Sheinmel, Courtney.  Edgewater.  Amulet see Harry Abrams  2015  317  $17.95  ISBN 978-1-4197-1641-6   hs    Conflict    E-BN     

Lorrie is dismissed from an elite riding camp for nonpayment of fees.  When she gets home to squalid Edgewater, she realizes that the money in a trust established by their mother has disappeared without a trace.  Her sister Susie, two years younger, collects stray animals and has a questionable boyfriend.  Without supervision, the animals leave the house looking and smelling atrocious.  Lorrie’s aunt and guardian suffers from mental illness and is not concerned about the family’s destitution.  The house is an eyesore in a wealthy area, and Lorrie feels the stigma of living there.  As she struggles with finding a way to bring in money, including selling her beloved horse, she comes into contact with the wealthy and influential Copeland family, especially Charlie, the teenage son.  Worlds collide in most unexpected ways, and many surprises await the reader of this novel with superbly drawn characters.  Tension abounds to keep the reader flipping the pages to see what comes next.  This is a wonderful book about family, love, secrets and the ways in which having lavish amounts of money can affect a person.  The mystery of the missing inheritance builds continuously throughout the book.  A romance tucked within a story of family secrets will appeal to a wide range of readers: mystery fans, romance fans, realistic-fiction fans, and readers who like character driven novels.  

Summary: It is hard to reconcile the life of Lorrie, who attends a posh private high school and summers at elite riding camps, with the run-down house where her sister and scatterbrained aunt live.  This is a fine character-driven plot with many surprises.  Gr 8-12.    

Secrets-Fiction, Families-Fiction, Hoarders-Fiction         --Lois McNicol

Sheinmel, Courtney. Edgewater.

Sheinmel, Courtney.  Edgewater.  Amulet see Harry Abrams  uncorrected proof    2015  317p.  $17.95  ISBN 978-1-4197-1641-6  hs  Conflict  E

Lorrie is dismissed from her elite riding camp for nonpayment of fees.  When she gets home to squalid Edgewater, she realizes that the money that was in a trust established by her mother has disappeared without a trace.  Her sister Susie, two years younger, collects stray animals and a questionable boyfriend.  Without supervision, the animals leave the house, looking and smelling atrocious.  The girls’ aunt and guardian suffers from mental illness and is not concerned about their destitution.  The house is an eyesore in a wealthy area, and Lorrie feels the stigma of living there.  As she struggles with finding a way to bring in money, including selling her beloved horse, she comes into contact with the wealthy and influential Copeland family, especially Charlie, the teenage son of a senator.  Worlds collide in most unexpected ways, and many surprises await the reader of this novel, with superbly drawn characters.  This is a wonderful book about family, love, secrets and the effects on a person of having lavish amounts of money.  The mystery of the missing inheritance builds continuously throughout the novel. 

How hard it is for Lorrie to reconcile her life, attending a posh private high school and summering at elite riding camps, with the rundown house in which she, her sister and her scatterbrained aunt live.  Character-driven plot with many surprises. Gr 8-12.          

Poverty-Fiction                                                   --Lois McNicol

Second Star.

Sheinmel, Alyssa B.  Second Star.  Macmillan/Farrar Strauss  2014  250p  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-374-38267-4  hs   Realistic fiction     VG-BN

This is a unique story of grief, loss and love that pays homage to the classic Peter Pan story of lost boys.  Wendy refuses to accept that the disappearance of her twin brothers while surfing means they are dead.  Her parents have accepted the police report that the brothers could not have survived the wave that washed up their broken surf boards many months ago. Wendy adopts a mission to find her brothers before summer’s end.  She encounters Pete who lives in an abandoned house on the ocean with a few other surfer dudes.  A rival surfer, Jas, has taken over a neighboring house but is known to sell a heady drug named “dust” to surfers.  Wendy’s loyalties and love switch from Pete to Jas as she travels the coastline looking for people who may have known her brothers.  The joy of surfing, its dangers and its vagabond lifestyle, and the camaraderie among those who follow the waves are eloquently described.  When Wendy wakes up in a psych ward, she finally accepts that Pete and Jas and their crew were a figment of her imagination, and she becomes grounded enough to start her freshman year at Stanford.  The readers are immersed in her anguished mental state throughout the novel and share her hopes and fears.  The ending is totally unexpected and yet satisfying.  The line between reality and fantasy has never been more narrow.

Summary: After two brothers disappear while surfing, their sister, Wendy, goes in search of them.  While searching, she meets surfers Pete, Belle, and Jas. She comes to wonder if they are hallucinations or if they were real.  Part fantasy, part realistic novel. Gr. 8-12.               

Grief-Fiction, Surfing-Fiction, Peter Pan-Fiction           --Lois McNicol