The Floating Girls

"A masterly achievement." – Publishers Weekly STARRED review "Many readers are looking for the next Where the Crawdads Sing, and will find The Floating Girls...is a close cousin." – Augusta Chronicle Fierce 12-year-old Kay can't ignore the problems surfacing in her troubled home—or the mysterious marsh outside. It will take all of her courage and perseverance to survive her family drama as their dark secrets come to life in the wake of a small-town murder. One hot, sticky summer in Bledsoe, Georgia, twelve-year-old Kay Whitaker stumbles across a stilt house in a neighboring marsh and upon Andy Webber, a boy about her age. He and his father have recently moved back to Georgia from California, and rumors of the suspicious drowning death of Andy's mother years earlier have chased them there and back. Kay is fascinated and enamored with Andy, and she doesn't listen when her father tells her to stay away from the Webbers. But when Kay's sister goes missing, the mystery of Mrs. Webber's death—and Kay's parents' potential role in it—comes to light. Kay and her brothers must navigate the layers of secrets that emerge in the course of the investigation as their family, and the world as they knew it, unravels around them. At once wickedly funny and heartbreaking, perfect for fans of Kim Michele Richardson, The Floating Girls is a stunning southern mystery, a wonderfully atmospheric coming-of-age family drama told from the perspective of a fierce 12-year-old marsh girl—reminiscent of a modern-day Scout Finch—as she unravels the secrets that threaten her entire family. Praise for The Floating Girls: "A powerhouse of a Southern novel. At once a poignant coming-of-age tale, a murder mystery, and an evocative tribute to the marshlands of Georgia. Lo Patrick is a standout new Southern voice." —Andrea Bobotis, author of The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt "Kay is the smartest, funniest, most curious young narrator I have come across in some time. Her voice stuck with me long after I finished reading. If I met Kay on the street, I'd beg her to be my best friend." —Tiffany Quay Tyson, award-winning author of The Past is Never "A cracking story that unfolds in gorgeous prose in the stultifying heat of the American South." —Hayley Scrivenor, author of Dirt Creek "Fans of Where the Crawdads Sing will love this immersive mystery set against the salty air of Georgia's marshes. In Patrick's atmospheric prose, the water and its characters come to life." —Lindsey Rogers Cook, author of Learning to Speak Southern?

Japanese-American writer Rei Shimura finally feels at home in Tokyo. Working on an article about the history of comic book art, her story turns when the creator of a comic book, which reveals the social milieu of pre-World War II Japan, is found dead. Rei finds herself floating through Japan's youth underground to get the story--and save her own skin. A Mystery Guild Selection.

The author of Mongrels and the author of The Cabin at the End of the World team up to tell a quirky and uplifting fantasy “that will enthrall young teens” (School Library Journal). Things Mary doesn’t want to fall into: the river, high school, her mother’s life. Things Mary does kind of want to fall into: love, the sky. This is the story of a girl who sees a boy float away one fine day. This is the story of the girl who reaches up for that boy with her hand and with her heart. This is the story of a girl who takes on the army to save a town, who goes toe-to-toe with a mad scientist, who has to fight a plague to save her family. This is the story of a girl who would give anything to get to babysit her baby brother one more time. If she could just find him. It’s all up in the air for now, though, and falling fast . . . Fun, breathlessly exciting, and full of heart, Floating Boy and the Girl Who Couldn’t Fly is an unforgettable ride. “Straddles the border between magic realism and weird science . . . an entertaining, thoughtful piece.” —Publishers Weekly “Absolutely adorable . . . The plot was fast paced and driven and it kept me intrigued until the very end. It was [a] really light, easy read.” —Read Rant Review

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best of the Year "Profoundly moving . . . Will take your breath away." —Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Pieces A stunningly gorgeous and deeply hopeful portrayal of living with mental illness and grief, from an exceptional new voice. Biz knows how to float. She has her people, her posse, her mom and the twins. She has Grace. And she has her dad, who tells her about the little kid she was, and who shouldn't be here but is. So Biz doesn't tell anyone anything. Not about her dark, runaway thoughts, not about kissing Grace or noticing Jasper, the new boy. And she doesn't tell anyone about her dad. Because her dad died when she was seven. And Biz knows how to float, right there on the surface—normal okay regular fine. But after what happens on the beach—first in the ocean, and then in the sand—the tethers that hold Biz steady come undone. Dad disappears and, with him, all comfort. It might be easier, better, sweeter to float all the way away? Or maybe stay a little longer, find her father, bring him back to her. Or maybe—maybe maybe maybe—there's a third way Biz just can't see yet. Debut author Helena Fox tells a story about love and grief, about inter-generational mental illness, and how living with it is both a bridge to someone loved and lost and, also, a chasm. She explores the hard and beautiful places loss can take us, and honors those who hold us tightly when the current wants to tug us out to sea. "Give this to all [your] friends immediately." —Cosmopolitan.com "I haven't been so dazzled by a YA in ages." —Jandy Nelson, author of I'll Give You the Sun (via SLJ) "Mesmerizing and timely." —Bustle "Nothing short of exquisite." —PopSugar "Immensely satisfying" —Girls' Life * "Lyrical and profoundly affecting." —Kirkus (starred review) * "Masterful...Just beautiful." —Booklist (starred review) * "Intimate...Unexpected." —PW (starred review) * "Fox writes with superb understanding and tenderness." —BCCB (starred review) * "Frank [and] beautifully crafted." —BookPage (starred review) "Deeply moving...A story of hope." —Common Sense Media "This book will explode you into atoms." —Margo Lanagan, author of Tender Morsels "Helena Fox's novel delivers. Read it." —Cath Crowley, author of Words in Deep Blue "This is not a book; it is a work of art." —Kerry Kletter, author of The First Time She Drowned "Perfect...Readers will be deeply moved." —Books+Publishing

