2017, ISBN: 9780142414729

Atria Books. Good. 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.44 inches. Paperback. 2000. 304 pages. <br>The most powerful spiritual healer, fixer, teacher on the planet. -Oprah Winfrey What is the lesson in … More...

Atria Books. Good. 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.44 inches. Paperback. 2000. 304 pages. <br>The most powerful spiritual healer, fixer, teacher on the planet. -Oprah Winfrey What is the lesson in abuse, negl ect, abandonment, rejection? What is the lesson when you lose som eone you really love? Just what are the lessons of life's hard ti mes? Bestselling author Iyanla Vanzant has had an amazing and di fficult life-one of great challenges that unmasked her wonderful gifts and led to wisdom gained. In this simple book, she uses her own personal experiences to show how life's hardships can be re- languaged and revisioned to become lessons that teach us as we gr ow, heal, and learn to love. The pain of the past does not have t o be today's reality. Iyanla Vanzant is an example of how yesterd ay's tears become the seeds of today's hope, renewal, and strengt h. Editorial Reviews Review USA Today Iyanla Vanzant taps the u niversality of spiritual yearning. About the Author Iyanla Vanza nt is one of the country's most celebrated writers and public spe akers, and she's among the most influential, socially engaged, an d acclaimed spiritual life coaches of our time. She is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seventeen books which have been translated into twenty-three languages, and the host and executi ve producer of the award-winning breakout hit Iyanla: Fix My Life , the #1 reality show on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. As Found er of Inner Visions World Wide, Iyanla is actively engaged in per sonal development courses and on-going training programs for spir itual life coaches, and ordained ministers at Inner Visions Insti tute for Spiritual Development. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permiss ion. All rights reserved. The Beginning It was happening. I had seen myself on television before, but not like this. I had never been on a mainstream national television show until now. This was special. This was big! This was the culmination of sixteen years of hard work, of three years of waiting for a producer to get ba ck to me, and an entire day of filming. The results: one twelve-m inute segment about my life and my work on CBS Sunday Morning. It felt great! Definitely something to celebrate. Instead of throwi ng a party, I felt awful, dishonest, like a fraud. I guess that's why I began to cry as the music began, heralding the start of th e program. These tears were quite different from the tears I crie d the day the segment was filmed. Throughout our many experience s of life, we cry different kinds of tears. What we are probably not aware of is that each type of tear emanates from a specific p lace in the body, and that each type has certain distinct charact eristics. We may realize that shedding tears at certain times wil l have a particular effect upon us and those around us. What we a re probably less conscious of is that each tear, regardless of it s origin, or its effects, contains a seed of healing. Angry tear s spill forth from the outside corner of the eye, making them eas ier to wipe away as they come at unexpected moments and inappropr iate times. They originate in the ego -- the part of our being th at presents to the world who we think we are. Angry tears create heat and stiffness in the body, because when we are angry, we usu ally don't know how to express what we feel. We definitely don't want anyone to know when we are angry, because anger is not accep table or polite. Rather than display anger, we hold back, and the tears rage forth, shattering our self-image. More important, ang ry tears reveal to those around us our vulnerabilities. This, we believe, is not a wise thing to do. I cried angry tears the day the CBS film crew came to my home. I had just moved into a new ho use. I had very little furniture to fill the empty spaces in my l arge home. The garage was full of boxes, one of which contained t he outfit I had planned to wear. It was an unmarked box that I co uld not find. I was also angry because my new mother-in-law was o n her way to our home, and I had no place for her to sleep. What would she think of me? I thought I was angry because I had waited so many years for the segment to be filmed, and now that it was happening, I didn't feel ready. I realized that I was angry becau se I didn't have the courage to tell the segment producer or my m anager that I wasn't ready to film the show. I wasn't ready becau se I didn't feel worthy. I cried because one of my favorite news correspondents was coming to my empty home, two days before Thank sgiving, and I couldn't locate four plates that matched. What wou ld he think of me? I was angry because I felt so vulnerable, so e xposed, and so inadequate. I was angry because I felt so powerles s, and that made me sad. Sad tears spill forth from the inside c orner of the eye, finding their way across our nose, cheeks, and lips. For some reason we always lick sad tears. We know that they are salty, and the things that bring them forth are usually the bitter experiences in life. Sad tears come from the heart. They u sually bring a bending of the shoulders and a drooping of the hea d. When you are about to be interviewed for a national televisio n program, you must hold your head up. And you must wear mascara. It is hard to put your mascara on when you are drooping and cryi ng. I had found something to wear. It wasn't what I wanted to wea r, but it would do. So now I was crying because of the incredible experience of sadness that I felt in my heart. I had worked long and hard to get to this day, this twelve minutes on CBS. There h ad been many hard times and many hard lessons. Weathering it all, my work had moved forward. My life had certainly moved ahead. In my heart, I knew that moving ahead would mean leaving certain th ings, and certain people, behind. I knew that this level of expos ure would mean advancing to another level. It was no one's fault. It was simply about time. Life has a way of doing that to you an d for you. Life will propel you into situations where the things that once worked, no longer work. Time passing, carrying things o r people out of our lives as it brings new things and people into our lives, makes us sad. And it always makes us cry. I also knew that once the segment of Sunday Morning aired, if I had not made certain decisions, they would be made for me. That was frighteni ng. Frightened tears take up the entire eye, clouding our vision , as fear will do. When we are frightened, we cannot see or think . Frightened tears are usually big tears that well up in the eye. They spill over the whole face. Frightened tears come from the s oles of the feet. They shoot through the body and create tremblin g or shaking. I was scared to death that I would be found out. P eople would find out that I was frightened, angry, and sad. When you arrive at a certain station in life, people do not expect tha t you experience certain emotions. People believe you are above a ll that, and they tell you so. That is simply not true. All teach ers must learn. All healers must be healed, and your teaching, he aling work does not stop while your learning, healing process con tinues. In fact, healing in public is an awesome task that requir es you to lovingly point out the defects of others while you are healing your own. I had no idea what I would be asked during the interview. This was, after all, the award-winning CBS Sunday Mor ning. They could ask me anything about anything, and I would be o bliged to respond. What if I was asked about something that I had not yet healed? Suppose I couldn't get my mouth open to respond? What would people think if I were asked a question on national t elevision about the little challenge I was now facing in my own l ife? And what if I got angry or frightened with millions of peopl e watching me? Would they know? How would I live with that? What would people think about me? I didn't have time to figure any of it out. I had to get dressed. I had to be interviewed. Then ther e are shame-filled tears, which fall when we are alone with our t houghts and feelings. Shame-filled tears come when we're judging ourselves, criticizing ourselves, or beating up on ourselves for something purely human that we have done yet can't explain to our selves or to others. Shame-filled tears come from the pit of the stomach and usually cause us to bend over -- not in pain, but in anguish. There I stood, about to experience something that many people in my position would sell their two front teeth to experie nce, and I didn't feel ready or worthy. There I stood, about to r ealize a dream come true, and I was so ashamed of myself I couldn 't get dressed. I was afraid, ashamed, and furious with myself th at I had not yet mustered up the strength to confront a personal challenge. It had nothing to do with money. It was not about a re lationship. Thank goodness, those two areas of my life are finall y in order. This was about me. Me, the big-time, bestselling auth or. I was ashamed that I had come so far only to get stuck on som ething so small, so trivial. But was it trivial? You cannot trivi alize the need to do, for your own well-being, something that you know will upset someone you care about. It is not easy or trivia l to say to someone, I love you, but I must leave you. It is no s mall feat to try to wipe running mascara from your cheeks after y ou have put on your foundation and powder. Talk about PMS! The Po or-Me-Syndrome was making it impossible for me to get my face tog ether, and the film crew had just entered my half-empty house. C ombination tears are the worst tears of all. They are