new large print

The Grey sisters had only each other when their mother died years ago. Their father provided for them physically on Water's Edge, the ranch that had been in their family for three generations, each of them however, longed for their father's love. Winona, the oldest, knew early on that she could never get it. An overweight dreamer and reader, she didn't exhibit the kinds of talents and strengths her father valued. Vivi Anne, the youngest, had those things. And it was Vivi Anne who only ever saw a glimmer of their father's approval. When Vivi Anne makes a fateful decision to follow her heart, rather than take the route of a dutiful daughter, events are set in motion that will test the love and loyalties of the Grey sisters. With breathtaking pace and penetrating insight, Kristin Hannah's True Colors is a novel about sisters, vengeance, rivalry, betrayal—and ultimately, what it truly means to be a family.


Can a big-city journalist change a small southern town or will the townspeople change her forever?


















Alyssa Locke is no stranger to dealing with danger. As team leader of the nation’s number one personal security company, Troubleshooters Incorporated, she’s seen more than her share of action, survived plenty of close calls, and holds her own with the best of them—and against the worst of them. Guarding lives is her game, and no one plays it better. But her toughest challenge will be protecting herself from a serial killer she’s been after for years, a fiend who is determined to make her his ultimate trophy.






Harriet Sherwood has always adored her grandmother. But when Harriet decides to follow in her footsteps to fight for social justice, she certainly never expected her efforts to land her in jail.

The Monterey Peninsula is rocked when a killer begins to leave roadside crosses beside local highways -- not in memoriam, but as announcements of his intention to kill. And to kill in particularly horrific and efficient ways: using the personal details about the victims that they've carelessly posted in blogs and on social networking websites.
The case lands on the desk of Kathryn Dance, the California Bureau of Investigation's foremost kinesics -- body language-expert. She and Deputy Michael O'Neil follow the leads to Travis Brigham, a troubled teenager whose role in a fatal car accident has inspired vicious attacks against him on a popular blog, The Chilton Report.
As the investigation progresses, Travis vanishes. Using techniques he learned as a brilliant participant in MMORPGs, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, he easily eludes his pursuers and continues to track his victims, some of whom Kathryn is able to save, some not. Among the obstacles Kathryn must...

Leaving behind her private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured man on Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric prison ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk—and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard.

Story Times, Puzzle Evening and Bead Stringers

Story Times start this week! If you have signed up, we're looking forward to seeing you; if you haven't signed up, call or email so that I know to expect you: 474-2044, lmichaud@sealib.org

Jan. 19 through Feb. 26
Toddlers (1-2 year olds): Tuesdays at 10:30am. Songs and fingerplays, a couple stories, then play time for the little ones while the parents have coffee and tea and socialize.
Walkers with Parents (2-3 year olds: Thursdays at 11:00am. Songs, stories and fingerplays, then a craft. Please dress for paint, glue and mess!
Independent Walkers (3-4 year olds): Fridays at 11:00am. Songs, stories and fingerplays, then a craft. Please dress for paint, glue and mess! Parents must remain in the library.
Runners (4-6 year olds): Wednesdays at 3:00pm. Songs, stories and fingerplays, then a craft. Please dress for messy crafts. Parents must remain in the library.

Wednesday Night at 6:00--Puzzle Evening! Bring the family, bring friends. The library has everything from 25 piece floor puzzles to 1000 piece monsters--feel free to bring your own as well :) Challenge yourself, form a team for a difficult puzzle, relax with an easy one and some good conversation. Snacks included!

Thursday at 3:30--Bead Stringers! You can make beads out of nearly anything, I've discovered. One of the quickest, cheapest and most convenient is paper: did you know you can make beads out of paper?! You can! If you want to learn how and take home some of your own, come on in to Bead Stringers.

new nonfiction

The beauty of retiree Price's book is its simplicity—one can pick a chapter and find a latent interest that could be developed, from building a bird house to quitting smoking. Price gives the reader the opportunity to do that by providing the idea, the opportunity potential, and the resources for getting started. The title doesn't do the book justice; it's an inspirational guide that will provoke people of all ages to engage in new ventures and discover what life can offer.








