Finding Hope by Colleen Nelson

Finding Hope
Fiction N3319f
Colleen Nelson

Hope lives in a small town with nothing to do and nowhere to go. With a drug addict for a brother, she focuses on the only thing that keeps her sane, writing poetry. To escape, she jumps at the chance to attend Ravenhurst Academy as a boarding student. She’ll even put up with the clique-ish Ravens if it means making a fresh start.

At first, Ravenhurst is better than Hope could have dreamed. She has a boyfriend and a cool roommate, and she might finally have found a place she can fit in. But can she trust her online boyfriend? And what can she do after her brother shows up at the school gates, desperate for help, and the Ravens turn on her? Trapped and unsure, Hope realizes that if she wants to save her brother, she has to save herself first.

(from publisher)

Sketchy

Sketchy: The Bea Catcher Chronicles, Book 1
Olivia Samms
Ficiton Sa56u

A popular cheerleader—raped, beaten, and left for dead. An edgy outsider with a gift. An unlikely team that could take down a killer.

Bea Washington’s life has been a mess ever since that night—the night her best friend and boyfriend betrayed her, the night that got Bea kicked out of Athena Day School for Girls, the night that sent Bea straight into rehab.

Now clean, Bea is starting over at sprawling Packard High School, in a city shaken from two assaults on young women. The latest victim, Willa Pressman—the one who actually survived—doesn’t remember a thing. But Bea has a disturbing new “skill,” the ability to draw the truth out of people—literally. She can see—and then draw—images from other people’s minds. And when she looks at Willa, Bea is shocked by what she sketches.

Bea might be the only person who knows Willa’s secrets—and who can take down the killer before he strikes again.

(From publisher.)

Smack

Smack
Melvin Burgess 
Fiction B91j 2010

I can give it up any time I want . . .

Sometimes maybe you need an experience. The experience can be a person or it can be a drug. The experience opens a door that was there all the time but you never saw it. Or maybe it blasts you into outer space. This time it was Lily and Rob and Gemma spending all that time to make me feel one of them, but it was the drug too. All that crap—about Gemma leaving me, about Mum and Dad, about leaving home. All that negative stuff. All the pain. . .

It just floated away from me, I just floated away from it . . . up and away . . .

I leaned back and I looked at the book and I looked at them and Gemma smiled at me, a big soft smile, and her eyes were like marbles.

“Better?” she said

(From publisher.)