filled with anger and sadness, with fear and shame. They have a devastating effect on the body, bringing the stiffness of anger, the drooping of sadness, the trembling of fear, and the bending of shame. The y make you cold when you are hot. They make you tremble when you are trying to keep still. Most of all, they make you nauseated. Suppose I threw up in the middle of the interview? Oh great! My i magination had taken a turn for the worse. I was standing in fron t of the mirror, terrorizing myself. Feeling unworthy. Feeling af raid, and being mad at myself for all that I was feeling. I would have slapped myself, but that would have made my eyes run again. Instead, my angel showed up at the bathroom door. My husband, Ad eyemi, had come to tell me that the film crew was waiting for me. As soon as he saw the redness in my eyes, he stretched his long arms out toward me so that I could fall into them. I did. And I c ried all over his clean white shirt. Come on, now. Don't be nerv ous. This is no different from anything else you've done. You can do this with your eyes closed. Closed, yes. Smeared with mascara , no. I would have to start all over again. That is exactly how I felt about my life. It seemed to me that, on what should have be en one of the happiest days I had ever known, I kept arriving at the place where I would have to start all over, and it pissed me off! The interview went smoothly. I did not shed a single tear. Terrence Wood, the CBS correspondent and interviewer, along with the cameraperson and the producer, commented on my home. It was, they said, beautiful and peaceful. No one believed we had just mo ved in. No one seemed to notice, or care, that we did not have wh at I thought was the appropriate amount of furniture, in the appr opriate rooms. Why do we subject ourselves to the hysteria of exp ecting the worst? I guess it is part of our nature as human being s. I also believe it is the natural outgrowth of postponing the i nevitable. You can put off what you need to do, but the longer yo u put it off, the more hysteria and conflict you will experience. The more tears you will shed. The more anger, sadness, and fear you will create in your own mind. I had something unpleasant to d o that I had resisted doing. I had put it off long enough. Now it , and I, were about to show up on national television. I knew tha t the moment the show was over, I would have to go upstairs and c ry in my favorite place. The Jacuzzi. Of all things to master, w hy did I have to pick tears? I've learned about tears and through tears. I haven't figured out whether it's a blessing or a curse that I can assess the tearful experience of a person. With a brea th, I can feel in my own body what the person is going through. I can process others through their tears, with words and thoughts and images. I had come to the place and point in my life where I now had to do the same for myself. I had to get beyond my own tea rs to the core of the issue. I knew it was my core issue, my subc onscious pattern, that was making it so difficult for me to fire my manager. After all I had experienced and learned, I had to re visit my own past, which was filled with bitter tears, in order t o move into the future. I would have to live through the present, knowing that millions of people would be watching me on televisi on, people who did not know that I could not find the strength to do for myself what I felt I needed to do. It was this feeling th at made me feel like a fraud. A fraud about to be found out. The show had begun with the segment featuring me. Charles Osgood, th e host of Sunday Morning, was talking about me. He was telling th e world about all the books I had written and how many had been s old. He was revealing to the world how I had propelled myself fro m poverty in the projects in Brooklyn, New York, onto the stage o f the world-famous Apollo Theatre. My husband squeezed my hand. M y children beamed with pride. The dog was chewing on the leg of t he sofa. It could have been a time of joyous celebration. Instead , I was trying to discern which type of tears were about to spill forth from my eyes and across my face, realizing that, whatever the type, everyone in the room would misinterpret their meaning. Everyone, that is, except me. How much pain and shame and fear a nd anger can one body stand? That's a good question, I thought. H ow much pain can one body stand? I, like many people, have stood years and years, countless years of pain. We have held on to our mother's pain, and the pain of our fathers, not knowing what it w as or how to get rid of it. We have held on to our children's pai n, our lovers' pain, and most of all -- on to the pain of those w ho stand closest to us. Sometimes we're able to cry through the p ain. Sometimes we stomp through the pain. Sometimes we move throu gh the pain in fear and in anger, without the strength to cry. Wh en we do find our strength again, we move on to the next thing wi thout taking a moment to breathe or celebrate. It is the tears t hat have got us through the darkest days and, Atria Books, 2000, 2.5, Speak. Very Good. 1.2 x 5.5 x 8.3 inches. Paperback. 2009. 448 pages. <br>From the award-winning and New York Times bestsell er Once and for All Unlock your heart and the rest will follow. Ruby is used to taking care of herself. But now that she's livi ng with her sister, she's got her own room, she's going to a good school, and her future looks bright. Plus there's the adorable boy next door. Can Ruby learn to open her heart and let him in? All the Dessen trademarks here --Publishers Weekly, starred revi ew Sarah Dessen is the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award f or her contributions to YA literature, as well as the Romantic Ti mes Career Achievement Award. Books by Sarah Dessen: That Summer Someone Like You Keeping the Moon Dreamland This Lullaby The Tru th About Forever Just Listen Lock and Key Along for the Ride Wha t Happened to Goodbye The Moon and More Saint Anything Once and f or All Editorial Reviews Review *A must for Dessen fans, this w ill win her new readers, too.--Publishers Weekly, starred review About the Author Sarah Dessen is the author of thirteen novels, which include the New York Times bestsellers The Moon and More, W hat Happened to Goodbye, Along for the Ride, Lock and Key, Just L isten, The Truth About Forever, and This Lullaby. Her first two b ooks, That Summer and Someone Like You, were made into the movie How to Deal. Dessen's books are frequently chosen for the Teens ' Top Ten list and the list of Best Fiction for Young Adults. The y have been translated into twenty-five languages. Sarah Dessen i s the recipient of the 2017 Margaret A. Edwards Award from the Yo ung Adult division of the American Library Association. Sarah De ssen graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hi ll with highest honors in creative writing. She lives in Chapel H ill with her husband and daughter. Visit Sarah at sarahdessen.co m. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAP TER ONE And finally, Jamie said as he pushed the door open, we c ome to the main event. Your room. I was braced for pink. Ruffles or quilting, or maybe even appliqué. Which was probably kind of unfair, but then again, I didn't know my sister anymore, much les s her decorating style. With total strangers, it had always been my policy to expect the worst. Usually they--and those that you k new best, for that matter--did not disappoint. Instead, the firs t thing I saw was green. A large, high window, on the other side of which were tall trees, separating the huge backyard from that of the house that backed up to it. Everything was big about where my sister and her husband, Jamie, lived--from the homes to the c ars to the stone fence you saw first thing when you pulled into t he neighborhood itself, made up of boulders that looked too enorm ous to ever be moved. It was like Stonehenge, but suburban. So we ird. It was only as I thought this that I realized we were all s till standing there in the hallway, backed up like a traffic jam. At some point Jamie, who had been leading this little tour, had stepped aside, leaving me in the doorway. Clearly, they wanted me to step in first. So I did. The room was, yes, big, with cream- colored walls. There were three other windows beneath the big one I'd first seen, although they each were covered with thin veneti an blinds. To the right, I saw a double bed with a yellow comfort er and matching pillows, a white blanket folded over the foot. Th ere was a small desk, too, a chair tucked under it. The ceiling s lanted on either side, meeting in a flat strip in the middle, whe re there was a square skylight, also covered with a venetian blin d--a little square one, clearly custom made to fit. It was so mat chy-matchy and odd that for a moment, I found myself just staring up at it, as if this was actually the weirdest thing about that day. So, you've got your own bathroom, Jamie said, stepping arou nd me, his feet making soft thuds on the carpet, which was of cou rse spotless. In fact, the whole room smelled like paint and new carpet, just like the rest of the house. I wondered how long ago they had moved in--a month, six months? Right through this door. And the closet is in here, too. Weird, right? Ours is the same wa y. When we were building, Cora claimed it meant she would get rea dy faster. A theory which has yet to be proved out, I might add. Then he smiled at me, and again I tried to force a smile back. W ho was this odd creature, my brother-in-law--a term that seemed o ddly fitting, considering the circumstances--in his mountain-bike T-shirt, jeans and funky expensive sneakers, cracking jokes in a n obvious effort to ease the tension of an incredibly awkward sit uation? I had no idea, other than he had to be the very last pers on I would have expected to end up with my sister, who was so upt ight she