Do you know the real Paula Deen? You may think you know the butter-loving, finger-licking, joke-cracking queen of melt-in-your-mouth Southern cuisine. You may have even visited The Lady & Sons to taste for yourself the down-home delicacies that made her famous and even heard some version of her Cinderella story (a single mom with two teenage sons started a brown-bag lunch business with $200 and wound up with a thriving restaurant, a fairy-tale second marriage, and wildly popular television shows), but you have never heard the intimate details of her often bumpy road to fame and fortune.




If you haven’t got time to waste, Jamie and Bobby Deen have the meals to make. Imagine getting dinner on the table for your family in forty-five minutes or less. In this inspired and indispensable new cookbook, Paula Deen’s sons show you how to whip up 125 delicious Southern-style recipes quicker than you can say, “Come and get it!”










In this riveting true crime tale, rural Franconia, N.H. becomes a major character alongside "wild child" Liko Kenney, authoritarian police officer Bruce McKay, foul-mouthed Vietnam vet Greg Floyd, and a host of polarized townfolk. After a long feud, hippie-ish Kenny and officer McKay finalize their relationship with a standoff that leaves them both dead, thanks in part to the interference of troubled ex-Marine Greg Floyd (who shot Kenney). Boston-based journalist Sherman (A Rose for Mary: The Hunt for the Real Boston Strangler) dissects the case with painstaking care, documenting a number of Franconia voices, each with its own version of events, to figure out why a typical small-town conflict between "the hard-nosed cop and the rebellious kid" turned unexpectedly murderous. Characters are not just colorful but complete, making Floyd's confession, at a village store two days later, all the more shocking and bizarre: with a "breezy demeanor," Floyd announced, "I'm the guy that shot that kid." As daunting facts come to light, the townspeople form two opposing camps-those for Floyd and those against-making it all but impossible for them to discern anything important from the shooting. Focusing the testimony of witnesses, loved ones and officials, Sherman provides that missing sense of perspective with skill.

Do you have too much month at the end of your money? Is your credit card screaming for relief? Are you tired of robbing Peter to pay Paul . . . whoever they are?Meet Steve and Annette Economides. They’ve been called cheapskates, thriftaholics, and tightwads, but in these tough economic times, Steve and Annette have managed to feed their family of seven on just $350 per month, pay off their first house in nine years and purchase a second, larger home, buy cars with cash, take wonderful vacations, and put money in savings. Without degrees in finance or six-figure salaries, Steve and Annette have created a comfortable, debt-free life for themselves and their children. In America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money, they show you how they did it- and how you can do it too.Steve and Annette share many down-to-earth principles and the simple spending plan that they have used since 1982. They have taught this economizing lifestyle to thousands of people worldwide through seminars and their newsletter, and they include lots of real-life stories to make you feel as if you’re having your own private coaching session. Not only will you find solutions to your financial dilemmas, you’ll also discover a whole new way of life. You don’t need to be a CPA or a math wizard to learn their revolutionary system, which will teach you:- hundreds of ways to save money on everyday household expenses, including groceries, clothing, and health care- how to save in advance for major purchases such as homes, cars, and vacations- how to stop living paycheck to paycheck- how to eliminate debt . . . forever

A sequel to her bestselling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert’s new book is the story of how she and Felipe, the man she met and fell in love with at the end of Eat, Pray, Love, grapple and ultimately make peace with the notion of marriage, long after each of them has endured an ugly divorce and sworn off the institution.

Picking up where her previous successful, and highly lauded book, America's Women, left off, Gail Collins recounts the sea change women have experienced since 1960. A comprehensive mix of oral history and Collins's keen research, this is the definitive book about five crucial decades of progress, told with the down-to-earth, amusing, and agenda-free tone this beloved New York Times columnist is known for. The interviews with women who have lived through these transformative years include an advertising executive in the 60s who was not allowed to attend board meetings that took place in the all-male dining room; and an airline stewardess who remembered being required to bend over to light her passengers' cigars on the men-only 'Executive Flight' from New York to Chicago.We, too, may have forgotten the enormous strides made by women since 1960--and the rare setbacks. "Hell yes, we have a quota [7%]" said a medical school dean in 1961. "We do keep women out, when we can." At a pre-graduation party at BarnardCollege, "they handed corsages to the girls who were engaged and lemons to those who weren't." In 1960, two-thirds of women 18-60 surveyed by Gallup didn't approve of the idea of a female president. Until 1972, no woman ran in the Boston Marathon, the year when Title IX passed, requiring parity for boys and girls inschool athletic programs (and also the year after Nixon vetoed the childcare legislation passed by congress). What happened during the past fifty years--a period that led to the first woman's winning a Presidential Primary--and why? The cataclysmic change in the lives of American women is a story Gail Collins seems to have been born to tell.

