Karen Rivers

After Sharkey's best friend commits suicide (or was it an accident?) in front of him, he spends the summer processing his grief on an abandoned beach resort island where his dad is the caretaker.

A Novel

Before We Go Extinct

Can you want something—or someone—so badly that it changes your destiny? Elyse Schmidt never would have thought so, until it happened to her. When Elyse and her not-so-secret crush, Josh Harris, are the sole survivors of a plane crash, tragedy binds them together. It’s as if their love story is meant to be. Everything is perfect, as perfect as it can be when you’ve literally fallen out of the sky and landed hard on the side of a mountain—until suddenly it isn’t. When the pieces of Elyse’s life stop fitting together, what’s left? You Are the Everything is a story about the fates we yearn for, the fates we choose, and the fates that are chosen for us.

You Are The Everything

Longing to be one of the popular girls in her new town, Kammie Summers has fallen into a well during a (fake) initiation into their club. Now Kammie’s trapped in the dark, counting the hours, waiting to be rescued. (The Girls have gone for help, haven’t they?) As hours pass, Kammie’s real-life predicament mixes with memories of the best and worst moments of her life so far, including the awful reasons her family moved to this new town in the first place. And as she begins to feel hungry and thirsty and light-headed, Kammie starts to imagine she has company, including a French-speaking coyote and goats that just might be zombies. Karen Rivers has created a unique narrator with an authentic, sympathetic, sharp, funny voice who will have readers laughing and crying and laugh-crying over the course of physically and emotionally suspenseful, utterly believable events.

The Girl in the Well Is Me

Piper and Sloane were best friends. They grew up together, from childhood to first love, and in spite of how different they were, their friendship was supposed to last forever. That is, until Piper caught Sloane kissing her boyfriend-and just days later, Piper is found dead, washed ashore on a beach. Sloane is torn with grief and guilt. How do you make amends for hurting someone you love, if that person is no longer around? And how can you ever move on and love again? Told from alternating perspectives, this is a story about the complexity of friendships, forgiveness, and growing up.

All That Was

The story of a girl who—thanks to her friends, her famous dad, and a chance encounter with a whale—learns the true meaning of family. Twelve-year-old Natalia Rose Baleine Gallagher loves possibilities: the possibility that she’ll see whales on the beach near her new home, that the boy she just met will be her new best friend, that the photographers chasing her actor father won’t force Nat and her dad to move again. Most of all, Nat dreams of the possibility that her faraway mother misses and loves Nat—and is waiting for Nat to find her. The thing is, Nat doesn’t even know who her mother is. She left Nat as a baby, and Nat’s dad refuses to talk about it. Nat knows she shouldn’t need a mom, but she still feels like something is missing. In this heartfelt story about family, friendship, and growing up, Nat’s questions lead her on a journey of self-discovery that will change her life forever.

A Possibility of Whales

My name is Mischa “Ish” Love, and I am twelve years old. I know quite a lot about Mars. Mars is where I belong. Do you know how sometimes you just know a thing? My mom says that falling in love is like that, that the first time she saw Dad, she just knew. That’s how I feel about Mars: I just know. I’m smart and interesting and focused, and I’m working on getting along better with people. I’ll learn some jokes. A sense of humor is going to be important. It always is. That’s what my dad always says. Maybe jokes will be the things that will help us all to survive. Not just me, because there’s no “me” in “team,” right? This is about all of us. Together. What makes me a survivor? Mars is going to make me a survivor. You’ll see. * In Karen Rivers’s riveting new novel, Ish’s dreams for a future on Mars go heartbreakingly awry when an unexpected diagnosis threatens to rewrite her whole future.

Love, Ish

Through e-mails, letters, blog entries, and movie scripts, twelve-year-old Ruth, an American girl, and Ruby, an English one, discover that they are long-lost twins.

Finding Ruby Starling

Pretty Implausible Premise

Can Kit’s super-weird superpower save her world? Twelve-year-old kit-with-a-small-k likes shopping at the flea market with her best friend, Clem, roller-skating, climbing to the roof to look at the stars, and volunteering at an animal shelter. Until suddenly she has a really big, really strange secret that makes life more complicated than she’s prepared for: Sometimes, without warning, she turns into a tiny naked mole rat. It first happened as kit watched Clem fall and get hurt during a performance with her acrobatic-troupe family on TV. Since then, the transformations keep coming. Kit can’t tell Clem, because Clem hasn’t been herself after the accident. She’s mad and gloomy and keeping a secret of her own: the real reason she fell. Months later, kit and Clem still haven’t figured out how to deal with all the ways they have changed—both inside and out. Somehow, kit has to save the day. But she’s no hero, and turning into a naked mole rat isn’t a superpower. Or is it?