wasn't even pretending to smile at his attempts. At leas t I was trying. Not Cora. She was just standing in the doorway, barely over the threshold, arms crossed over her chest. She had o n a sleeveless sweater--even though it was mid-October, the house was beyond cozy, almost hot--and I could see the definition of h er biceps and triceps, every muscle seemingly tensed, the same wa y they had been when she'd walked into the meeting room at Poplar House two hours earlier. Then, too, it seemed like Jamie had don e all the talking, both to Shayna, the head counselor, and to me while Cora remained quiet. Still, every now and again, I could fe el her eyes on me, steady, as if she was studying my features, co mmitting me to memory, or maybe just trying to figure out if ther e was any part of me she recognized at all. So Cora had a husban d, I'd thought, staring at them as we'd sat across from each othe r, Shayna shuffling papers between us. I wondered if they'd had a fancy wedding, with her in a big white dress, or if they'd just eloped after she'd told him she had no family to speak of. Left t o her own devices, this was the story I was sure she preferred-- that she'd just sprouted, all on her own, neither connected nor i ndebted to anyone else at all. Thermostat's out in the hallway i f you need to adjust it, Jamie was saying now. Personally, I like a bit of a chill to the air, but your sister prefers it to be sw eltering. So even if you turn it down, she'll most likely jack it back up within moments. Again he smiled, and I did the same. Go d, this was exhausting. I felt Cora shift in the doorway, but aga in she didn't say anything. Oh! Jamie said, clapping his hands. Almost forgot. The best part. He walked over to the window in the center of the wall, reaching down beneath the blind. It wasn't u ntil he was stepping back and it was opening that I realized it w as, in fact, a door. Within moments, I smelled cold air. Come che ck this out. I fought the urge to look back at Cora again as I t ook a step, then one more, feeling my feet sink into the carpet, following him over the threshold onto a small balcony. He was sta nding by the railing, and I joined him, both of us looking down a t the backyard. When I'd first seen it from the kitchen, I'd noti ced just the basics: grass, a shed, the big patio with a grill at one end. Now, though, I could see there were rocks laid out in t he grass in an oval shape, obviously deliberately, and again, I t hought of Stonehenge. What was it with these rich people, a druid fixation? It's gonna be a pond, Jamie told me, as if I'd said t his out loud. A pond? I said. Total ecosystem, he said. Thirty- by-twenty and lined, all natural, with a waterfall. And fish. Coo l, huh? Again, I felt him look at me, expectant. Yeah, I said, b ecause I was a guest here. Sounds great. Â He laughed. Hear that , Cor? She doesn't think I'm crazy. Â I looked down at the circl e again, then back at my sister. She'd come into the room, althou gh not that far, and still had her arms crossed over her chest as she stood there, watching us. For a moment, our eyes met, and I wondered how on earth I'd ended up here, the last place I knew ei ther one of us wanted me to be. Then she opened her mouth to spea k for the first time since we'd pulled up in the driveway and all this, whatever it was, began. It's cold, she said. You should c ome inside. Â Before one o'clock that afternoon, when she showed up to claim me, I hadn't seen my sister in ten years. I didn't k now where she lived, what she was doing, or even who she was. I d idn't care, either. There had been a time when Cora was part of m y life, but that time was over, simple as that. Or so I'd thought , until the Honeycutts showed up one random Tuesday and everythin g changed. The Honeycutts owned the little yellow farmhouse wher e my mom and I had been living for about a year. Before that, we' d had an apartment at the Lakeview Chalets, the run-down complex just behind the mall. There, we'd shared a one-bedroom, our only window looking out over the back entrance to the J&K Cafeteria, w here there was always at least one employee in a hairnet sitting outside smoking, perched on an overturned milk crate. Running alo ngside the complex was a stream that you didn't even notice until there was a big rain and it rose, overflowing its nonexistent ba nks and flooding everything, which happened at least two or three times a year. Since we were on the top floor, we were spared the water itself, but the smell of the mildew from the lower apartme nts permeated everything, and God only knew what kind of mold was in the walls. Suffice to say I had a cold for two years straight . That was the first thing I noticed about the yellow house: I co uld breathe there. It was different in other ways, too. Like the fact that it was a house, and not an apartment in a complex or o ver someone's garage. I'd grown used to the sound of neighbors on the other side of a wall, but the yellow house sat in the center of a big field, framed by two oak trees. There was another house , off to the left, but it was visible only by flashes of roof you glimpsed through the trees--for all intents and purposes, we wer e alone. Which was just the way we liked it. My mom wasn't much of a people person. In certain situations--say, if you were buyin g, for instance--she could be very friendly. And if you put her w ithin five hundred feet of a man who would treat her like shit, s he'd find him and be making nice before you could stop her, and I knew, because I had tried. But interacting with the majority of the population (cashiers, school administrators, bosses, ex-boyfr iends) was not something she engaged in unless absolutely necessa ry, and then, with great reluctance. Which was why it was lucky that she had me. For as long as I could remember, I'd been the bu ffer system. The go-between, my mother's ambassador to the world. Whenever we pulled up at the store and she needed a Diet Coke bu t was too hungover to go in herself, or she spied a neighbor comi ng who wanted to complain about her late-night banging around aga in, or the Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door, it was always th e same. Ruby, she'd say, in her tired voice, pressing either her glass or her hand to her forehead. Talk to the people, would you? And I would. I'd chat with the girl behind the counter as I wai ted for my change, nod as the neighbor again threatened to call t he super, ignored the proffered literature as I firmly shut the d oor in the Jehovah's faces. I was the first line of defense, alwa ys ready with an explanation or a bit of spin. She's at the bank right now, I'd tell the landlord, even as she snored on the couch on the other side of the half-closed door. She's just outside, t alking to a delivery, I'd assure her boss so he'd release her bag s for the day to me, while she smoked a much-needed cigarette in the freight area and tried to calm her shaking hands. And finally , the biggest lie of all: Of course she's still living here. She' s just working a lot, which is what I'd told the sheriff that day when I'd been called out of fourth period and found him waiting for me. That time, though, all the spin in the world didn't work. I talked to the people, just like she'd always asked, but they w eren't listening. That first day, though, when my mom and I pull ed up in front of the yellow house, things were okay. Sure, we'd left our apartment with the usual drama--owing back rent, the sup er lurking around, watching us so carefully that we had to pack t he car over a series of days, adding a few things each time we we nt to the store or to work. I'd gotten used to this, though, the same way I'd adjusted to us rarely if ever having a phone, and if we did, having it listed under another name. Ditto with my schoo l paperwork, which my mom often filled out with a fake address, a s she was convinced that creditors and old landlords would track us down that way. For a long time, I thought this was the way eve ryone lived. When I got old enough to realize otherwise, it was a lready habit, and anything else would have felt strange. Inside, the yellow house was sort of odd. The kitchen was the biggest ro om, and everything was lined up against one wall: cabinets, appli ances, shelves. Against another wall was a huge propane heater, w hich in cold weather worked hard to heat the whole house, whooshi ng to life with a heavy sigh. The only bathroom was off the kitch en, poking out with no insulated walls--my mom said it must have been added on; there'd probably been an outhouse, initially--whic h made for some cold mornings until you got the hot water blastin g and the steam heated things up. The living room was small, the walls covered with dark fake-wood paneling. Even at high noon, yo u needed a light on to see your hand in front of your face. My mo ther, of course, loved the dimness and usually pulled the shades shut, as well. I'd come home to find her on the couch, cigarette dangling from one hand, the glow from the TV flashing across her face in bursts. Outside, the sun might be shining, the entire wor ld bright, but in our house, it could always be late night, my mo ther's favorite time of day. Â In the old one-bedroom apartment, I was accustomed to sometimes being awoken from a dead sleep, he r lips close to my ear as she asked me to move out onto the couch , please, honey. As I went, groggy and discombobulated, I'd do my best not to notice whoever slipped back in the door behind her. At the yellow house, though, I got my own room. It was small, wit h a tiny closet and only one window, as, Speak, 2009, 3<

2018, ISBN: 9780142414729

Anchor. Very Good. 5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches. Paperback. 2018. 336 pages. <br>#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? A delightfully ligh thearted caper . . . [a] fast-moving, entertaining tale.-… More...

