New Hope Academy, or, as seventeen-year-old Jane Learning likes to call it, No Hope, is a Baptist reform school where Jane is currently being held captive. Of course, smart, sarcastic Jane has no interest in reforming, failing to see any benefit to pretending to play well with others. But then Hannah shows up, a gorgeous bad girl with fiery hair and an even stormier disposition. She shows Jane how to live a full and fulfilling life even when the world tells you you're wrong, and how to believe in a future outside the "prison" walls. Jane soon learns, though, that Hannah is quietly battling some demons of her own.
It's almost summer in small town Port Ainslie. Or is it? Temperatures are so far below normal that Police Chief Maxine Benson and her team are wearing sweaters. But is it cold enough to freeze the body of the man found in a ditch on the outskirts of town one morning? Maxine starts to investigate, but she is elbowed aside by the mostly-male provincial police force so she takes charge on her own.
Since the sudden death of his younger sister, Evie, sixteen-year-old Munro Maddux has been having flashbacks and anger-management issues. He has a constant ache in his right hand. And there's a taunting, barking, biting voice he calls "the Coyote." Munro knows a six-month student exchange will not be the stuff of teenage dreams, but in Brisbane he intends to move beyond his troubled past. It is there, at an assisted-living residence called Fair Go Community Village, that Munro discovers the Coyote can be silenced.
Seventeen-year-old Penny is struggling to balance caring for Jude, her sister with mental health challenges, working part-time to help her mother with money issues and facing her final year of high school. She does not need any distractions. But then she meets Jack. The two of them click immediately. But as quickly as things heat up, they then cool down, and Penny isn’t sure why. Does she have room for her feelings for Jack alongside her worries that her sister is crashing into suicidal depression again?
The other night, Trace Brewster, Max’s best friend and star hockey player for the Hawks, scored on his own net and put the team’s chances of qualifying for an upcoming tournament in jeopardy. Since then Trace has gone silent and is shutting everyone out. But Max thinks there’s more going on with his friend than what happened on the ice. For one thing, there are bruises on Trace's face that he refuses to explain. Can Max find a way to get Trace to open up and help him in time for the big game?
Julie survived a horrific car accident, but she has no memory of the event or the boyfriend who was with her in the car. He disappeared, and she is diagnosed with PTSD. Her doctor recommends a therapy animal, and Julie chooses to get a horse. Julie's experience with horses is limited, but it's empowering to finally be involved in life again, and her symptoms abate. However, she has a lot to learn, and when the riding coach gives confusing lessons, Julie is thrown off balance, both emotionally and in the saddle. The improvement she'd begun to experience with PTSD symptoms is lost, and her nightmares return. Can Julie and the horse recover and heal their broken spirits?
While struggling with the death of her beloved adoptive mother, sixteen-year-old Brenna reconnects with members of her biological family, hoping to discover why her biological mother broke off contact many years earlier. At the same time, she is falling in love with Ryan, who provides support while she grieves but has to leave her when she needs him most. Despite powerful feelings of abandonment, Brenna realizes that getting strong physically and focusing on the needs of others might just help her move beyond her crippling grief, find peace and plan a future for herself. Dancing in the Rain continues the story that began in Shelley Hrdlitschka’s bestselling Dancing Naked.
Jason is sure his sister, Becca, was murdered, but he’s the only one who thinks so. After finding a photograph Becca kept hidden, he decides to infiltrate a boxing gym to prove that she didn’t die accidentally. As a transgender kid, Jason’s been fighting for as long as he can remember, and those skills are going to come in handy as he investigates. Quickly invited into the inner circle, Jason must balance newfound friendships with the burning hate that drives him. Jason soon feels torn between two worlds, determined to discover what happened to his sister but struggling with the fact that this is the first time he’s ever felt like he belonged somewhere.
Psycho. Sick. Dangerous. Réal Dufresne's reputation precedes him. When the mangled body of his best friend, Shaun, turns up in a field just east of town, tough-as-hell Réal blames himself. But except for the nightmares, all Ré remembers is beating the living crap out of Shaun the night of his death. Shaun's girlfriend, sixteen-year-old Evie Hawley, keeps her feelings locked up tight. But now she's pregnant, and the father of her baby is dead. And when Réal looks to her to atone for his sins, everything goes sideways. Fast. The tighter Evie and Réal get, the faster things seem to fall apart. And falling in love might just be the card that knocks the whole house down.