"I see you changing before my eyes, becoming something so marvelously new that I am enthralled beyond measure. . . . Forgive me for even trying to probe the most deeply scented corners of your soul. A beautiful young American travels across the world, only to surrender to another culture's macabre nightmares. "The Floating World transports us to present-day Tokyo, where avant-garde dancers twist their lives together with renegade geisha, and reality bleeds into fantasy like desire into flesh. Liza leaves her Ivy-league life behind and escapes to Tokyo, a place where art, politics, and sex seep into each other, and the irradiated ghosts of World War II pulse beneath the neon nightlife. She intends to study butoh, otherwise known as the dance of utter darkness, with master teacher Oshima Kenzo. While working in one of Tokyo's infamous hostess bars, Liza meets the mysterious Maboroshi, leader of the maiko, a group of neophyte geisha whose expression is as violent as the dance of utter darkness itself. Liza's journey culminates in the discovery of the most exclusive restaurant in Japan, where men eat intricate delicacies directly off a naked human body. Descending into this midnight underworld, Liza becomes fragmented, delicate, lost: a stranger in her own skin. From an exciting new voice in fiction comes a sexy, dark literary debut steeped in the rich customs and rituals of Japan. As tempting and tactile as folds of silk, "The "Floating World is an evocative novel of the flesh that will seduce readers with its sensuous prose. Like the dance that runs through it, the story is a hypnotic exchange: a movement of back and forth, open and shut, secret and revealed. "From theHardcover edition.

Now a movie on Lifetime! I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy's Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday night. Tommy was seventeen and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren. I didn't love him. I'm not sure I even liked him. In a moment, Deanna Lambert's teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of "school slut," Deanna longs to escape a life defined by her past. With subtle grace, complicated wisdom, and striking emotion, Story of a Girl reminds us of our human capacity for resilience, epiphany, and redemption.

“Set in New Orleans, this important and powerful novel follows the Boisdoré family . . . in the months after Katrina. A profound, moving and authentically detailed picture of the storm’s emotional impact on those who lived through it.” —People In this dazzling debut about family, home, and grief, C. Morgan Babst takes readers into the heart of Hurricane Katrina and the life of a great city. As the storm is fast approaching the Louisiana coast, Cora Boisdoré refuses to leave the city. Her parents, Joe Boisdoré, an artist descended from freed slaves who became the city’s preeminent furniture makers, and his white “Uptown” wife, Dr. Tess Eshleman, are forced to evacuate without her, setting off a chain of events that leaves their marriage in shambles and Cora catatonic—the victim or perpetrator of some violence mysterious even to herself. This mystery is at the center of Babst’s haunting and profound novel. Cora’s sister, Del, returns to New Orleans from the successful life she built in New York City to find her hometown in ruins and her family deeply alienated from one another. As Del attempts to figure out what happened to her sister, she must also reckon with the racial history of the city and the trauma of a disaster that was not, in fact, some random act of God but an avoidable tragedy visited on New Orleans’s most vulnerable citizens. Separately and together, each member of the Boisdoré clan must find the strength to remake home in a city forever changed. The Floating World is the Katrina story that needed to be told—one with a piercing, unforgettable loveliness and a vivid, intimate understanding of this particular place and its tangled past.

Elizabeth Angier was happy to be at the end of the school year. She thought her summer on the family farm would be full of work and play with her best friend, Rachel, and her other best friend, her dog, Maizey. However, Elizabeth didn't anticipate the Harmony Farms Corporation moving to her town. Her world starts to crumble as her best friend moves away and her parents whisper of farmers selling their land and the effects this factory farm operation could have on them. When she thinks things can't get much worse, she meets the most unusual creature, Gaia, the living entity of the Earth. Strange things begin to happen to her, around her, and through her! Elizabeth discovers that with these new powers comes responsibility. A dire mistake makes Elizabeth wonder if meeting Gaia has been a blessing or a curse. Will Elizabeth have the strength to fight a large corporation? Or will her upstate New York home be spoiled by profit driven pork production that fouls the air, land, and water?