Anchor. Very Good. 5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches. Paperback. 2018. 336 pages. <br>#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? A delightfully ligh thearted caper . . . [a] fast-moving, entertaining tale.--Pittsbu rgh Post-Gazette A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a v ault deep below Princeton University's Firestone Library. Their l oot is priceless, impossible to resist. Bruce Cable owns a popul ar bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Is land in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally d abbles in unsavory ventures. Mercer Mann is a young novelist wit h a severe case of writer's block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, myst erious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A gener ous monetary offer convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltra te Cable's circle of literary friends, to get close to the ringle ader, to discover his secrets. But soon Mercer learns far too mu ch, and there's trouble in paradise--as only John Grisham can del iver it. Editorial Reviews Review A delightfully lighthearted c aper . . . [a] fast-moving, entertaining tale.--Pittsburgh Post-G azette A happy lark [that] provides the pleasure of a leisurely jaunt periodically jolted into high gear, just for the fun and sp eed of it.--The New York Times Book Review Sheer catnip . . . [G risham] reveals an amiable, sardonic edge here that makes Camino Island a most agreeable summer destination.--USA Today Fans will thrill with the classic chase and satisfying ending; and book lo vers will wallow in ecstasy.--The Florida Times-Union About the Author John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 b estsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty language s. His recent books include The Judge's List, Sooley, and his thi rd Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being develope d by HBO as a limited series. Grisham is a two-time winner of t he Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Li brary of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction. When h e's not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organ izations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in o ur criminal justice system. John lives on a farm in central Virg inia. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. C HAPTER ONE The Heist 1. The imposter borrowed the name of Nevi lle Manchin, an actual professor of American literature at Portla nd State and soon-to-be doctoral student at Stanford. In his lett er, on perfectly forged college stationery, Professor Manchin cla imed to be a budding scholar of F. Scott Fitzgerald and was keen to see the great writer's manuscripts and papers during a forthco ming trip to the East Coast. The letter was addressed to Dr. Jeff rey Brown, Director of Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare B ooks and Special Collections, Firestone Library, Princeton Univer sity. It arrived with a few others, was duly sorted and passed al ong, and eventually landed on the desk of Ed Folk, a career junio r librarian whose task, among several other monotonous ones, was to verify the credentials of the person who wrote the letter. Ed received several of these letters each week, all in many ways the same, all from self-proclaimed Fitzgerald buffs and experts, and even from the occasional true scholar. In the previous calendar year, Ed had cleared and logged in 190 of these people through th e library. They came from all over the world and arrived wide-eye d and humbled, like pilgrims before a shrine. In his thirty-four years at the same desk, Ed had processed all of them. And, they w ere not going away. F. Scott Fitzgerald continued to fascinate. T he traffic was as heavy now as it had been three decades earlier. These days, though, Ed was wondering what could possibly be left of the great writer's life that had not been pored over, studied at great length, and written about. Not long ago, a true scholar told Ed that there were now at least a hundred books and over te n thousand published academic articles on Fitzgerald the man, the writer, his works, and his crazy wife. And he drank himself to d eath at forty-four! What if he'd lived into old age and kept writ ing? Ed would need an assistant, maybe two, perhaps even an entir e staff. But then Ed knew that an early death was often the key t o later acclaim (not to mention greater royalties). After a few d ays, Ed finally got around to dealing with Professor Manchin. A q uick review of the library's register revealed that this was a ne w person, a new request. Some of the veterans had been to Princet on so many times they simply called his number and said, Hey, Ed, I'll be there next Tuesday. Which was fine with Ed. Not so with Manchin. Ed went through the Portland State website and found his man. Undergraduate degree in American lit from the University of Oregon; master's from UCLA; adjunct gig now for three years. His photo revealed a rather plain-looking young man of perhaps thirt y-five, the makings of a beard that was probably temporary, and n arrow frameless eyeglasses. In his letter, Professor Manchin aske d whoever responded to do so by e-mail, and gave a private Gmail address. He said he rarely checked his university address. Ed tho ught, That's because you're just a lowly adjunct professor and pr obably don't even have a real office. He often had these thoughts , but, of course, was too professional to utter them to anyone el se. Out of caution, the next day he sent a response through the P ortland State server. He thanked Professor Manchin for his letter and invited him to the Princeton campus. He asked for a general idea of when he might arrive and laid out a few of the basic rule s regarding the Fitzgerald collection. There were many, and he su ggested that Professor Manchin study them on the library's websit e. The reply was automatic and informed Ed that Manchin was out o f pocket for a few days. One of Manchin's partners had hacked int o the Portland State directory just deep enough to tamper with th e English department's e-mail server; easy work for a sophisticat ed hacker. He and the imposter knew immediately that Ed had respo nded. Ho hum, thought Ed. The next day he sent the same message t o Professor Manchin's private Gmail address. Within an hour, Manc hin replied with an enthusiastic thank-you, said he couldn't wait to get there, and so on. He gushed on about how he had studied t he library's website, had spent hours with the Fitzgerald digital archives, had owned for years the multivolume series containing facsimile editions of the great author's handwritten first drafts , and had a particular interest in the critical reviews of the fi rst novel, This Side of Paradise. Great, said Ed. He'd seen it al l before. The guy was trying to impress him before he even got th ere, which was not at all unusual. 2. F. Scott Fitzgerald enro lled in Princeton in the fall of 1913. At the age of sixteen, he was dreaming of writing the great American novel, and had indeed begun working on an early version of This Side of Paradise. He dr opped out four years later to join the Army and go to war, but it ended before he was deployed. His classic, The Great Gatsby, was published in 1925 but did not become popular until after his dea th. He struggled financially throughout his career, and by 1940 w as working in Hollywood, cranking out bad screenplays, failing ph ysically and creatively. On December 21, he died of a heart attac k, brought on by years of severe alcoholism. In 1950, Scottie, hi s daughter and only child, gave his original manuscripts, notes, and letters--his papers--to the Firestone Library at Princeton. H is five novels were handwritten on inexpensive paper that did not age well. The library quickly realized that it would be unwise t o allow researchers to physically handle them. High-quality copie s were made, and the originals were locked away in a secured base ment vault where the air, light, and temperature were carefully c ontrolled. Over the years, they had been removed only a handful o f times. 