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

Willey, Margaret. Four Secrets.

Willey, Margaret.  Four Secrets.  Carolrhoda Books see Lerner   277p      $17.95  978-0-7613-8535-6  2012              ms/jr       E-BN     Conflict                                   

Three friends in a juvenile lockup tell their story in three formats: drawings, narrative in the form of a medieval story, and play format. The events leading up to and including their kidnapping and imprisonment of a school bully are suspensefully revealed. Gr 6+.           This is the haunting tale about secrets and those who are bullied taking action against a bully with unpredictable results.  A bond has formed between three talented, high-achieving students who are all being bullied by Chase, the most popular boy in school.  Together they formulate a plan to shut down the bully.  But Chase throws the plan into chaos, and the end result is that the three who were bullied are now in a juvenile detention facility vowing to never reveal what actually happened.  An astute, caring social worker sets out to find the truth.  In journal entries, each character writes in an authentic voice: Nate in a fictional story set in times where gallant men and steadfast friends fight the true fight, Katie in a dialogue suitable for a play, and Renata in exquisite drawings full of hidden meanings. Readers are slowly allowed to glimpse their family life and secrets.  There is so much tension and anticipation of what may be revealed next that the book is impossible to put down.  The pacing is taut, with just enough revealed to keep the reader guessing about what secrets are held by each young person and how quickly the social worker will piece together the events that led to the kidnapping charges.  There is one grammatical error on page 196: “I wanted approach the school”.  The novel includes outstanding writing and plot development, and should be a first choice for middle-school libraries.

Bullying-Fiction, Secrets-Fiction                                                                                                                  --Lois McNicol