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Fiction | Page 372 | LitPick Book Reviews
Fiction
The Hoop Kid from Elmdale Park
The Hoop Kid from Elmdale Park
Gabriel Diaz, Wayne L. Wilson, Teko Bernard
All Bernard wanted to do while staying with his grandparents in his father’s childhood hometown of Elmdale for the summer was work on his basketball skills. When Bernard excitedly enters a team into the Annual Elmdale Park Basketball Tournament, he’s shocked to discover that the future of the Park is at stake and dependent on his team winning the whole thing. The ruthless millionaire, Victor Franco, wants the Park shut down and turned into a city dump for his own personal gain. Can the courageous Bernard and his fun and wacky crew defeat their Oakdale rivals and save the historic Park? A fun, upbeat story, with realistic characters, and fantastic humor (particularly with G5000’s antics). Bernard is such a relatable character, and he’s a great true-to-life role model. Readers are sure to appreciate the basketball lingo, his love of the game, and his determination to fight the good fight.

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Take Chances
Take Chances
K.C. Sprayberry
Military brat, Julie Bond, survived school violence as a small child. As a teen nearing graduation at a high school in Landry, GA, she puts down the flashbacks to that time as pre-graduation jitters. Her attempt to convince herself it can’t happen again fails, as she continually sees herself caught up in the madness of that day…She walks into her classroom, prepared for a last assignment…And hears a strange voice…She’s no longer living in the past…And her present promises she may not survive!Can she overcome evil once again?

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Zombies Don't Surrender (A Living Dead Love Story)
Zombies Don't Surrender
As the final volume in the series opens, Maddy, Dane, and Stamp are still together, though barely, nestled safely inside the walls of Sentinel City, a stronghold designed to keep Zerkers out—and zombies in.Maddy trains night and day, hoping to join Vera as a Keeper. Dane has been given Sentinel Support in the form a busty blonde named Courtney. And what of Stamp? Although Maddy’s dad has worked hard to rehabilitate him after his Zerker bite, he’s still not all . . . there.When Dr. Swift inadvertently allows the zombies’ archenemy, Val, to escape from Sentinel City, Maddy’s world turns upside down. She and Stamp are vanished—expelled from the safety of Sentinel City, no better than common Zerkers. Dane, a Sentinel now, escapes punishment and is assigned to ensure that his old friends never return.As Maddy and Stamp stray from the safety of Sentinel City, danger mounts . . . and not just for them. Val has taken up residence in a seaside town and enrolled in another Normal high school. To outwit her and save Seagull Shores from all-out zombie Armageddon, Maddy must face her archenemy once again.Only this time, she’s all alone...

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Paper Hearts
Paper Hearts
A pushy counselor, school bullies, a neglectful mother, and a dead father have ruined seventeen-year-old high school senior Michelle Pearce’s perspective on life. A social reject living in self-imposed exile, Michelle has little use for anything or anyone—until Nathaniel comes along. A high school dropout who works three jobs to care for his dying grandmother, he’s all but convinced Michelle that there is some good left in humanity.And then humanity proves him wrong. The unforgivable happens, destroying Michelle’s newfound faith in life and threatening to unravel a love in the making.

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The Grey Star (The Seven Stars Trilogy)
The Grey Star
James Bartholomeusz
After thwarting the Cult of Dionysus and with the city of Nexus in ruins, all that remains for the Apollonians is to find the final Shards of the Risa Star before the Cult can use it to wreak havoc on an astronomical scale—but in this final installment of the Seven Stars trilogy, Jack Lawson and his allies face unexpected challenges. They are worlds apart; some battling old enemies in a desert fortress, and others in a formerly prosperous city-state that is slipping into totalitarianism. All the while, the pieces of a greater puzzle have been moving into place and a trap has been laid, and Jack must confront a truth that threatens to destroy everything.

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Fabrick (The Fabrick Weavers)
Fabrick
Andrew Post
Clyde has worked for Mr. Wilkshire for a very long time. Life is comfortable in his keeper's chateau—until Mr. Wilkshire is attacked. Clyde goes into hiding and emerges to find his only friend dead. Brokenhearted and clueless how to bring Mr. Wilkshire's killer to justice, Clyde accepts the help of a unique group of friends, including Flam the Mouflon treasure hunter and Nevele the royal stitcher. Throughout their adventure, Clyde learns he isn't alone in this world with his magical ability: there are others like him called fabrick weavers, and for all it is both a special gift and a curse. His gift is to ease the conscience of anyone who makes a confession to him, but the curse is that the person’s luck will be reduced in proportion to the severity of the offense. Having left his pampered life behind to set things right, Clyde joins his new friends traveling into the razed city of Geyser, into the labyrinthine world beneath, and to the palace beyond. Along the way, the group deals with an unrelenting maniac pursuer, a corrupt king, a band of pirates, a small army of guardsmen, and just a few million dog-sized bugs—all while hopefully managing to avoid jinxing their own members. Yeah, no problem.