3. The man posing as Professor Neville Manchin arrived at Princeton on a beautiful fall day in early October. He was di rected to Rare Books and Special Collections, where he met Ed Fol k, who then passed him along to another assistant librarian who e xamined and copied his Oregon driver's license. It was, of course , a forgery, but a perfect one. The forger, who was also the hack er, had been trained by the CIA and had a long history in the mur ky world of private espionage. Breaching a bit of campus security was hardly a challenge. Professor Manchin was then photographed and given a security badge that had to be displayed at all times. He followed the assistant librarian to the second floor, to a la rge room with two long tables and walls lined with retractable st eel drawers, each of which was locked. Manchin noticed at least f our surveillance cameras high in the corners, cameras that were s upposed to be seen. He suspected others were well hidden. He atte mpted to chat up the assistant librarian but got little in return . He jokingly asked if he could see the original manuscript for T his Side of Paradise. The assistant librarian offered a smug grin and said that would not be possible. Have you ever seen the orig inals? Manchin asked. Only once. A pause as Manchin waited for m ore, then he asked, And what was the occasion? Well, a certain fa mous scholar wished to see them. We accompanied him down to the v ault and gave him a look. He didn't touch the papers, though. Onl y our head librarian is allowed to do so, and only with special g loves. Of course. Oh well, let's get to work. The assistant opene d two of the large drawers, both labeled This Side of Paradise, a nd withdrew thick, oversized notebooks. He said, These contain th e reviews of the book when it was first published. We have many o ther samples of later reviews. Perfect, Manchin said with a grin. He opened his briefcase, took out a notepad, and seemed ready to pounce on everything laid on the table. Half an hour later, with Manchin deep in his work, the assistant librarian excused himsel f and disappeared. For the benefit of the cameras, Manchin never looked up. Eventually, he needed to find the men's room and wande red away. He took a wrong turn here and another one there, got hi mself lost, and eased through Collections, avoiding contact with anyone. There were surveillance cameras everywhere. He doubted th at anyone at that moment was watching the footage, but it could c ertainly be retrieved if needed. He found an elevator, avoided it , and took the nearby stairs. The first level below was similar t o the ground floor. Below it, the stairs stopped at B2 (Basement 2), where a large thick door waited with Emergencies Only painted in bold letters. A keypad was next to the door, and another sign warned that an alarm would sound the instant the door was opened without proper authorization. Two security cameras watched the d oor and the area around it. Manchin backed away and retraced his steps. When he returned to his workroom, the assistant was waitin g. Is everything okay, Professor Manchin? he asked. Oh yes. Just a bit of a stomach bug, I'm afraid. Hope it's not contagious. The assistant librarian left immediately, and Manchin hung around al l day, digging through materials from the steel drawers and readi ng old reviews he cared nothing about. Several times he wandered off, poking around, looking, measuring, and memorizing. 4. Manc hin returned three weeks later and he was no longer pretending to be a professor. He was clean shaven, his hair was colored a sand y blond, he wore fake eyeglasses with red frames, and he carried a bogus student card with a photo. If someone asked, which he cer tainly didn't expect, his story was that he was a grad student fr om Iowa. In real life his name was Mark and his occupation, if on e could call it that, was professional thievery. High-dollar, wor ld-class, elaborately planned smash-and-grab jobs that specialize d in art and rare artifacts that could be sold back to the desper ate victims for ransom. His was a gang of five, led by Denny, a f ormer Army Ranger who had turned to crime after being kicked out of the military. So far, Denny had not been caught and had no rec ord; nor did Mark. However, two of the others did. Trey had two c onvictions and two escapes, his last the year before from a feder al prison in Ohio. It was there he'd met Jerry, a petty art thief now on parole. Another art thief, a onetime cellmate serving a l ong sentence, had first mentioned the Fitzgerald manuscripts to J erry. The setup was perfect. There were only five manuscripts, al l handwritten, all in one place. And to Princeton they were price less. The fifth member of the team preferred to work at home. Ahm ed was the hacker, the forger, the creator of all illusions, but he didn't have the nerve to carry guns and such. He worked from h is basement in Buffalo and had never been caught or arrested. He left no trails. His 5 percent would come off the top. The other f our would take the rest in equal shares. By nine o'clock on a Tue sday night, Denny, Mark, and Jerry were inside the Firestone Libr ary posing as grad students and watching the clock. Their fake st udent IDs had worked perfectly; not a single eyebrow had been rai sed. Denny found his hiding place in a third-floor women's restro om. He lifted a panel in the ceiling above the toilet, tossed up his student backpack, and settled in for a few hours of hot and c ramped waiting. Mark picked the lock of the main mechanical room on the first level of the basement and waited for alarms. He hear d none, nor did Ahmed, who had easily hacked into the university' s security systems. Mark proceeded to dismantle the fuel injector s of the library's backup electrical generator. Jerry found a spo t in a study carrel hidden among rows of stacked tiers holding bo oks that had not been touched in decades. Trey was drifting aroun d the campus, dressed like a student, lugging his backpack, scopi ng out places for his bombs. The library closed at midnight. The four team members, as well as Ahmed in his basement in Buffalo, w ere in radio contact. Denny, the leader, announced at 12:15 that all was proceeding as planned. At 12:20, Trey, dressed like a stu dent and hauling a bulky backpack, entered the McCarren Residenti al College in the heart of the campus. H, Anchor, 2018, 3, Speak. Very Good. 1.2 x 5.5 x 8.3 inches. Paperback. 2009. 448 pages. <br>From the award-winning and New York Times bestsell er Once and for All Unlock your heart and the rest will follow. Ruby is used to taking care of herself. But now that she's livi ng with her sister, she's got her own room, she's going to a good school, and her future looks bright. Plus there's the adorable boy next door. Can Ruby learn to open her heart and let him in? All the Dessen trademarks here --Publishers Weekly, starred revi ew Sarah Dessen is the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award f or her contributions to YA literature, as well as the Romantic Ti mes Career Achievement Award. Books by Sarah Dessen: That Summer Someone Like You Keeping the Moon Dreamland This Lullaby The Tru th About Forever Just Listen Lock and Key Along for the Ride Wha t Happened to Goodbye The Moon and More Saint Anything Once and f or All Editorial Reviews Review *A must for Dessen fans, this w ill win her new readers, too.--Publishers Weekly, starred review About the Author Sarah Dessen is the author of thirteen novels, which include the New York Times bestsellers The Moon and More, W hat Happened to Goodbye, Along for the Ride, Lock and Key, Just L isten, The Truth About Forever, and This Lullaby. Her first two b ooks, That Summer and Someone Like You, were made into the movie How to Deal. Dessen's books are frequently chosen for the Teens ' Top Ten list and the list of Best Fiction for Young Adults. The y have been translated into twenty-five languages. Sarah Dessen i s the recipient of the 2017 Margaret A. Edwards Award from the Yo ung Adult division of the American Library Association. Sarah De ssen graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hi ll with highest honors in creative writing. She lives in Chapel H ill with her husband and daughter. Visit Sarah at sarahdessen.co m. