Without Tess

Tess and Lizzie are sisters, sisters as close as can be, who share a secret world filled with selkies, flying horses, and a girl who can transform into a wolf in the middle of the night. But when Lizzie is ready to grow up, Tess clings to their fantasies. As Tess sinks deeper and deeper into her delusions, she decides that she can't live in the real world any longer and leaves Lizzie and her family forever. Now, years later, Lizzie is in high school and struggling to understand what happened to her sister. With the help of a school psychologist and Tess's battered journal, Lizzie searches for a way to finally let Tess go.

In Obits. a speaker tries and fails to write obituaries for those whose memorials are missing, those who are represented only as statistics. She considers victims of mass deaths, fictional characters, and her own aunt, asking what does it mean to be an 'I' mourning a 'you' when both have been othered? Centring vulnerability, the various answers to this question pass through trauma, depression, and the experience of being a mixed-race queer woman.

Equal parts heartbreaking, funny, and life-affirming, this is a story about love after the most profound loss, for fans of Jesse Andrews, Rainbow Rowell, and Jennifer Niven. "Required reading." --John Corey Whaley, winner of the Printz Award Seventeen-year-old Tess Fowler has dropped out of high school, tossed her laptop in a freezing lake, then jumped in after it fully clothed. Why? Because Jonah was the boy she knew only through texts and emails but understood to his very core. Jonah was the only boy she’d told she loved and the only boy to say it back. And Jonah was the boy whose suicide she never saw coming. Jonah’s death has sent Tess pinwheeling into grief and confusion. But even though he’s gone, Tess still writes to him. She wants answers to the yawning chasm of questions that’s become her life. At the same time, she’s trying to find solace in her father’s alternative funeral business. Who knew that arranging last rites for prized pets could be so life-affirming? But love, loss, and life are so much more complicated than Tess ever thought . . . especially after she receives a message that turns her already inside-out world totally upside down. As funny as it is heartbreaking and completely unputdownable, Things I’m Seeing Without You shows us what it means to love someone, to lose someone, to wade through the beautiful/strange agony of the aftermath, and somehow love again. "Sometimes hilarious, always affecting." --VOYA "Nails the messiness of grief." --SLJ "Compelling . . . a draw for fans of Nicola Yoon." --BCCB

Meet Tess, a brave new heroine from beloved epic fantasy author Rachel Hartman. In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess, stubbornly, is a troublemaker. You can't make a scene at your sister's wedding and break a relative's nose with one punch (no matter how pompous he is) and not suffer the consequences. As her family plans to send her to a nunnery, Tess yanks on her boots and sets out on a journey across the Southlands, alone and pretending to be a boy. Where Tess is headed is a mystery, even to her. So when she runs into an old friend, it's a stroke of luck. This friend is a quigutl--a subspecies of dragon--who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road. But Tess is guarding a troubling secret. Her tumultuous past is a heavy burden to carry, and the memories she's tried to forget threaten to expose her to the world in more ways than one.

In this classic medical thriller filled with harrowing suspense and brilliantly crafted plot twists, Tess Gerritsen—the author of the acclaimed Rizzoli & Isles series that inspired the hit television show—delivers a pulse-pounding tale that “will make your heart skip a beat” (USA TODAY). For Dr. Abby DiMatteo, the long road to Boston’s Bayside Hospital has been anything but easy. Now, immersed in the grinding fatigue of her second year as a surgical resident, she’s elated when the hospital’s elite cardiac transplant team taps her as a potential recruit. But Abby soon makes an anguished, crucial decision that jeopardizes her entire career. A car crash victim’s healthy heart is ready to be harvested; it is immediately cross-matched to a wealthy private patient, Nina Voss. Abby hatches a bold plan to make sure that the transplant goes instead to a dying seventeen-year-old boy who is also a perfect match. The repercussions are powerful and swift and Abby is shaken but unrepentant—until she meets the frail, tormented Nina. Then a new heart for Nina Voss suddenly appears, her transplant is completed, and Abby makes a terrible discovery: Nina’s heart has not come through the proper channels. Defying Bayside Hospital’s demands for silence, Abby plunges into an investigation that reveals an intricate, and murderous, chain of deceptions. Every move Abby makes spawns a vicious backlash and, in a ship anchored in the stagnant waters of Boston Harbor, a final, grisly discovery lies waiting…

From the bestselling author of The Inheritance Games comes a pulse-pounding YA thriller full of power plays, romantic tension, and sinister plots, perfect for fans of Elite and One of Us is Lying. When Tess Kendrick is sent to stay with her older sister in Washington D.C., she has no idea that the famed Ivy Kendrick is the capital's number one "fixer," who helps powerful people make their scandal disappear . . . for a price. Soon after Tess enrolls in the prestigious Hardwicke School, she unwittingly finds herself following in Ivy's footsteps. Tess never thought she and Ivy had much in common, but when her new friends at school need help, she discovers that her talents quickly make her Hardwicke's own go-to high school fixer. Secrets pile up as each sister lives a double life--until their worlds come crashing together in a conspiracy that reaches from the halls of Hardwicke to Capitol Hill. Suddenly, there is much more on the line than good grades, money, or relationships. The odds are stacked against Tess, and the price for this fix might be more than she can pay . . . Don't miss any of these other books by Jennifer Lynn Barnes: The Naturals The Naturals Killer Instinct All In Bad Blood Twelve Raised by Wolves: Raised by Wolves Taken by Storm Trial by Fire The Squad Perfect Cover Killer Spirit Tattoo: Tattoo Fate The Fixer Nobody Every Other Day Platinum Golden

Don’t miss Tess Sharpe’s new novel, 6 Times We Almost Kissed (and One Time We Did). The truth won't let her go. Sophie Winters nearly died. Twice. The first time, she's fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that'll take years to kick. The second time, she's seventeen, and it's no accident. Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina's murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery. After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to a chilly new reality. Mina's brother won't speak to her, her parents fear she'll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places and Sophie must search for Mina's murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina---and about the secret they shared.

A gripping standalone thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles series INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FINALIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY LOS ANGELES TIMES AND SUSPENSE MAGAZINE In a shadowy antiques shop in Rome, violinist Julia Ansdell happens upon a curious piece of music—the Incendio waltz—and is immediately entranced by its unusual composition. Full of passion, torment, and chilling beauty, and seemingly unknown to the world, the waltz, its mournful minor key, its feverish arpeggios, appear to dance with a strange life of their own. Julia is determined to master the complex work and make its melody heard. Back home in Boston, from the moment Julia’s bow moves across the strings, drawing the waltz’s fiery notes into the air, something strange is stirred—and Julia’s world comes under threat. The music has a terrifying and inexplicable effect on her young daughter, who seems violently transformed. Convinced that the hypnotic strains of Incendio are weaving a malevolent spell, Julia sets out to discover the man and the meaning behind the score. Her quest beckons Julia to the ancient city of Venice, where she uncovers a dark, decades-old secret involving a dangerously powerful family that will stop at nothing to keep Julia from bringing the truth to light. Praise for Playing with Fire “Compelling . . . I defy you to read the first chapter and not singe your fingers reading the rest.”—David Baldacci “One of the best and most original thrillers of the year.”—Providence Journal “[A] novel brimming with emotion, literary description, and psychological suspense.”—The Huffington Post “Will make readers drop everything to immerse themselves in its propulsive dual narrative.”—Los Angeles Times