Showing titles in Physical & Emotional Abuse

As children, Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were both social outcasts. They were also one another's only friend. So when Cameron disappears without warning, Jennifer thinks she's lost the only person who will ever understand her. Now in high school, Jennifer has been transformed. Known as Jenna, she's popular, happy, and dating, everything "Jennifer" couldn't be - but she still can't shake the memory of her long-lost friend.

George’s life is loud. On the water, though, with everything hushed above and below, she is steady, silent. Then her estranged dad says he needs to talk, and George’s past begins to wake up, looping around her ankles, trying to drag her under. But there’s no time to sink. George’s best friend, Tess, is about to become, officially, a teen mom, her friend Laz is in despair about the climate crisis, her gramps would literally misplace his teeth if not for her, and her moms fill the house with fuss and chatter. Before long, heat and smoke join the noise as dis­tant wildfires begin to burn.

Kayla is still holding on to Lainie’s secrets. After all, Lainie is Kayla’s best friend. And despite Lainie’s painful obsession with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, and the ways he has tried to come between them, friends don’t spill each other’s secrets. They don’t betray each other’s trust. The murder at the end of the summer doesn’t change all that. Besides—Kayla knows that the truth is not the whole story.

After the death of her father, sixteen-year-old Iris Wight is uprooted from her hometown in Maine and sent to live on a farm with her hard-bitten aunt Sue and her hulking, monosyllabic cousin, Book. Immediately, Iris, a vegetarian and animal lover, clashes with Aunt Sue, who mistreats her livestock, fritters away Iris' small inheritance, and thinks nothing of striking Iris for the smallest offense. Grief-stricken and alone, Iris finds solace in her aunt’s herd of goats. But when Iris sets two of the young goats free to save them from slaughter, the tensions between her and Aunt Sue come to a frightening and violent head.

Alvie Fitz doesn't fit in, and she doesn't care. She's spent years swallowing meds and bad advice from doctors and social workers. Adjust, adapt. Pretend to be normal. It sounds so easy. If she can make it to her 18th birthday without any major mishaps, she'll be legally emancipated. Free. But if she fails, she'll become a ward of the state and be sent back to the group home. All she wants is to be left alone to spend time with her friend, Chance, the one-winged hawk at the zoo where she works.

Beck and Vivian never could stand each other, but they always tried their best for their mutual friend, Cassie. After the town moves on from Cassie’s murder too fast, Beck and Vivian finally find common ground: vengeance. They memorialize Cassie by secretly painting murals of her around town, a message to the world that Cassie won’t be forgotten. But Beck and Vivian are keeping secrets, like the third passenger riding in Beck’s VW bus with them - Cassie’s ghost.

A riveting portrait of life after abuse from an award-winning novelist. Sixteen-year-old Jace Witherspoon arrives at the doorstep of his estranged brother Christian with a re-landscaped face (courtesy of his father’s fist), $3.84, and a secret. He tries to move on, going for new friends, a new school, and a new job, but all his changes can’t make him forget what he left behind - his mother, who is still trapped with his dad, and his ex-girlfriend, who is keeping his secret. At least so far.

A new town, a new school, a new start. That's what 14-year-old Gray Wilton believes as he chants, "It's gonna be better, gonna be better here." But it doesn't take long for Gray to realize that nothing's going to change--there are bullies in every school, and he's always their punching bag. Gray feels trapped in a world where he has no control and no way out--until the day he enters the halls with his father's semiautomatic in hand.

After 17-year-old David is forced to stand trial for his girlfriend's death, he is sent to live with his aunt and uncle and their young daughter, Lily, to avoid the media frenzy. But all is not well at his relatives' house. His aunt and uncle are not speaking to each other, and Lily seems dead set on making David's life a torment. And then there's the issue of their older daughter, Kathy, who died under mysterious circumstances a number of years back.