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAP TER ONE And finally, Jamie said as he pushed the door open, we c ome to the main event. Your room. I was braced for pink. Ruffles or quilting, or maybe even appliqué. Which was probably kind of unfair, but then again, I didn't know my sister anymore, much les s her decorating style. With total strangers, it had always been my policy to expect the worst. Usually they--and those that you k new best, for that matter--did not disappoint. Instead, the firs t thing I saw was green. A large, high window, on the other side of which were tall trees, separating the huge backyard from that of the house that backed up to it. Everything was big about where my sister and her husband, Jamie, lived--from the homes to the c ars to the stone fence you saw first thing when you pulled into t he neighborhood itself, made up of boulders that looked too enorm ous to ever be moved. It was like Stonehenge, but suburban. So we ird. It was only as I thought this that I realized we were all s till standing there in the hallway, backed up like a traffic jam. At some point Jamie, who had been leading this little tour, had stepped aside, leaving me in the doorway. Clearly, they wanted me to step in first. So I did. The room was, yes, big, with cream- colored walls. There were three other windows beneath the big one I'd first seen, although they each were covered with thin veneti an blinds. To the right, I saw a double bed with a yellow comfort er and matching pillows, a white blanket folded over the foot. Th ere was a small desk, too, a chair tucked under it. The ceiling s lanted on either side, meeting in a flat strip in the middle, whe re there was a square skylight, also covered with a venetian blin d--a little square one, clearly custom made to fit. It was so mat chy-matchy and odd that for a moment, I found myself just staring up at it, as if this was actually the weirdest thing about that day. So, you've got your own bathroom, Jamie said, stepping arou nd me, his feet making soft thuds on the carpet, which was of cou rse spotless. In fact, the whole room smelled like paint and new carpet, just like the rest of the house. I wondered how long ago they had moved in--a month, six months? Right through this door. And the closet is in here, too. Weird, right? Ours is the same wa y. When we were building, Cora claimed it meant she would get rea dy faster. A theory which has yet to be proved out, I might add. Then he smiled at me, and again I tried to force a smile back. W ho was this odd creature, my brother-in-law--a term that seemed o ddly fitting, considering the circumstances--in his mountain-bike T-shirt, jeans and funky expensive sneakers, cracking jokes in a n obvious effort to ease the tension of an incredibly awkward sit uation? I had no idea, other than he had to be the very last pers on I would have expected to end up with my sister, who was so upt ight she wasn't even pretending to smile at his attempts. At leas t I was trying. Not Cora. She was just standing in the doorway, barely over the threshold, arms crossed over her chest. She had o n a sleeveless sweater--even though it was mid-October, the house was beyond cozy, almost hot--and I could see the definition of h er biceps and triceps, every muscle seemingly tensed, the same wa y they had been when she'd walked into the meeting room at Poplar House two hours earlier. Then, too, it seemed like Jamie had don e all the talking, both to Shayna, the head counselor, and to me while Cora remained quiet. Still, every now and again, I could fe el her eyes on me, steady, as if she was studying my features, co mmitting me to memory, or maybe just trying to figure out if ther e was any part of me she recognized at all. So Cora had a husban d, I'd thought, staring at them as we'd sat across from each othe r, Shayna shuffling papers between us. I wondered if they'd had a fancy wedding, with her in a big white dress, or if they'd just eloped after she'd told him she had no family to speak of. Left t o her own devices, this was the story I was sure she preferred-- that she'd just sprouted, all on her own, neither connected nor i ndebted to anyone else at all. Thermostat's out in the hallway i f you need to adjust it, Jamie was saying now. Personally, I like a bit of a chill to the air, but your sister prefers it to be sw eltering. So even if you turn it down, she'll most likely jack it back up within moments. Again he smiled, and I did the same. Go d, this was exhausting. I felt Cora shift in the doorway, but aga in she didn't say anything. Oh! Jamie said, clapping his hands. Almost forgot. The best part. He walked over to the window in the center of the wall, reaching down beneath the blind. It wasn't u ntil he was stepping back and it was opening that I realized it w as, in fact, a door. Within moments, I smelled cold air. Come che ck this out. I fought the urge to look back at Cora again as I t ook a step, then one more, feeling my feet sink into the carpet, following him over the threshold onto a small balcony. He was sta nding by the railing, and I joined him, both of us looking down a t the backyard. When I'd first seen it from the kitchen, I'd noti ced just the basics: grass, a shed, the big patio with a grill at one end. Now, though, I could see there were rocks laid out in t he grass in an oval shape, obviously deliberately, and again, I t hought of Stonehenge. What was it with these rich people, a druid fixation? It's gonna be a pond, Jamie told me, as if I'd said t his out loud. A pond? I said. Total ecosystem, he said. Thirty- by-twenty and lined, all natural, with a waterfall. And fish. Coo l, huh? Again, I felt him look at me, expectant. Yeah, I said, b ecause I was a guest here. Sounds great. Â He laughed. Hear that , Cor? She doesn't think I'm crazy. Â I looked down at the circl e again, then back at my sister. She'd come into the room, althou gh not that far, and still had her arms crossed over her chest as she stood there, watching us. For a moment, our eyes met, and I wondered how on earth I'd ended up here, the last place I knew ei ther one of us wanted me to be. Then she opened her mouth to spea k for the first time since we'd pulled up in the driveway and all this, whatever it was, began. It's cold, she said. You should c ome inside. Â Before one o'clock that afternoon, when she showed up to claim me, I hadn't seen my sister in ten years. I didn't k now where she lived, what she was doing, or even who she was. I d idn't care, either. There had been a time when Cora was part of m y life, but that time was over, simple as that. Or so I'd thought , until the Honeycutts showed up one random Tuesday and everythin g changed. The Honeycutts owned the little yellow farmhouse wher e my mom and I had been living for about a year. Before that, we' d had an apartment at the Lakeview Chalets, the run-down complex just behind the mall. There, we'd shared a one-bedroom, our only window looking out over the back entrance to the J&K Cafeteria, w here there was always at least one employee in a hairnet sitting outside smoking, perched on an overturned milk crate. Running alo ngside the complex was a stream that you didn't even notice until there was a big rain and it rose, overflowing its nonexistent ba nks and flooding everything, which happened at least two or three times a year. Since we were on the top floor, we were spared the water itself, but the smell of the mildew from the lower apartme nts permeated everything, and God only knew what kind of mold was in the walls. Suffice to say I had a cold for two years straight . That was the first thing I noticed about the yellow house: I co uld breathe there. It was different in other ways, too. Like the fact that it was a house, and not an apartment in a complex or o ver someone's garage. I'd grown used to the sound of neighbors on the other side of a wall, but the yellow house sat in the center of a big field, framed by two oak trees. There was another house , off to the left, but it was visible only by flashes of roof you glimpsed through the trees--for all intents and purposes, we wer e alone. Which was just the way we liked it. My mom wasn't much of a people person. In certain situations--say, if you were buyin g, for instance--she could be very friendly. And if you put her w ithin five hundred feet of a man who would treat her like shit, s he'd find him and be making nice before you could stop her, and I knew, because I had tried. But interacting with the majority of the population (cashiers, school administrators, bosses, ex-boyfr iends) was not something she engaged in unless absolutely necessa ry, and then, with great reluctance. Which was why it was lucky that she had me. For as long as I could remember, I'd been the bu ffer system. The go-between, my mother's ambassador to the world. Whenever we pulled up at the store and she needed a Diet Coke bu t was too hungover to go in herself, or she spied a neighbor comi ng who wanted to complain about her late-night banging around aga in, or the Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door, it was always th e same. Ruby, she'd say, in her tired voice, pressing either her glass or her hand to her forehead. Talk to the people, would you? And I would. I'd chat with the girl behind the counter as I wai ted for my change, nod as the neighbor again threatened to call t he super, ignored the proffered literature as I firmly shut the d oor in the Jehovah's faces. I was the first line of defense, alwa ys ready with an explanation or a bit of spin. She's at the bank right now, I'd tell the landlord, even as she snored on the couch on the other side of the half-closed door. She's just outside, t alking to a delivery, I'd assure her boss so he'd release her bag