This Time For Sure

What would you do if you had a second chance? A do-over? How far would you go to get back at the one who got away, the one who did you wrong, the one who tricked you, manipulated you, ignored you? The one who dumped you, cheated on you—or harmed a friend? What would you risk to have that one little chance to get back at them? Twenty-two brilliant skilled authors now offer their journeys into revenge. Retribution. Redemption. Revealed how they would even the score, turn the tables, make things right. One used a map. One a tape recorder. A decoy. A disguise. A lie. One even used a banana. And, fine. Because we are crime fiction authors, turns out there’s a lot of murder involved. And because these are short stories—hang on for the ride. Twists, turns, surprises—and even some heartbreak. Because there’s nothing as delicious and tempting as a second chance. Oh, we promise ourselves. This time for sure. With stories by Sharon Bader, Damyanti Biswas, Clark Boyd, Lucy Burdette, Karen Dionne, Elisabeth Elo, Elizabeth Elwood, Alexia Gordon, Heather Graham, G. Miki Hayden, Edwin Hill, Craig Johnson, Ellen Clair Lamb, Kristen Lepionka, Alan Orloff, Martha Reed, Alex Segura, Steve Shrott, Charles Todd, Gabriel Valjan, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, and Andrew Welsh-Huggins. 100% of net revenues received benefit the New Orleans Public Library.

Have you ever wished someone would just disappear or drop off the face of the earth? The Rows of Sharon is a heartbreaking story of one woman who wished for jsut that only to have it come true. Sharon Ann Rose tells her story of how she was accused and convicted of consipiracy to commit murder and endured two years of her life in a correctional facility for women. Take a peek inside her world of pain, loneliness, and suffering as she watches her family slowly being taken by her husband, who had once promised to love and stand by her. Laugh at the unexpected sense of humor she displays in the midst of the turmoil. Cry with her as she waits for months at a time to see her children. Experience her anger at her husband as he betrays her time and time again. And feel the joy she finds when she turns to the only One who can offer her peace. Journery through The Rows of Sharon and discover that bad things do indeed happen to good people.

“An intense snapshot of the chain reaction caused by pulling a trigger.” —Booklist (starred review) “Astonishing.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A tour de force.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A Newbery Honor Book A Coretta Scott King Honor Book A Printz Honor Book A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner for Young Adult Literature Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award An Edgar Award Winner for Best Young Adult Fiction Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner An Entertainment Weekly Best YA Book of 2017 A Vulture Best YA Book of 2017 A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2017 An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds’s electrifying novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother. A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if Will gets off that elevator. Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.