Naked Mole Rat Saves the World

As Tink Aaron-Martin writes an encyclopedia of her life, she also tells the story of the summer leading into her eighth-grade year.

The Encyclopedia of Me

A tragic accident changes Carly's summer vacation.

Waiting to Dive

You Are the Everything

Příběh dívky, které celý život obrátí naruby letecká havárie. Elyse Schmidtová je mladá dívka, která se společně se svými spolužáky vrací z Paříže domů do Kalifornie. Během letu dojde k havárii a letadlo se zřítí, z jejich školní skupiny přežije jen ona a Josh, do něhož je tajně zamilovaná. Dny po havárii oba sblíží a Elyse má pocit, že se jí splnil životní sen. Po dvou letech je ale všechno úplně jinak. Elysin vztah s Joshem sice stále trvá, zároveň ji ale trápí stále větší výpadky paměti. Co je způsobuje? A je život, který Elyse žije, opravdu reálný? Nebo je zde něco, o čem Elyse neví, či snad cosi důležitého zapomněla?

Něco si přej

Sixteen-year-old Haley Andromeda would like to think she's just a normal high school senior, but during a disastrous time in her life, she turns to the Ouija board and tries to communicate with the Other Side, which only leads to further complications. Original.

The Healing Time of Hickeys

Sixteen-year-old Haley Andromeda Harmony resumes her laptop diary in January of "the greatest year of my life," still reeling from having a boyfriend and discovering that her mother is a nun. By the author of The Healing Time of Hickeys. Original.

And Other Deadly Plagues

The Cure for Crushes

When Hattie and Presley meet, it's love at first sight. Head-spinning, Taylor-Swift-song-level feelings. Their instant connection seems implausible, even impossible, as they start to realize all they have in common. Both are grieving, living in worlds haunted by ghosts; both have a parent who's out of sight, not out of mind; and both were forced to give up their Olympic dreams. Connected by experiences only they understand, Hattie and Presley fall into a whirlwind romance—flirting at their workplace, sleeping side by side beneath the stars, ice skating to a playlist all their own. But like the wildfires surrounding their California town, the trauma that haunts them is unrelenting. Can they overcome their losses without losing each other? Or will their ghosts break them apart? Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Rachel Lynn Solomon, A Pretty Implausible Premise explores the power of a love beyond comprehension, and how seemingly implausible connections can be the ones we need the most.

A Pretty Implausible Premise

Grief can sometimes feel like you're caught in the jaws of a great white sharkJ.C., who goes by the nickname Sharky, has been having a hard time ever since his best friend died in front of him in a what-might-or-might-not-have-been accidental fall off a skyscraper. Shell-shocked, Sharky stops speaking and withdraws from both friends and family. He spends countless hours holed up in his room, obsessively watching documentaries about sharks and climate change-and texting his dead friend. At her wits end, Sharky's confused mom sends him to stay with his father on an abandoned island in Canada over the summer, where his dad is the caretaker. Over the course of an unforgettable summer, Sharky gets to know his dad and he meets a girl who teaches him how to live-and love-again.

Dex Pratt’s life has been turned upside down. His parents have divorced and his mother has remarried. When his father attempts suicide and fails, Dex returns to their small town to care for him. But he’s not prepared for how much everything has changed. Gone are the nice house, new cars, fancy bikes and other toys. Now he and his wheelchair-bound dad live in a rotting rented house at the back of a cornfield. And, worse, his father has given up defending marijuana growers in his law practice and has become one himself. Unable to cope, Dex begins smoking himself into a state of surrealism. He begins to lose touch with what is real and what he is imagining. And then there are the aliens...and the girl-of-his-dreams...and the crop circle...

What Is Real

Kammie Summers has fallen into a well during a (fake) initiation into a popular club; now trapped in the dark, waiting to be rescued, Kammie thinks about the best and worst moments of her life so far in this unforgettable story about a bullied girl.

Can Kit’s super-weird superpower save her world? Twelve-year-old kit (with a small k) likes shopping at the flea market with her best friend, Clem, roller-skating, climbing to the roof to look at the stars, and volunteering at an animal shelter. Until suddenly she has a really big, really strange secret that makes life more complicated than she’s prepared for: Sometimes, without warning, she turns into a tiny naked mole rat. It first happened as kit watched Clem fall and get hurt during a performance with her acrobatic-troupe family on TV. Since then, the transformations keep coming. Kit can’t tell Clem, because Clem hasn’t been herself after the accident. She’s mad and gloomy and keeping a secret of her own: the real reason she fell. Months later, kit and Clem still haven’t figured out how to deal with all the ways they have changed—both inside and out. Somehow, kit has to save the day. But she’s no hero, and turning into a naked mole rat isn’t a superpower. Or is it?

Karen Rivers

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