Twitter, the simple-to-use microblogging service, offers immense benefits for businesses and organizations. Fire departments, political candidates, and C0EOs have used Twitter to share up-to-the-minute information. Laura Fitton, maybe better known by her Twitter handle - @Pistachio, has more than 10,000 followers on Twitter, and gives presentations on how to use Twitter to build business and personal opportunity. She's joined by Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston to share Twitter expertise in this easy-to-follow guide.
You'll discover how to get set up on Twitter, build a follower list, and find a voice for your tweets. Then you'll learn to use third party tools to link Twitter to other sites and incorporate it into business communication models. This book covers
The basics of signing up and creating tweets
Following other users and adding followers to your own tweets
Mastering the "Twecosystem"-the tools that tie Twitter to many other Web applications, including mobile devices
Strategies for enhancing business communication, marketing, and networking opportunities with Twitter

The perfect plain-English guide to the much-anticipated release of Windows 7
Windows For Dummies is the all-time bestselling guide to the Windows operating system. Windows 7 For Dummies answers all your questions about the interface adjustments and all the new tools in Windows 7.
Whether you're new to computers or just eager to start using the newest version of Windows, expert author Andy Rathbone will walk you step by step through the most common Windows 7 tasks, including managing files, applications, media, and Internet access. If you've never used Windows before, it shows you the things most books assume you already know, like how to navigate the interface, customize the desktop, and work with the file system. Then it helps you get comfortable using all aspects of Windows 7.

A practical guide for visual learners who are eager to get started with Windows 7
Windows 7 is Microsoft's highly anticipated operating system used by millions of people around the world. If you're a visual learner and are new to Windows 7, then this book is an ideal introduction to the new features of this operating system. Seasoned author Paul McFedries walks you through the basics and beyond of Windows 7 in a straightforward manner.
You'll discover how to install and repair programs, maintain your system, set up password-protected accounts, load images from a digital camera, play music and other media files, secure Internet and e-mail accounts, and much more. More than 150 tasks are accompanied by full-color screen shots as they guide you to becoming a confident user of Windows 7.

new movies

New Movies to Help on Those Cold Winter Nights

This Week for Kids

This week is a little busier than last!

Monday at 4:00--Paws 4 Reading (Aspen). Please note that this is half an hour later than usual. That means Aspen will be here a little later too--if you haven't been able to visit our Reading Therapy dog because it's been too early, here's your chance. Call or email to sign up.

Wednesday at 3:30--Lego Builders Association. I have bowed to popular demand and the theme for this month is "Free For All"! Come build your coolest thing ever, whatever it may be! For the last ten minutes, you'll get to tell everyone about it and get your picture taken for the library's website. Just so you know, a kind man came in and donated some new Legos...

Thursday 1-5pm--Drop In Craft. This one's a surprise! You'll have to come in to find out what kind of messy fun we're up to this month. You'll have something cool to take home.

Friday at 3:30--Paws 4 Reading (Misty). If you haven't met our new German Shepherd Reading Therapy dog, come on in! There's still plenty of room available, so call or email to sign up.

*The Library is closed Monday the 18th and story times begin Tuesday the 19th. If you haven't signed up yet, please do!

Paws 4 Reading, Email Addresses, Story Times

This week is quite slow: One program! I am slow in posting it as well since it's this afternoon: Monday at 3:30 is Paws 4 Reading (Aspen). Two times are left--4:30 and 4:45, so call or email me if you'd like to sign up.

