YA & Teens

No Right Thing

Crwth Press -

Amazon Barnes and Noble Indigo Crwth Press

Sixteen-year-old Cate Sheridan always tries to do the right thing. So, when she sees a homeless man about to be hit by a truck, her instincts kick in. Cate, and her friend, Noah, pull the man to safety.

But one good deed can have unpredictable consequences.

The rescued man is famous musician Max Le Bould who disappeared years earlier. Cate and Noah become instant heroes. The media shows up. So does Cate’s mother – journalist Cynthia Patrice who left when Cate was two.

Dazzled by a mother she doesn’t know and determined to help a man she does, Cate is caught in the middle of a moral dilemma. And when she makes a decision that leads to betrayal, tragedy and heartache, she learns a hard lesson: sometimes people have all the right reasons for doing a very wrong thing.

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In Plain Sight

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Does DNA determine your destiny?
Megan Caliente is out to save the world. The sixteen-year-old prides herself on rallying for causes and standing up for the underdog. But when Megan learns the father she thought was dead is in jail for committing a terrorist act, everything she believed to be true is blown apart. Her whole life has been built on a lie. How can she make sense of that? Facing humiliation from friends and struggling with guilt, Megan must confront two painful questions: how much of who we are is programmed into our DNA and how much of it is within our control?

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Stepping Out

Orca Book Publishers -

Amazon Barnes and Noble Indigo

Laughter is fifteen-year-old Paige Larsson’s currency in life. It takes the sting out of life’s tough stuff. It eases the pain of nasty comments, agonizing moments in gym classes and awkward pauses at parties. Paige likes it even more when others laugh with her, so she’s become a YouTube comedy vlogger. Now Paige is about to step out of her comfort zone and compete in the prestigious International Teens in Comedy festival. But Paige has always used her humor to mask the pain of her disability, and in the world of stand-up comedy, that won’t cut it anymore.

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The Art of Getting Stared At

Razorbill Penguin Canada -

Amazon Indigo

Sixteen-year-old Sloane is given the biggest opportunity of her life – a chance for a film school scholarship – but she has only two weeks to produce a video. She also has to work with Isaac Alexander, an irresponsible charmer with whom she shares an uneasy history. Then comes a horrifying discovery: Sloane finds a bald spot on her head. The pink patch, no bigger than a quarter, shouldn’t be there. Neither should the bald spots that follow. Horror gives way to devastation when Sloane is diagnosed with alopecia areata. The autoimmune disease has no cause, no cure, and no definitive outcome. The spots might grow over tomorrow or they might be there for life. She could become completely bald. No one knows. Determined to produce her video and keep her condition a secret, Sloane turns into the kind of person she has always mocked: someone obsessed with their looks. She’s also forced to confront a painful truth: she is as judgemental as anyone else … but she saves the harshest judgments for herself.

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Hot New Thing

Orca Book Publishers -

Amazon Barnes and Noble Wheelers

Fifteen-year-old Lily O’Neal is discovered by a big-name director when she’s auditioning for a role in a toothpaste commercial. He wants her for his new movie, which is great except that it’s shooting in Los Angeles and Lily lives in Vancouver. With the help of her Chinese grandmother, she convinces her parents to let her go to LA as long as her agent goes along as a chaperone. But when Lily gets to Hollywood, she learns that if she wants to be more than the flavor of the week, she may have to pay a price that’s way too high.

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Last Ride

Orca Book Publishers -

Amazon Barnes and Noble Indigo Indie Bound

Sixteen-year-old Tom Shields is struggling with guilt and a ghost. He killed his best friend, Logan, in a street-racing accident a year ago. As he tries to make amends to Logan’s girlfriend and keep his promise to never race again, Tom is haunted by his dead friend. He thinks Logan is trying to tell him something. Not only that, since he faces huge medical bills from the accident and may have to give up his car, the pressure to race is almost unbearable.

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Hannah’s Touch

Orca Book Publishers -

Amazon Barnes and Noble Indigo

When sixteen-year-old Hannah gets stung by a bee, she has a near-death experience and, while out of her body, meets her dead boyfriend, Logan. Strange, yes, but even stranger is the fact that she now has the power to heal. Hannah can’t figure out why this is happening to her. Then she finds out Logan has a purpose in mind for her new gift. And it’s a purpose Hannah can’t bear to face.

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Exit Point

Orca Book Publishers -

Amazon Barnes and Noble Indigo Indie Bound

Logan always takes the easy way out. After a night of drinking and driving, he wakes up, only he’s dead. With the help of his guide, Wade, and the spirit of his grandmother, he realizes he has taken the wrong exit – he wasn’t meant to die. His life had a purpose – to save his sister – but he took the easy way out and he failed. Now, before he can move on to the afterlife, he has to try and save his sister from a future no child should face. He gets one chance. And this time he cannot fail.

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Finding Cassidy

HarperTrophy Canada -

Amazon Barnes and Noble Indigo

When is your dad not your dad? “You were conceived under exceptional circumstances.” Sixteen-year-old Cassidy can hardly believe it. As she struggles to understand that she’s the product of a ‘clean and businesslike arrangement’ and her biological father is nothing more than a sperm donor, Cassidy is doubly devastated to learn the man she calls dad has just been diagnosed with a fatal disease. When she blurbs out the news at a party, she faces some shocking consequences. On top of it all, Cassidy realizes she may never know who she really is.

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Lesia’s Dream

HarperTrophy Canada -

Amazon Barnes and Noble Indigo

Fifteen-year-old Lesia can hardly bear it. She and her family must leave their beloved Baba in their Ukrainian homeland to flee to Canada. Dreaming of wealth, security and fields of wheat, Lesia looks forward to a life in Canada free from poverty and rumors of war. But the 160 acres of hardscrabble prairie look nothing like the wheat fields of her dreams. And even though there is no fighting in her new country, World War One follows them there.

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