s for the day to me, while she smoked a much-needed cigarette in the freight area and tried to calm her shaking hands. And finally , the biggest lie of all: Of course she's still living here. She' s just working a lot, which is what I'd told the sheriff that day when I'd been called out of fourth period and found him waiting for me. That time, though, all the spin in the world didn't work. I talked to the people, just like she'd always asked, but they w eren't listening. That first day, though, when my mom and I pull ed up in front of the yellow house, things were okay. Sure, we'd left our apartment with the usual drama--owing back rent, the sup er lurking around, watching us so carefully that we had to pack t he car over a series of days, adding a few things each time we we nt to the store or to work. I'd gotten used to this, though, the same way I'd adjusted to us rarely if ever having a phone, and if we did, having it listed under another name. Ditto with my schoo l paperwork, which my mom often filled out with a fake address, a s she was convinced that creditors and old landlords would track us down that way. For a long time, I thought this was the way eve ryone lived. When I got old enough to realize otherwise, it was a lready habit, and anything else would have felt strange. Inside, the yellow house was sort of odd. The kitchen was the biggest ro om, and everything was lined up against one wall: cabinets, appli ances, shelves. Against another wall was a huge propane heater, w hich in cold weather worked hard to heat the whole house, whooshi ng to life with a heavy sigh. The only bathroom was off the kitch en, poking out with no insulated walls--my mom said it must have been added on; there'd probably been an outhouse, initially--whic h made for some cold mornings until you got the hot water blastin g and the steam heated things up. The living room was small, the walls covered with dark fake-wood paneling. Even at high noon, yo u needed a light on to see your hand in front of your face. My mo ther, of course, loved the dimness and usually pulled the shades shut, as well. I'd come home to find her on the couch, cigarette dangling from one hand, the glow from the TV flashing across her face in bursts. Outside, the sun might be shining, the entire wor ld bright, but in our house, it could always be late night, my mo ther's favorite time of day. Â In the old one-bedroom apartment, I was accustomed to sometimes being awoken from a dead sleep, he r lips close to my ear as she asked me to move out onto the couch , please, honey. As I went, groggy and discombobulated, I'd do my best not to notice whoever slipped back in the door behind her. At the yellow house, though, I got my own room. It was small, wit h a tiny closet and only one window, as, Speak, 2009, 3<

2017, ISBN: 9780142414729

Speak. Very Good. 1.2 x 5.5 x 8.3 inches. Paperback. 2009. 448 pages. <br>From the award-winning and New York Times bestsell er Once and for All Unlock your heart and the rest will… More...

Speak. Very Good. 1.2 x 5.5 x 8.3 inches. Paperback. 2009. 448 pages. <br>From the award-winning and New York Times bestsell er Once and for All Unlock your heart and the rest will follow. Ruby is used to taking care of herself. But now that she's livi ng with her sister, she's got her own room, she's going to a good school, and her future looks bright. Plus there's the adorable boy next door. Can Ruby learn to open her heart and let him in? All the Dessen trademarks here --Publishers Weekly, starred revi ew Sarah Dessen is the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award f or her contributions to YA literature, as well as the Romantic Ti mes Career Achievement Award. Books by Sarah Dessen: That Summer Someone Like You Keeping the Moon Dreamland This Lullaby The Tru th About Forever Just Listen Lock and Key Along for the Ride Wha t Happened to Goodbye The Moon and More Saint Anything Once and f or All Editorial Reviews Review *A must for Dessen fans, this w ill win her new readers, too.--Publishers Weekly, starred review About the Author Sarah Dessen is the author of thirteen novels, which include the New York Times bestsellers The Moon and More, W hat Happened to Goodbye, Along for the Ride, Lock and Key, Just L isten, The Truth About Forever, and This Lullaby. Her first two b ooks, That Summer and Someone Like You, were made into the movie How to Deal. Dessen's books are frequently chosen for the Teens ' Top Ten list and the list of Best Fiction for Young Adults. The y have been translated into twenty-five languages. Sarah Dessen i s the recipient of the 2017 Margaret A. Edwards Award from the Yo ung Adult division of the American Library Association. Sarah De ssen graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hi ll with highest honors in creative writing. She lives in Chapel H ill with her husband and daughter. Visit Sarah at sarahdessen.co m. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAP TER ONE And finally, Jamie said as he pushed the door open, we c ome to the main event. Your room. I was braced for pink. Ruffles or quilting, or maybe even appliqué. Which was probably kind of unfair, but then again, I didn't know my sister anymore, much les s her decorating style. With total strangers, it had always been my policy to expect the worst. Usually they--and those that you k new best, for that matter--did not disappoint. Instead, the firs t thing I saw was green. A large, high window, on the other side of which were tall trees, separating the huge backyard from that of the house that backed up to it. Everything was big about where my sister and her husband, Jamie, lived--from the homes to the c ars to the stone fence you saw first thing when you pulled into t he neighborhood itself, made up of boulders that looked too enorm ous to ever be moved. It was like Stonehenge, but suburban. So we ird. It was only as I thought this that I realized we were all s till standing there in the hallway, backed up like a traffic jam. At some point Jamie, who had been leading this little tour, had stepped aside, leaving me in the doorway. Clearly, they wanted me to step in first. So I did. The room was, yes, big, with cream- colored walls. There were three other windows beneath the big one I'd first seen, although they each were covered with thin veneti an blinds. To the right, I saw a double bed with a yellow comfort er and matching pillows, a white blanket folded over the foot. Th ere was a small desk, too, a chair tucked under it. The ceiling s lanted on either side, meeting in a flat strip in the middle, whe re there was a square skylight, also covered with a venetian blin d--a little square one, clearly custom made to fit. It was so mat chy-matchy and odd that for a moment, I found myself just staring up at it, as if this was actually the weirdest thing about that day. So, you've got your own bathroom, Jamie said, stepping arou nd me, his feet making soft thuds on the carpet, which was of cou rse spotless. In fact, the whole room smelled like paint and new carpet, just like the rest of the house. I wondered how long ago they had moved in--a month, six months? Right through this door. And the closet is in here, too. Weird, right? Ours is the same wa y. When we were building, Cora claimed it meant she would get rea dy faster. A theory which has yet to be proved out, I might add. Then he smiled at me, and again I tried to force a smile back. W ho was this odd creature, my brother-in-law--a term that seemed o ddly fitting, considering the circumstances--in his mountain-bike T-shirt, jeans and funky expensive sneakers, cracking jokes in a n obvious effort to ease the tension of an incredibly awkward sit uation? I had no idea, other than he had to be the very last pers on I would have expected to end up with my sister, who was so upt ight she wasn't even pretending to smile at his attempts. At leas t I was trying. Not Cora. She was just standing in the doorway, barely over the threshold, arms crossed over her chest. She had o n a sleeveless sweater--even though it was mid-October, the house was beyond cozy, almost hot--and I could see the definition of h er biceps and triceps, every muscle seemingly tensed, the same wa y they had been when she'd walked into the meeting room at Poplar House two hours earlier. Then, too, it seemed like Jamie had don e all the talking, both to Shayna, the head counselor, and to me while Cora remained quiet. Still, every now and again, I could fe el her eyes on me, steady, as if she was studying my features, co mmitting me to memory, or maybe just trying to figure out if ther e was any part of me she recognized at all. So Cora had a husban d, I'd thought, staring at them as we'd sat across from each othe