Resilient. Livia has never felt like she fits in. As normal as it sounds, Livia is anything but ordinary. She can feel every emotion of every single person around her, and it’s maddening. In pursuit of some psychic quiet, she moves with her family from New York City to Whidbey Island in the lush and sleepy Pacific Northwest. But when a horseback riding accident in her new home gives her a broken leg that heals in a day, she finds that another unexplainable ability has manifested, and her life isn’t about to get any easier. Adam has no problem fitting in and making friends. In fact, he’s the top of the school, the boy everyone knows and loves. However, people only see what he allows them to. No one knows what Adam is truly capable of.
After witnessing Livia’s accident, Adam sees something intriguing in her quick recovery, something that gives him hope that he’s not alone. Adam is the only one whose emotions Livia can’t read. Afraid of not knowing what goes on behind his dark eyes, Livia decides to keep him at a distance. Yet the more she tries to ignore him, the more alluring he becomes, and while their personal quests for identity will inevitably bring them closer together, it is the confirmation of what they really are that threatens to tear them apart. Resilient, told in alternating point of views, is a gripping story of survival and romance, in which two teenagers face the consequences of being anything but normal.
Hidden Power Aurora Turnleaf has lived her whole life hearing fairy tales of mysterious lands, magical beings, and crystal towers. She thought nothing of them until the day she stumbled upon a magnificent city, deep within the woods, built entirely of see-through crystal. It appeared out of nowhere, in a part of the forest she’s never ventured into before, and suddenly all those stories she heard growing up become much less imaginary. Her guide is Iragos, a light mage, who introduces her to Kayne, a mage in training for a dark wizard named Kronos. Unbeknownst to Aurora, Kayne had just stolen the Ythra Orb form the Hallowed Hall on behalf of his master and hidden it in her pack. Suddenly Aurora is thrust into a life or death journey to help Kayne find the mystical land of Morgis, home to the Oracles who first created the Orb, in hopes that they can secure its safety against Kronos. The path to Morgis will be treacherous enough, but it is what follows the two teens that is more life threatening. For the dark mage’s fierce legion of vicious minions is on their path, with Kronos himself not far behind, and all of them are intent on intercepting Kayne and Aurora at every turn. Meanwhile Aurora and Kayne must battle both the elements and Kronos’ dark magic to complete their quest. And along the way, the two teens from very different worlds must learn to work together to overcome obstacles, one of them being their mutual attraction.
How I Became A Teenage Survivalist Bracken is a typical teenage boy, more interested in the angles of the girl’s exposed back teasing him from the seat ahead of him than in anything the geometry teacher could present. His life is filled with school, video games, and thoughts of girls, not necessarily in that order. Life just flows along uneventfully and unacknowledged, like the electricity that courses through the power lines — until PF (Power Failure) Day. On PF Day, the sun strikes Bracken’s world with an unseen surge of electromagnetic fury, which cripples power stations and burns transformers to crispy nuggets of regret.
No one in Bracken’s world had ever thought about how much they depended on electrical power, but now, without it, they are plunged into survival mode. Without electricity there is no communication, no modern conveniences, and soon, no modern means of transportation, as the reserves of refined gasoline run dry. Worse still is the failure of the water and sewer systems, the impossibility of getting food and supplies to people living in cities, and the deaths of millions of people from starvation, disease, and lack of medical care.
Bracken soon realizes how lucky he is to live on a farm in the Midwest. What seemed like a dull and backwards life before is now the greatest chance for survival in what seems like a powerless world. Food, water, and heat are readily available, although hard work is required to make use of them. Bracken and his family must learn to survive like their ancestors, who settled their land. Told in the first person, Bracken tells the story of how they not only survive, but how PF Day actually makes their lives better and more satisfying.
I Am Currency Would you turn in your books to a corrupt government, or would you join the movement? When a meteor slams into the earth causing a shift in the planet's magnetic core, the age of technology ends and economies across the globe crash. Years later, knowledge is not only power…it is currency. Bookkeepers are invaluable in this post-apocalyptic world. Nevel can never tell anyone he is a bookkeeper. His photographic memory is his secret. With a dystopian government that keeps all known books under lock and key looming as a constant threat and with parents involved as agents in the U.B.M. (Underground Book Movement) to protect the books that still secretly exist, Nevel is in a dangerous position. Never does this cause an issue until the day a fellow classmate, Quinn, appears at his door and proves to know more than she should. Awards: 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist (Children's/Juvenile Fiction).
My Water Path Mississippi, the late 1950s. After the death of his father, eleven-year-old Jory Sheppard runs away from an unwanted life in foster care. Trying to make it on his own, he is caught in a violent storm on the Mississippi River, but when he is rescued from the raging waters by an old black man named Moses, it becomes the event that will change his life.
Taken into Moses’ family as one of their own, Jory is introduced to a world so familiar and yet so very different from the one he once knew. As he learns and grows under the benevolent care of his new family, he struggles to make sense of the society in which he lives—a society that would spit on a man such as Moses simply because his skin is black, and make every effort to rip Jory from the family he loves.
Quickly entrenched in a struggle that is much bigger than himself, Jory must learn the difference between what feels necessary and what is right, what pity is, and what hate is. If he wants to fight the injustice and uncertainty that surrounds him, he must learn what it really means to stand up for what he believes in.
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