I send out email notices when a program is coming up or story times are starting or any other information needs to get out. Lately, I've been getting a lot returned with "User does not have a ____ account" or "Address has been disabled". If you used to receive notices and now you do not, or if you want to receive notices and never have, please email me at lmichaud@sealib.org and update your email address!

Story Times are starting Jan. 19th and will run through Feb. 26th.

Tuesday, 10:30am. 1-2 year olds, Toddlers Story Time.

Wednesday, 3:00pm. 4-6 year olds, Runners Story Time.

Thursday, 11:00am. 2-3 year olds, Walkers with Parents Story Time.

Friday, 11:00am. 3-4 year olds, Independent Walkers Story Time.

Each Story Time is different:

The Toddlers group will have mostly songs and fingerplays or rhymes, with a very simple book, maybe two. Then the little ones will play while the grown-ups have coffee and tea and a little time to socialize.

The Walkers with Parents Story Time is slightly more advanced, with songs and fingerplays, but we’ll also introduce picture books and ask a few simple questions. Instead of play time, this group will make a small craft at the end.

Independent Walkers will follow the same format as Walkers with Parents, but they will come in on their own while their parents have a chance to select their own library materials.

The Runners group will have a couple songs or fingerplays, but most of the time will be spent reading and talking about the stories while their parents have a chance to select their own materials. They will also have a craft at the end.

There will be a different theme each week, from favorites to apples to school, etc. Our space is limited, so please call to sign up—these limits exist not only because of space but also so that each child will have the best Story Time experience possible. We will find a way to accommodate every interested child, adding a Story Time if necessary.

Call 474-2044 to sign up. You can also e-mail lmichaud@sealib.org.

Final Wednesday Night Movie!

Sip your final mug of Starbucks hot chocolate, have a cookie or two and enjoy Balto for our final Family Movie Night. As always, feel free to wear your jammies!
Wednesday, Dec. 30th at 6pm.

new fiction

Joyce Carol Oates returns with a dark, romantic, and captivating tale, set in the Great Lakes region of upstate New York—the territory of her remarkably successful New York Times bestseller The Gravedigger's Daughter.
Set in the mythical small city of Sparta, New York, this searing, vividly rendered exploration of the mysterious conjunction of erotic romance and tragic violence in late-twentieth-century America returns to the emotional and geographical terrain of acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates's previous bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and The Gravedigger's Daughter.
When a young wife and mother named Zoe Kruller is found brutally murdered, the Sparta police target two primary suspects, her estranged husband, Delray Kruller, and her longtime lover, Eddy Diehl. In turn, the Krullers' son, Aaron, and Eddy Diehl's daughter, Krista, become obsessed with each other, each believing the other's father is guilty.
Told in halves in the very different voices of Krista and Aaron, Little Bird of Heaven is a classic Oates novel in which the lyricism of intense sexual love is intertwined with the anguish of loss, and tenderness is barely distinguishable from cruelty. By the novel's end, the fated lovers, meeting again as adults, are at last ready to exorcise the ghosts of the past and come to terms with their legacy of guilt, misplaced love, and redemptive yearning.


In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable's girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County—to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto—pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them.In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River—John Irving's twelfth novel—depicts the recent half-century in the United States as "a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course." From the novel's taut opening sentence—"The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long"—to its elegiac final chapter, Last Night in Twisted River is written with the...

