Author Archives

We are a team of certified secondary school librarians and English teachers with a combined total of over sixty years experience who are publishing under this communal nom de plume.

• We Are Not From Here

  By Axelle Heyst on September 16, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  Chico, Pulga and Pequena are three teenagers living in the small village of Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. They are not related but are close enough in friendship to be so. Chico lives with Pulga, having been orphaned when his mother died… Read More ›

• The Black Kids

  By Axelle Heyst on September 15, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  Set in Los Angeles in the year 1992–the year LA erupted into violence after the brutal beating of Rodney King by four LAPD officers–this story traces the evolution of senior Ashley Bennett, her friends, and her family as they confront… Read More ›

• They Wish They Were Us

  By Axelle Heyst on September 6, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

• The Mall

  By Axelle Heyst on September 5, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  Set in New Jersey in 1991, this novel’s action is almost entirely confined to the local mall. This is a clever idea, and the author surprisingly is able to realize it nicely. Cassie Worthy is a new high school graduate… Read More ›

• I Killed Zoe Spanos

  By Axelle Heyst on August 31, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Anna Cicconi is a new high school graduate filling the summer before college matriculation by working as a nanny in the Hamptons. Her mom is generally caring but works two jobs and so doesn’t have a whole lotta time and… Read More ›

• Conjure Women

  By Axelle Heyst on August 16, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Rue and her mother May Belle are newly-freed residents of a southern plantation immediately following the Civil War. The big plantation home has been burned to the ground, their master shot himself, the northern armies have come rampaging through, and… Read More ›

• Straight On Till Morning: A Twisted Tale

  By Axelle Heyst on August 3, 2020 • ( 0 )

  It has been four years since Wendy Darling has had any contact with Never Land. At that time her dog Nana snagged Peter Pan’s shadow away from him as he and Tinker Bell listened in at her upstairs bedroom window… Read More ›

• Agnes at the End of the World

  By Axelle Heyst on June 26, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Agnes is a teenager living with her younger sister Beth and other even-younger siblings in a crowded mobile home in Red Creek, a fundamentalist Christian settlement in the desert Southwest modeled somewhat after that described in Carolyn Jessop’s memoir ESCAPED…. Read More ›

• The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

  By Axelle Heyst on June 23, 2020 • ( 0 )

  So here’s the long-anticipated prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy. Coriolanus Snow is in his final year at the elitist Academy, training ground for future leaders of Panem. He is fortunate to be there because although he is charming, intelligent… Read More ›

• This Is How I Lied

  By Axelle Heyst on June 16, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Eve is a 15-yr-old girl living with her mother Charlotte and 13-year-old sister Nola in small-town Grotto, Iowa. They don’t have much. Her mother works but doesn’t bring in a lot, and she is one cranky, self-centered mom. Like in… Read More ›