or unseen. Sometimes everything works out great; sometimes there are consequences. But it's always the right choice to try to be a hero. Isn't it...

“I am the stuff of your nightmares . . . you have been writing my name on the walls of your fear your entire life.”

When seven-year-old Jamie falls down a very long hill, he finds himself trapped in a world of strange creatures, harsh landscapes, and near-perpetual darkness. Lost and confused, Jamie is desperate to get home. The nightmares, fears, and all manner of what-ifs that inhabit this shadow world are unfamiliar to him—all except one: the Lairdbalor, Jamie’s personal nightmare, once relegated to his dreams. In this fantastical land, however, the Lairdbalor and all the fears and nightmares of children are very real.

But Jamie’s nightmare is different. It is the sum total of the anger and anxiety that imprisoned him in his former life, and it threatens to consume and rule the nightmare realm, a place where time passes differently. With each slumber, Jamie finds himself inexorably changed. The farther he travels through this terrifying world, the better he understands the one he left behind.

Crossing genres of folklore, horror, fantasy, and magical realism, The Lairdbalor is a story for anyone who lives with anxiety and fear and has ever wondered “what if?” It is the story of a child not meant for children and a darkly imaginative meditation on life, death, fear, and the nature of reality.

Sixteen-year-old James and his little brother, Danny, live in Crystal Springs, Louisiana, with their grandmother, mother, and first cousin, Lila. The family is working class, proud, strict, and church-going. When a big, clumsy boy named Gabriel moves up the street with his minuscule and mysterious “auntie,” James has a new friend who he loves and hates in equal measure. When Grandma dies and Lila runs away, James and Danny’s mother struggles to make things work, but something’s wrong, so wrong that one awful day, James finds his mother lying in her bed, dead. Panicked, he runs to the only person he can think of, his friend Gabriel. Gabriel insists that if the authorities know that there are no adults at home, they’ll send James and Danny away to foster care or worse, and ends up convincing James that the only way to maintain any kind of decent life for himself and his little brother is to carry on as if things are normal. The boys bury the body under an abandoned house, and, as James tries to make ends meet (procuring food from dumpsters) things become increasingly desperate.  

It’s Gabriel who comes up with a “master plan” to find a woman who looks enough like the boys’ mother that she can pass for her---and get money out of the bank. They recruit Lucetta from a soup kitchen, and she moves in. For a while, things begin to look up---and then they fall apart completely. But in the process of losing everything, James and his brother Danny gain a new family, one based on grit, faith and hope.

I did have fantastic hearing, mostly by virtue of being blind. But that couldn't actually mean that he's trying to tell me I have super powers, right? Because that would be ridiculous.

It wasn't the "sex talk" he expected. Phillip Sallinger's dad has told him he's a custodian--a guardian--and his genetically inherited power is telekinesis. He'll learn to move objects with his mind. Excited to begin superhero high school until he discovers he's assigned to a "special ed" class for disabled empowered kids, he suddenly feels like an outsider. Bullied, threatened, and betrayed, Phillip struggles, even as he and his friends--calling themselves the Ables--find ways to maximize their powers to overcome their disabilities, and are the first to identify the growing evil threatening humanity. As vital custodians disappear and the custodian leadership is mired in indecision, a mysterious and powerful figure taunts Phillip, and the enemy is poised to strike. But what if the next "one who does all," the multi-gifted custodian predicted to come, is one of the Ables?

In the epic conclusion to the award-winning Continuum Trilogy, Aero leads a group insurgents from the Second Continuum to overthrow his rival, Supreme General Vinick, and unite his space colony’s military forces while Seeker embarks on a secret mission back to her home colony to reinforce Earth's defenses and protect the First Continuum against an even greater threat. Meanwhile, Myra’s nightmares have become a reality as the Dark Thing hurtles toward Earth with designs on eradicating the planet’s fledgling populace. The only thing standing in the way are the three Carriers and those who would join them to fight against a second coming of the Doom.

