ya contempt – Author Michelle Zink

This time from School Library Journal!

“Zink uses a fabulous vocabulary to build a tale of deception and mixed loyalties that effortlessly draws readers in…”

We’re two for two on snark-free reviews, guys! Plus we got that star from Kirkus!

🙂

LIES I TOLD releases April 7 and is available for preorder now.

Gr 9 Up–Fans of romance and a good heist will fall in love with Lies I Told. Grace is a foster child who has been adopted by a pair of con artists, and they are the closest thing she has to a real family. Her brother, another adopted foster child, is finding the life of constant deception increasingly unsatisfactory. He’s ready to get out, and he wants Grace to come with him. Parker’s entreaties would be more successful if Grace wasn’t falling irrevocably in love with their newest mark. Zink uses a fabulous vocabulary to build a tale of deception and mixed loyalties that effortlessly draws readers in and allows them to vicariously experience the tension of living a lie while trying to be completely transparent with a love interest. The victims of the graft are sympathetic characters, and Grace can be forgiven her deception since she must make an untenable choice between first love and familial abandonment or betrayal of a truly good person and an artificial family. Zink liberally includes the palpitating hearts and more mature, steamy love scenes that many young adult readers have come to expect in an action-packed tale, but leaves her readers dangling with an ending that will leave them demanding more.–Jodeana Kruse, R. A. Long High School, Longview,WA

Kirkus gives LIES I TOLD a STARRED Review!

I’ll let you in on a little secret; some reviews are scarier than others. Kirkus, for example, is known for being on very tough customer. Which is why authors all kind of hold our breath as we wait for their reviews to come in.

And why I’m SUPER EXCITED to announce that Kirkus is giving LIES I TOLD a STARRED review.

The highpoint; “Zink deftly weaves the story together, employing foreshadowing and symbolism to support the plot. Although readers know from the prologue that things will turn out badly, suspense ripples throughout the story. Grace’s character blooms as she balances between the good person she hopes to be and the bad one she’s forced to be. Highly readable, gripping and touching.”

Lies I Told releases April 7, but you can preorder now through Indiebound, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

Huzzah!

Full review as follows;

LIES I TOLD [STARRED REVIEW!]
Author: Michelle Zink

Review Issue Date: January 1, 2015
Online Publish Date: December 10, 2014
Publisher:HarperTeen
Pages: 352
Price ( Hardcover ): $17.99
Price ( e-book ): $10.99
Publication Date: April 7, 2015
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-06-232712-3
ISBN ( e-book ): 978-0-06-232714-7
Category: Fiction

A girl struggles to hold onto her own identity within her family of thieves. Grace disobeys her parents by keeping mementos from her family’s previous criminal jobs. She hopes she hasn’t completely become the deceptive creature her parents trained her to be from the time they adopted her as a young teen. Now 17, Grace has moved with her family to an affluent area as part of a plot to steal millions in gold from Warren Fairchild, a wildly wealthy but mentally unstable man. Her parents assign Grace to get close to Logan, Fairchild’s son, a task she finds only too easy, as she and Logan truly fall for each other. Grace likes her new friends in Playa Hermosa, making one truly good friend for the first time in her life, her family having moved incessantly to keep up with jobs and ahead of the police. She lives with the realization that she must lie to these good people constantly, and she knows she must betray Logan, whom she loves. Zink deftly weaves the story together, employing foreshadowing and symbolism to support the plot. Although readers know from the prologue that things will turn out badly, suspense ripples throughout the story. Grace’s character blooms as she balances between the good person she hopes to be and the bad one she’s forced to be. Highly readable, gripping and touching. (Thriller. 12-18)