The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year-that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega.

Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. 14 & up)Ī Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart. Readers who see the tale through to its denouement will find their patience rewarded with an intriguing twist. The plan that Vanessa and her friends hatch to solve the problems plaguing Winter Harbor tests the bounds of credulity, but the novel’s last page is the most compelling and lays the groundwork for the planned series to continue. The story’s momentum builds at a glacial pace crucial details of narrative and character development are revealed so slowly that what might have been suspenseful is sometimes just befuddling. Rayburn combines a classic murder mystery with elements of paranormal romance. As Vanessa tries to make sense of the deaths with the help of her next-door neighbors, the smart and sensitive Carmichael brothers, the investigation gets them entangled with a local family of bewitchingly beautiful-and dangerous-women.

Then dozens of other drowning victims start washing ashore. Vanessa and her family have been in their summer home on the Maine coast less than 24 hours when her sister Justine, an unlikely candidate for suicide, jumps off a cliff.

Tricia rayburn siren series