“Smart, thought-provoking, and unique… readers won’t want to put this eye-opening, explosive story down.” —School Library Journal

"Jeremy Scott brings his familiar snark from his CinemaSins YouTube channel to the book’s epic battles, plot-twists and super-villains.”—San Francisco Book Review

Three years after the showdown with Finch razed their hometown of Freepoint and changed their lives forever, Phillip & the rest of The Ables gang find another school year interrupted by a growing threat. Relations with the government have never been more strained and the political rhetoric has shifted to a more hostile tone when discussing those with special abilities. A new branch of Homeland Security has been empowered to investigate custodial acts of heroism and even detain suspects indefinitely. While juggling his leadership responsibilities over the dozens of Ables members, a new crush, and a growing anxiety problem... Phillip will have to decide how much of The Ables' time will be spent training for simulation games and how much will be spent stepping into the real-world crime-fighting holes created by the custodians that have disappeared--presumed to be imprisoned or worse. Confronted with a mysterious new villain wielding a previously unknown power, Phillip, Bentley, & Henry will be forced to stretch their abilities and their bonds further than ever before.

Gold Medal Winner, Young Adult Fiction — Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Independent Publisher's Moonbeam Children's Book Awards

One thousand years after a cataclysmic event leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, the descendants of the chosen survivors take refuge in thirteen contingency shelters buried deep underground, at the bottom of the ocean, and in the far reaches of outer space. In the underwater 13th Continuum, sixteen-year-old Myra Jackson has heard rumors and whisperings all her life of a magical place called "The Surface” where people could breathe fresh air, feel the warmth of something called sunlight on their skin, and see things known as stars and trees and mountains. Myra has never dared to ask whether the stories are true, since the act of speaking such words aloud is an offense punishable by death. But after she discovers that the air supply aboard her underwater colony is running out, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to find this mysterious place. To get there, she must first recover the only guide to the Surface—the Beacon, an ancient device that also connects her to Captain Aero Wright, a dashing young soldier from one of the only remaining space colonies. With the fate of all humankind depending on them, Myra and Aero must escape the tyrannical forces that rule their colonies, journey through the black depths of the ocean and across the cold void of space, to find each other on the Surface that their ancestors once called home.

The summer before her junior year, paleontology geek Natalie Page lands a coveted internship at an Ice Age dig site near Austin, Texas. Natalie, who’s also a plus-size fashion blogger, depends on the retro style and persona she developed to shield herself from her former bullies, but vintage dresses and designer heels aren’t compatible with digging for fossils.

But nothing is going to dampen her spirit. She’s exactly where she wants to be, and gets to work with her hero, the host of the most popular paleontology podcast in the world. And then there’s Chase, the intern, who’s seriously cute, and Cody, a local boy who’d be even cuter if he were less of a grouch.

It’s a summer that promises to be about more than just mammoths.

Until it isn’t.

When Natalie’s paleontologist hero turns out to be anything but, and steals the credit for one of her accomplishments, she has to unearth the confidence she needs to stand out in a field dominated by men. To do this, she’ll have to let her true self shine, even if that means defying the rules and risking her life for the sake of a major discovery. While sifting through dirt, she finds more than fossils—she finds out that she is truly awesome.

“…a stunning read.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Escape of Light is a compulsively-readable marvel that demands to be read in one sitting."—Dan Loflin, screenwriter, the CW’s SUPERNATURAL and THIS IS JANE

Wilder Tate just wants a normal life with a normal face...

Burns have disfigured him, his father has passed away, and his mother now works so many jobs, he feels like he’s living alone. He expects more of that same loneliness as he starts at a new high school, but Wilder surprises even himself as he finds a new best friend, discovers a knack for basketball, and catches the eye of the coolest girl in school. All the cruelty and bullying seems reserved for the enigmatic Lane McKenzie, and Wilder is all too happy to let her take the heat.  But sometimes Wilder is his own worst enemy, and his scars run far deeper than just physical damage. He’s haunted by a secret he thinks he can erase with a bold and risky plan to fix his disfigurement for good—a plan that may cost him far more than he ever imagined.

Filled with twists, heart, and humor, The Escape of Light is a bold and unexpected story of resilience, love, and basketball from the acclaimed author of The Heart Does Not Grow Back.