Jessie Archer faced down death to prove her dedication to Athena, the elite organization of female spies she works for. Now she’s back on the team, in time to head to Pakistan to take down the man whose actions spurred Athena’s founders to create the secretive squad. But his connections spread farther than anyone knew, and when a girls’ school in Mumbai is bombed, a shadowy far-right organization reveals itself—and its evil plans to continue attacks. When someone close to the investigation turns on Athena, Jessie knows that their time to save everyone is nearly up.

India Maxwell hasn't just moved across the country - she's plummeted to the bottom rung of the social ladder. It's taken years to cover the mess of her home life with a veneer of popularity. Now she's living in one of Boston's wealthiest neighborhoods with her mom's fiancé and his daughter, Eloise. Thanks to her soon-to-be stepsister's clique of friends, including Eloise's gorgeous, arrogant boyfriend, Finn, India feels like the one thing she hoped never to be seen as again: trash.

Jonathan Friesen delivers a nuanced, critically acclaimed debut with this affecting tale of fathers and sons. High schooler Sam’s struggle with Tourette’s syndrome is made more difficult by Old Bill, his abusive stepfather who kicks Sam out of the home following graduation. When Sam meets a friend of his dead father, however, he begins a journey toward understanding that might also help him accept who he is.

Katina King is the reigning teen jiujitsu champion of Northern California, but she's having trouble fighting off the secrets in her past. Robin Thornton was adopted from an orphanage in Kolkata, India, and is reluctant to take on his future. Since he knows nothing about his past, how is he supposed to figure out what comes next? Robin and Kat meet in the most unlikely of places - a summer service trip to India to work with survivors of human trafficking. As bonds blossom between the travel mates, Robin and Kat discover the healing superpowers of friendship.

For forever, Didi has had to be the best at anything her father demanded of her—the fastest runner, the master at chess, able to take down a deer with a bow and arrow at a dead sprint. If she fails, he denies her food. Clothes. Kindness. Yet he claims he loves her—he says he does—it’s why he pushes her.

Charlotte survived the car crash that killed her boyfriend Jerry, but that night, everything changed. Charlotte wants desperately to get back to “normal,”—whatever that means now—and start reconnecting with friends she hasn’t spoken to in months. And she’s trying to work through her PTSD with the help of her therapist, only she can’t tell the truth about Jerry or what really happened the night he died.

For the past eight years, 16-year-old Emilia DeJesus has done her best to move on from the traumatic attack she suffered in the woods behind her elementary school. She's forced down the memories. Most of all, she's tried to forget about Jeremy Lance, the boy responsible, the boy who caused her such pain. Emilia believes that the crows who watched over her that day, who helped her survive, are still on her side, encouraging her to live fully. And with the love and support of her mother, brother, and her caring boyfriend, Emilia is doing just that.

When sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis discovers the dead body of thirteen-year-old Ashley James, she teams up with Ashley's older sister, Nora, to find and bring the killer to justice before he strikes again. But their investigation throws Georgia into a world of unimaginable privilege and wealth, without conscience or consequence, and as Ashley’s killer closes in, Georgia will discover when money, power and beauty rule, it might not be a matter of who is guilty—but who is guiltiest.

Stolen as a child from her large and loving family, and on the run with her mom for more than ten years, Callie has only the barest idea of what normal life might be like. She's never had a home, never gone to school, and has gotten most of her meals from laundromat vending machines. Her dreams are haunted by memories she'd like to forget completely.

In the beginning, Isaac West stole to give his younger sister Janelle little things: a new sweater, a scarf, just so she looked less like a charity case whose mother spent money on booze and more like the prep school girls he'd see on his way to school. But when Isaac's petty theft lands him in juvie, he's cut off from helping Janelle. Friendless in a dangerous world of gangs and violent offenders, he must watch his every step.

Trained and traumatised by a secret assassin program for minors, Isabel Ryans wants nothing more than a new life as a normal civilian. And she might just be in with a shot when she befriends Emma Westray, because for the first time in her life things are looking up. But when Isabel blows her cover by impulsively murdering a burglar, she draws the attention of the guilds—the two organisations who control the city of Espera. An unaffiliated killer like Isabel is either a potential asset...or a threat to be eliminated.