r, Shayna shuffling papers between us. I wondered if they'd had a fancy wedding, with her in a big white dress, or if they'd just eloped after she'd told him she had no family to speak of. Left t o her own devices, this was the story I was sure she preferred-- that she'd just sprouted, all on her own, neither connected nor i ndebted to anyone else at all. Thermostat's out in the hallway i f you need to adjust it, Jamie was saying now. Personally, I like a bit of a chill to the air, but your sister prefers it to be sw eltering. So even if you turn it down, she'll most likely jack it back up within moments. Again he smiled, and I did the same. Go d, this was exhausting. I felt Cora shift in the doorway, but aga in she didn't say anything. Oh! Jamie said, clapping his hands. Almost forgot. The best part. He walked over to the window in the center of the wall, reaching down beneath the blind. It wasn't u ntil he was stepping back and it was opening that I realized it w as, in fact, a door. Within moments, I smelled cold air. Come che ck this out. I fought the urge to look back at Cora again as I t ook a step, then one more, feeling my feet sink into the carpet, following him over the threshold onto a small balcony. He was sta nding by the railing, and I joined him, both of us looking down a t the backyard. When I'd first seen it from the kitchen, I'd noti ced just the basics: grass, a shed, the big patio with a grill at one end. Now, though, I could see there were rocks laid out in t he grass in an oval shape, obviously deliberately, and again, I t hought of Stonehenge. What was it with these rich people, a druid fixation? It's gonna be a pond, Jamie told me, as if I'd said t his out loud. A pond? I said. Total ecosystem, he said. Thirty- by-twenty and lined, all natural, with a waterfall. And fish. Coo l, huh? Again, I felt him look at me, expectant. Yeah, I said, b ecause I was a guest here. Sounds great. Â He laughed. Hear that , Cor? She doesn't think I'm crazy. Â I looked down at the circl e again, then back at my sister. She'd come into the room, althou gh not that far, and still had her arms crossed over her chest as she stood there, watching us. For a moment, our eyes met, and I wondered how on earth I'd ended up here, the last place I knew ei ther one of us wanted me to be. Then she opened her mouth to spea k for the first time since we'd pulled up in the driveway and all this, whatever it was, began. It's cold, she said. You should c ome inside. Â Before one o'clock that afternoon, when she showed up to claim me, I hadn't seen my sister in ten years. I didn't k now where she lived, what she was doing, or even who she was. I d idn't care, either. There had been a time when Cora was part of m y life, but that time was over, simple as that. Or so I'd thought , until the Honeycutts showed up one random Tuesday and everythin g changed. The Honeycutts owned the little yellow farmhouse wher e my mom and I had been living for about a year. Before that, we' d had an apartment at the Lakeview Chalets, the run-down complex just behind the mall. There, we'd shared a one-bedroom, our only window looking out over the back entrance to the J&K Cafeteria, w here there was always at least one employee in a hairnet sitting outside smoking, perched on an overturned milk crate. Running alo ngside the complex was a stream that you didn't even notice until there was a big rain and it rose, overflowing its nonexistent ba nks and flooding everything, which happened at least two or three times a year. Since we were on the top floor, we were spared the water itself, but the smell of the mildew from the lower apartme nts permeated everything, and God only knew what kind of mold was in the walls. Suffice to say I had a cold for two years straight . That was the first thing I noticed about the yellow house: I co uld breathe there. It was different in other ways, too. Like the fact that it was a house, and not an apartment in a complex or o ver someone's garage. I'd grown used to the sound of neighbors on the other side of a wall, but the yellow house sat in the center of a big field, framed by two oak trees. There was another house , off to the left, but it was visible only by flashes of roof you glimpsed through the trees--for all intents and purposes, we wer e alone. Which was just the way we liked it. My mom wasn't much of a people person. In certain situations--say, if you were buyin g, for instance--she could be very friendly. And if you put her w ithin five hundred feet of a man who would treat her like shit, s he'd find him and be making nice before you could stop her, and I knew, because I had tried. But interacting with the majority of the population (cashiers, school administrators, bosses, ex-boyfr iends) was not something she engaged in unless absolutely necessa ry, and then, with great reluctance. Which was why it was lucky that she had me. For as long as I could remember, I'd been the bu ffer system. The go-between, my mother's ambassador to the world. Whenever we pulled up at the store and she needed a Diet Coke bu t was too hungover to go in herself, or she spied a neighbor comi ng who wanted to complain about her late-night banging around aga in, or the Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door, it was always th e same. Ruby, she'd say, in her tired voice, pressing either her glass or her hand to her forehead. Talk to the people, would you? And I would. I'd chat with the girl behind the counter as I wai ted for my change, nod as the neighbor again threatened to call t he super, ignored the proffered literature as I firmly shut the d oor in the Jehovah's faces. I was the first line of defense, alwa ys ready with an explanation or a bit of spin. She's at the bank right now, I'd tell the landlord, even as she snored on the couch on the other side of the half-closed door. She's just outside, t alking to a delivery, I'd assure her boss so he'd release her bag s for the day to me, while she smoked a much-needed cigarette in the freight area and tried to calm her shaking hands. And finally , the biggest lie of all: Of course she's still living here. She' s just working a lot, which is what I'd told the sheriff that day when I'd been called out of fourth period and found him waiting for me. That time, though, all the spin in the world didn't work. I talked to the people, just like she'd always asked, but they w eren't listening. That first day, though, when my mom and I pull ed up in front of the yellow house, things were okay. Sure, we'd left our apartment with the usual drama--owing back rent, the sup er lurking around, watching us so carefully that we had to pack t he car over a series of days, adding a few things each time we we nt to the store or to work. I'd gotten used to this, though, the same way I'd adjusted to us rarely if ever having a phone, and if we did, having it listed under another name. Ditto with my schoo l paperwork, which my mom often filled out with a fake address, a s she was convinced that creditors and old landlords would track us down that way. For a long time, I thought this was the way eve ryone lived. When I got old enough to realize otherwise, it was a lready habit, and anything else would have felt strange. Inside, the yellow house was sort of odd. The kitchen was the biggest ro om, and everything was lined up against one wall: cabinets, appli ances, shelves. Against another wall was a huge propane heater, w hich in cold weather worked hard to heat the whole house, whooshi ng to life with a heavy sigh. The only bathroom was off the kitch en, poking out with no insulated walls--my mom said it must have been added on; there'd probably been an outhouse, initially--whic h made for some cold mornings until you got the hot water blastin g and the steam heated things up. The living room was small, the walls covered with dark fake-wood paneling. Even at high noon, yo u needed a light on to see your hand in front of your face. My mo ther, of course, loved the dimness and usually pulled the shades shut, as well. I'd come home to find her on the couch, cigarette dangling from one hand, the glow from the TV flashing across her face in bursts. Outside, the sun might be shining, the entire wor ld bright, but in our house, it could always be late night, my mo ther's favorite time of day. Â In the old one-bedroom apartment, I was accustomed to sometimes being awoken from a dead sleep, he r lips close to my ear as she asked me to move out onto the couch , please, honey. As I went, groggy and discombobulated, I'd do my best not to notice whoever slipped back in the door behind her. At the yellow house, though, I got my own room. It was small, wit h a tiny closet and only one window, as, Speak, 2009, 3<