"My name is Gus Bailey...It should be pointed out that it is a regular feature of my life that people whisper things in my ear, very private things, about themselves or others. I have always understood the art of listening."The last two years have been monstrously unpleasant for high-society journalist Gus Bailey. His propensity for gossip has finally gotten him into trouble -- $11 million worth. His problems begin when he falls hook, line, and sinker for a fake story from an unreliable source and repeats it on a radio program. As a result of his flip comments, Gus becomes embroiled in a nasty slander suit brought by Kyle Cramden, the powerful congressman he accuses of murder, and he fears it could mean the end of him.The stress of the lawsuit makes it difficult for Gus to focus on the novel he has been contracted to write, which is based on the suspicious death of billionaire Konstantin Zacharias. It is a story that has dominated the party conversations of Manhattan's chattering classes for more than two years. The accused murderer is behind bars, but Gus is not convinced that justice was served. There are too many unanswered questions, such as why a paranoid man who did not go anywhere without bodyguards was suddenly left without protection the very night he perished in a tragic fire. Gus believes the answers lie with Konstantin's hot-tempered and vengeful wife, Perla. He intends to uncover the truth, even though doing so will gain him another dangerous enemy. In true Dominick Dunne fashion, Too Much Money is peppered with thinly veiled fictions, keeping readers guessing about the real-world villains and intrigues that lie beneath its chapters. Dunne revives the world he first introduced in his mega-bestselling novel People like Us, and he brings readers up-to-date on favorite characters such as Ruby and Elias Renthal, Lil Altemus, and, of course, the beloved Gus Bailey. Once again, he invites us to pull up a seat at the most important tables at Swifty's, get past the doormen at esteemed social clubs like The Butterfield, and venture into the innermost chambers of the Upper East Side's most sumptuous mansions. Too Much Money is a satisfying, mischievous, and compulsively readable tale by the most brilliant society chronicler of our time -- the man who knows all the secrets and isn't afraid to share them.

From one of the best-loved authors of all time comes an irresistible adventure of swashbuckling pirates in the New World, a classic story of treasure and betrayal.
The Caribbean, 1665. A remote colony of the English Crown, the island of Jamaica holds out against the vast supremacy of the Spanish empire. Port Royal, its capital, is a cutthroat town of taverns, grog shops, and bawdy houses.
In this steamy climate there's a living to be made, a living that can end swiftly by disease—or by dagger. For Captain Charles Hunter, gold in Spanish hands is gold for the taking, and the law of the land rests with those ruthless enough to make it.
Word in port is that the galleon El Trinidad, fresh from New Spain, is awaiting repairs in a nearby harbor. Heavily fortified, the impregnable harbor is guarded by the bloodthirsty Cazalla, a favorite commander of the Spanish king himself. With backing from a powerful ally, Hunter assembles a crew of ruffians to infiltrate the enemy outpost and commandeer El Trinidad, along with its fortune in Spanish gold. The raid is as perilous as the bloodiest tales of island legend, and Hunter will lose more than one man before he even sets foot on foreign shores, where dense jungle and the firepower of Spanish infantry stand between him and the treasure. . . .
Pirate Latitudes is Michael Crichton at his best: a rollicking adventure tale pulsing with relentless action, crackling atmosphere, and heart-pounding suspense.

Stephen L. Carter’s brilliant debut, The Emperor of Ocean Park, spent eleven week son the New York Times best-seller list. Now, in Jericho’s Fall, Carter turns his formidable talents to the shadowy world of spies, official secrecy, and financial fraud in a thriller that rivets the reader’s attention until the very last page.In an imposing house in the Colorado Rockies, Jericho Ainsley, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency and a Wall Street titan, lies dying. He summons to his beside Beck DeForde, the younger woman for whom he threw away his career years ago, miring them both in scandal. Beck believes she is visiting to say farewell. Instead, she is drawn into a battle over an explosive secret that foreign governments and powerful corporations alike want to wrest from Jericho before he dies.An intricate and timely thriller that plumbs the emotional depths of a failed love affair and a family torn apart by mistrust, Jericho’s Fall takes us on a fast-moving journey through the secretive world of intelligence operations and the meltdown of the financial markets. And it creates, in Beck DeForde, an unforgettable heroine for our turbulent age.

When Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile in 1821, he took to the grave a powerful secret. As general and emperor, he had stolen immeasurable riches from palaces, national treasuries, and even the Knights of Malta and the Vatican. In his final days, his British captors hoped to learn where the loot lay hidden. But he told them nothing, and in his will he made no mention of the treasure. Or did he?Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone isn't looking for trouble when it comes knocking at his Copenhagen bookshop. Actually, it breaks and enters in the form of an American Secret Service agent with a pair of assassins on his heels. Malone has his doubts about the anxious young man, but narrowly surviving a ferocious firefight convinces him to follow his unexpected new ally.Their first stop is the secluded estate of Malone's good friend, Henrik Thorvaldsen. The wily Danish tycoon has uncovered the insidious plans of the Paris Club, a cabal of...