Transgender teen Ichiro enters a drag contest in hopes of earning enough money to live off the grid. Ichiro is a transgender youth in his final year of high school. He has a job as a dishwasher to earn money to help support his single mother. But it's not enough. Ichiro dreams of buying a camper van for the two of them so they can escape and live off the grid and not have to worry about money anymore. A budding drag queen, he takes a second job performing drag at a local club and learns of an upcoming contest where the prize money would be enough to pay for a camper van. But nobody knows he does drag. So when some of his friends find out what he’s really doing in the evenings, Ichiro is worried about what they will think of him. Will they still accept him?
Jack’s a star player on an elite soccer team along with his brother, Alex. The Lancers are on top of the league, even favored to win the National Championship. But the game’s about to change. A slick bookie wins Jack’s friendship and introduces him to illegal betting. Before long, Jack is hooked on the adrenaline rush, and early wins convince him that gambling could make him rich. Meanwhile, an ever-widening rift is forming between the two brothers. Suddenly, Jack’s “system” fails and his luck runs out. How could a few losses pile up to a gut-kicking ten grand? When he can’t pay, the bookie gives Jack one way out - throw the National Championship. But can he betray his brother, his team and himself?
High-school football star Matt Barnes was on the top of the world until a freak snowboarding accident ended his promising sports career and left him with a permanent limp. As he struggles to accept his changed body, Matt becomes depressed and isolated. Instead of college football camp, he faces a summer job at the local golf club. Then by chance Matt lands an internship at the Justice Project, an organization that defends the wrongly convicted. The other intern is his high-school nemesis, Sonya Livingstone, a quick-witted social activist with little time for jock culture. The two slowly develop a friendship as they investigate the case of Ray Richardson, who was convicted of murdering his parents twenty-one years ago. Matt and Sonya are soon convinced that Ray is innocent—but how will they prove it? Unraveling the cold case takes them on a journey filled with twists, turns, deception and danger. It will take dedication, perseverance and courage to unmask the real murderer. Can those same qualities help Matt move on to a life not defined by football?
After the death of her boyfriend, sixteen-year old Valentine stops going to school, quits seeing her friends and, finally, won’t leave her bed. Desperate for her daughter to recover, Valentine’s mother takes her on a trek in Thailand. In the mountains north of Chiang Mai, Valentine finds a world she didn’t know existed, where houses are on stilts and elephants still roam wild. She learns about the Burmese civil war and the relentless violence against the Karen and Rohingya peoples. Then she meets Lin, a mysterious young elephant keeper tormented by his hidden past, and an orphaned elephant calf, pursued by violent poachers. Together, the three flee deep into the jungle, looking for refuge and redemption.
Through twenty-six letters to her friend Nina, twelve-year-old Kasey chronicles the often humorous observations and impressions of her unexpected, month-long stay in a geriatric ward for the treatment of a rare but treatable bone disease ("osteo-something-something-itis"). Kasey tries to make her life less dull by wearing her own nightgowns, surrounding herself with her favorite stuffies and developing an unusual exercise routine. Hospital food, insomnia and the germy communal bath are enduring sources of dread, but some new (and unexpected) friends make her life bearable.
Seventeen-year-old Mark "Shark" Hewitt is good at playing pool. Really good. When he, his mom and sister move to a new town, Mark immediately seeks out the local pool hall. He loves to play, but even more than that, he just loves hanging out with the regulars. It reminds him of good times with his dad, who is no longer in the picture. When one of the patrons notices Mark's natural gift for the game, he forces Mark to use his talent for profit. Now Mark has to find a way to get out from under this sleazeball's thumb and protect his family.
Jackson knows how to get what he wants. Whether it's sweet-talking his friends into buying lunch or convincing teachers to give him extensions, he feels entitled to take whatever he wants - even a day off school or a new pair of shoes. Now he's set his sights on Abby, a troubled girl fresh out of juvie who only has eyes for Bryce, the go-to dealer of a dangerous new drug called kryptonite.
Team Retribution has been contacted by a teen who is being blackmailed into handing over secrets from the family business. Jace, with the help of his brother, Bentley, start to investigate and soon learn that the teen's family, like his own, is not what it appears to be. Jace, after learning he was switched at birth, then sets out to track down his birth family. The Retribution series is made up of six books, the original three, Burned, Exposed and Unleashed, and the three sequels, Terminate, Infiltrate and Escalate, by authors Natasha Deen, Judith Graves and Sigmund Brouwer.