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The Beasts of Upton Puddle
The Beasts of Upton Puddle
Simon West-Bulford
Bringing the mythological world into a modern setting and introducing young adult readers to a variety of strange monsters, this fantasy novel follows 12-year-old Joe Copper, as he travels along in his quest to save humankind. When Joe is hired by the eccentric Mrs. Merrynether as an errand boy at her remarkable veterinary practice—a hidden refuge for a menagerie of creatures that should only exist in dreams and legend—he soon learns that she has a startling plan for his future: he is destined to command an army of beasts to protect humanity from the Conclave—a brutal council of dragons hiding on a distant island. But Joe is plunged into his new role prematurely when the callous tycoon Argoyle Redwar, who has a secret menagerie of his own, tricks Mrs. Merrynether into revealing the location of the island. Overcoming his fears, the school bully, and an escaped creature on the loose in his own village, Joe races to the island to stop Redwar from provoking the dragons to war. He takes the most bizarre team imaginable: Lilly, the surly alcoholic cluricaun; Danariel, the seraph who lives in a lightbulb; Flarp, the giant flying eyeball who can’t control his excitement; Kiyoshi, the narcoleptic kappa with an extraordinary vocabulary; Snappel, the fiery wyvern plagued by hiccups; and Cornelius, the poisoned manticore. Together with newfound allies on the island, the champions are forced into an epic battle against fantastic odds, facing not only the Conclave but Redwar as he seeks total control.

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Canary
Canary
Rachele Alpine
In this debut novel, a high school girl faces the pain, shame, and uncertainty that come with sexual abuse. With the passing of her mother, Kate Franklin’s life unravels at the seams as she loses the only emotional mooring in her family. Her dad shuts down completely, and her brother enlists in the army. Things start looking better when her dad is hired to coach at Beacon Prep, home of one of the best basketball teams in the state. In a blog of prose and poetry, Kate chronicles her new world—dating a basketball player, being caught up in a world of idolatry and entitlement, and discovering the perks the inner circle enjoys. Then Kate’s fragile life shatters once again when one of her boyfriend’s teammates assaults her at a party. Although she knows she should speak out, her dad’s vehemently against it and so, like a canary sent into a mine to test toxicity levels and protect miners, Kate alone breathes the poisonous secrets to protect her dad and the team. The once welcoming community has betrayed Kate, her family is disintegrating, and she’s on her own to grapple with whether to stay quiet or speak out and expose a town’s hero and destroy her father’s career.

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Killer of Enemies
Killer of Enemies
Years ago, seventeen-year-old Apache hunter Lozen and her family lived in a world of havesand have-nots. There were the Ones—people so augmented with technology and geneticenhancements that they were barely human—and there was everyone else who served them. Then the Cloud came, and everything changed. Tech stopped working. The world plungedback into a new steam age. The Ones’ pets—genetically engineered monsters—turned on themand are now loose on the world. Lozen was not one of the lucky ones pre-C, but fate has given her a unique set of survivalskills and magical abilities. She hunts monsters for the Ones who survived the apocalyptic eventsof the Cloud, which ensures the safety of her kidnapped family. But with every monster she takesdown, Lozen’s powers grow, and she connects those powers to an ancient legend of her people.It soon becomes clear to Lozen that she is not just a hired gun. As the legendary Killer of Enemies was in the ancient days of the Apache people, Lozen ismeant to be a more than a hunter. Lozen is meant to be a hero.

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Willow
Willow
Tonya Cherie Hegamin
In 1848, an educated slave girl faces an inconceivable choice — between bondage and freedom, family and love.On one side of the Mason-Dixon Line lives fifteen-year-old Willow, her master’s favorite servant. She’s been taught to read and has learned to write. She believes her master is good to her and fears the rebel slave runaways. On the other side of the line is seventeen-year-old Cato, a black man, free born. It’s his personal mission to sneak as many fugitive slaves to freedom as he can. Willow’s and Cato’s lives are about to intersect, with life-changing consequences for both of them. Tonya Cherie Hegamin’s moving coming-of-age story is a poignant meditation on the many ways a person can be enslaved, and the force of will needed to be truly emancipated.

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