new nonfiction

Bright white teeth. Straight leg bones. Awkwardly contorted arm bones. On a hot summer day in 2005, Dr. Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution peered into an excavated grave, carefully examining the fragile skeleton that had been buried there for four hundred years. "He was about fifteen years old when he died. And he was European," Owsley concluded. But how did he know? Just as forensic scientists use their knowledge of human remains to help solve crimes, they use similar skills to solve the mysteries of the long-ago past. Join author Sally M. Walker as she works alongside the scientists investigating colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia, as well as other sites in Maryland. As you follow their investigations, she'll introduce you to what scientists believe are the lives of a teenage boy, a ship's captain, an indentured servant, a colonial official and his family, and an enslaved African girl. All are reaching beyond the grave to tell us their stories, which are written in bone. Visit www.lernerbooks.com/writteninbone for free downloads and a behind-the-scenes slideshow of one of the first one of the first-ever facial reconstructions of an African American from the colonial time period.

new teen books

EVERYTHING. CHANGES. NOW.
Imagine you wake up and the world around you-life as you know it-has changed in an instant. That's what has happened to Whit Allgood and his sister, Whisty. They went to sleep as normal teenagers, and woke up as wanted criminals. Accused of holding incredible powers they'd never dreamed possible. And now, just how different they are-special, even-if just beginning to be revealed in a strange new world.
It begins...now.




Str-S-d:I’ll begin with Lucy. She is definitely first on the list. You can’t believe how it feels to be in the cafeteria and turn around and there she is staring at me like I’m some disgusting bug or vermin. Does she really think I WANT to be this way? I hate you, Lucy. I really hate you. You are my #1 pick. I wish you were dead.The day after anonymous blogger Str-S-d wishes the popular girl would die, Lucy vanishes. The students of Soundview High are scared and worried. Especially frightened and wracked with guilt is Madison Archer, Lucy’s friend and the last person to see her the night she disappeared.As days pass with no sign of the missing girl, even the attention of Tyler, an attractive new student, is not enough to distract Madison from her growing sense of foreboding. When two more popular students disappear after their names are mentioned on Str-S-d’s blog, the residents of Soundview panic. Meanwhile, Madison receives anonymous notes warning that she could be next. Desperate to solve the mystery before anyone else disappears, Madison turns to Tyler, but can she trust him when it becomes clear that he knows more than he’s sharing?The clock is ticking. Madison must uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearances . . . before her name appears in Str-S-d’s blog.In the spirit of stories like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Todd Strasser updates the teen thriller for the techno age with Wish You Were Dead, the first installment in a new “thrill”-ogy.

School Library Journal
Gr 8 Up—Taro wants to be a samurai, but as this story opens, ninjas attack his house and decapitate his father, and he is run through with a ninja sword. All is not lost—he is saved by a good ninja who had to bite him and turn him vampire. Yes, that's right; all the ninjas are vampires. This addition to the dead and undead outpouring is cleverly set in the 16th century at the height of the warring daimyos of the Tokugawa period in Japan. The author makes a good argument for the logic of ninjas being vampires—they only come out at night, they move with stealthlike speed, and they seem to be invincible. In this case, they are vital in determining who will be eventual Shogun as well. Taro and his friend Haro are taken on an adventure with the good ninja, Shusaku, where they learn of and must thwart a plot to have Taro killed because of his true identity. The female characters take a backseat to the nonstop action, and the gruesome details of all the killings and the cool weaponry will mark this as a great "guy book" to counter all the female frenzy around Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series (Little, Brown).—Jake Pettit, Thompson Valley High School, Loveland, CO

New to town, Beatrice is expecting her new best friend to be one of the girls she meets on the first day. But instead, the alphabet conspires to seat her next to Jonah, aka Ghost Boy, a quiet loner who hasn't made a new friend since third grade. Something about him, though, gets to Bea, and soon they form an unexpected friendship. It's not romance, exactly - but it's definitely love. Still, Bea can't quite dispel Jonah's gloom and doom - and as she finds out his family history, she understands why. Can Bea help Jonah? Or is he destined to vanish?