Parkour. Pardon me?

Until authors Pam Withers and Arooj Hayat used parkour as the springboard for their new novel, The Parkour Club, I’d never heard of the sport. Parkour, in its truest sense, is quite literally moving from one point to another using the obstacles in your path to increase your efficiency. Think leaping, vaulting, climbing or rolling in the style of James Bond or your favorite superhero. Although parkour grew out of French military obstacle course training, it has evolved into a discipline of its own. In fact, it’s due to make its World Games debut in 2021.

The Parkour Club by Withers and Hayat is a compelling young adult novel. Here’s a summary:

Not everyone in the Parkour Club is who they seem. And for some, the question is: How fast do you have to run to escape the past?

Parkour enthusiast Bronte Miller is back from a year in Alexandria, Egypt, where her father was a war correspondent. Missing her secret Egyptian boyfriend, she’s bored in her Washington State hometown.  Or she is until Yemeni refugee Karam Saif shows up, trying awkwardly to fit into American high school life.

“I can help him with that,” Bronte thinks. Handsome, attentive and an ace parkour athlete, Karam seems the perfect antidote to her impossible home situation and not-happening readjustment to American life. Together, they and the Parkour Club party-it-up around town and revel in learning challenging new parkour moves. But both have Middle Eastern secrets that draw them ever closer to danger, and someone they can’t identify is meddling with their lives. Can they outrun the past, or join forces and save each other?