Riley and Dashawn have been friends since they were three. They got into skateboarding together and have advanced to the point where it's time to create a Sponsor Me tape. They bring a third skater along, Natasha, and try to get some good clips around a new office development. Then the police storm into the lot. The three skaters quickly scatter, trying their best not to get busted. Riley and Natasha arrive at the meet-up spot. They wait and wait, but Dashawn never shows. The next day Riley visits Dashawn, only to discover that the police have given him a beat-down. Nothing like this has ever happened before, and for Riley it is a wake-up call that whether they know it or not, not everyone lives in the same world he does.
After another night of girls, music and booze, seventeen-year-old pop star Darius Zaire falls out of bed and lands on the cruddy floor of his old bedroom. No mansion, no luxury cars, no platinum records. Now he's just ordinary Darren Zegers. Some kind of nightmare has erased everything that happened to change Darren the dweeb into Darius the multimillionaire. Now Darius has to face an ordinary day in the twelfth grade, suffering through remedial English and wondering what happened to the last three years, let alone all his fans and money. He desperately wants to return to his old life, but he is starting to worry that maybe this is reality, and it was his other life that was the dream.
For spring break, sixteen-year-old Maya travels from Vancouver to Palm Springs to visit her grandparents, soak up the sun and play some tennis. When they surprise her with tickets to the Indian Wells tennis tournament, she can't believe her luck. This is going to be the best vacation ever. But on the way back from the match they get into a fender bender. The other driver suggests they just square up and not involve the police or insurance companies. That seems odd to Maya, especially since the passenger of the other vehicle is visibly pregnant. But because Maya was driving, her grandfather is worried about repercussions and agrees to the deal. Later, Maya and her new friend Ruby discover that similar incidents have happened to others in her grandparents' gated community. They start to investigate, and when they spot the woman from the crash working in a clothing store, and clearly not pregnant, they know they are onto something.
Fifteen-year-old Megan Cause Queen Caliente is president of the political science club and likes to make her voice heard. But after the protest she organized on the Las Vegas Strip takes an unexpected turn, she is suddenly wishing she could disappear. When her mother comes to pick her up at the police station, Megan learns, to her horror, that her whole life has been a lie. Her father is a convicted terrorist, responsible for the deaths of more than two hundred people, and her mother has been living under an assumed name for fifteen years. Megan's mom is taken away in handcuffs, and Megan is expected to return to her regular life under the supervision of her aunt. But everyone, students and teachers alike, is treating her differently now. Cruel accusations and gossip, as well as persistent reporters, follow her everywhere. Worried that she is destined to follow in her fathers footsteps, Megan, with the help of the charismatic Matt Mendez, the only person at school who hasnt turned on her, decides to track down the father she thought was dead and get some answers.
Declan's life in small-town Quebec is defined by his parents' divorce, his older brother's delinquency and his own lackluster performance at school, which lands him with a tutor he calls Little Miss Perfect. He likes his job at the local ice rink, and he has a couple of good buddies, but his father's five-year absence is a constant source of pain and anger. When he finds out the truth about his parents' divorce, he is forced to reconsider everything he has believed about his family and himself.
While volunteering at the local zoo, Robyn, Nick and Trevor learn that grizzly bears are being poached and their gall bladders removed for use in alternative medicine. Always ready to solve a mystery, the kids set out to find the poachers. Bear is not only big game, they learn, but big money to poachers. The stakes are high and the suspects many, as the kids head into their most dangerous adventure yet.
Dorf is all about skateboarding and so far that's worked out fine. But now that he's in a new city, the terrain has changed. He's no longer free to skateboard where he wishes, school is more difficult, and his passion for skateboarding garners him the nickname and reputation of a freak. With daring stunts he gains the grudging respect of local troublemakers, but he needs to tap into another kind of courage to effect real change.
Trevor, Nick and Robyn are ready to solve another mystery. When bobsledder Josh Gantz is accused of deliberately injuring a fellow competitor, he runs the risk of being thrown out of the sport -- right before the World Cup. Courtney Gantz asks Trevor, Nick and Robyn to help clear her brother's name. Can they find out who framed Josh? What is the meaning of the strange coded messages they keep finding around Olympic Park? Who eats orange bananas, anyway? The kids must unearth the clues in a race against time, before Josh's championship dreams end up on ice.
