Swim. Eat. Shower. School. Snack. Swim. Swim. Swim. Dinner. Homework. Bed. Repeat.All of Maggie's focus and free time is spent swimming. She's not only striving to earn scholarships—she's training to qualify for the Olympics. It helps that her best friend, Levi, is also on the team, and cheers her on. But Levi's already earned an Olympic tryout, so Maggie feels even more pressure to succeed. And it's not until Maggie's away on a college visit that she realizes how much of the "typical" high s...
"Sixteen-year-old Bart Lively desperately wants to feel comfortable in his own skin. Sure, he's a competitive swimmer, but being a jock doesn't mean he isn't the target of gay jokes, and the macho culture of his swim club is wearing him down. At the same time, he becomes drawn to the art and athleticism of synchronized swimming, the idea of the human form moving to music under water. So he jumps at the opportunity to become the first boy on the synchro swimming team, even if it means others star...
Sixteen-year-old Abby Lipman is on track to win the state swim championships and qualify for the Olympic trials when a fainting incident at a swim meet leads to the diagnosis of a deadly heart condition. Now Abby is forced to discover who she is without the one thing that's defined her entire life.
Kate’s father has been pressuring her to be perfect for her whole life, pushing her to be the best swimmer she can be. But when Kate finds her dad cheating on her mum, Kate’s perfect world comes crashing down, and Kate is forced to leave home and the swim team she's been a part of her whole life. Now in a new home and new school, faced with the prospect of starting over, Kate isn't so sure that swimming is what she wants anymore. When she decides to quit, her whole world seems to fall apart. Bu...
A high school coach invites members of his swimming team to a memorable week of rigorous training that tests their moral fiber as well as their physical stamina.
Feather Tucker has two wishes: 1)To get her mum healthy again 2) To win the Junior UK swimming championships When Feather comes home on New Year’s Eve to find her mother – one of Britain’s most obese women- in a diabetic coma, she realises something has to be done to save her mum’s life. But when her Mum refuses to co-operate Feather realises that the problems run deeper than just her mum’s unhealthy appetite. Over time, Feather’s mission to help her Mum b...
My Box-Shaped Heart is a powerful story of an unlikely friendship from Rachael Lucas, author of The State of Grace. Holly's mum is a hoarder, and she is fed up with being picked on at school for being weird . . . and having the wrong clothes . . . and sticking out. All she wants is to be invisible. She loves swimming, because in the water everyone is the same. Ed goes to the swimming pool because everything else in his life has changed. In his old life he had money; was on the swim team; kne...
A teenage girl wonders if she’s inherited more than just a heart from her donor in this compulsively readable debut. Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her...
Theo Mackey only remembers one thing for certain about the fire that burned his life down: he lit the match. Sure, it was an accident. But the blaze killed his mom and set his dad on a path to self-destruction. Everything else about that fateful night is full of gaping holes in Theo's mind, for good reason. Maybe it's better that way. As captain of the Ellis Hollow diving team, with straight As and solid friends, he's only one semester away from securing a scholarship and leaving his past behind...
The first of two exciting titles in the new BACK-2-BACK series. Told with an authentic teenage voice, these stories really hit the right note. Miranda’s story – she’s an only child on holiday with her recently-divorced mother, hoping to get away from it all, but finding herself on a grotty Greek island in the worst hotel ever, where even the Coke is warm! Life is miserable, until she spots a dream-on-a-windsurf, zig-zagging across the bay… Mark’s story – he’s backpacking with a c...
In Laguna Beach, California, sixteen-year-old Kendra Dimes is preparing for the 2010 USA Surfing Prime West. She’ll be competing this year in honor of her brother, who was a surfer too, but who died from a drug overdose. Kendra has suffered anxiety attacks ever since her brother’s death, and surfing is what’s been helping her heal. Brock Parker is the new bad boy at school; he deals drugs to the high school clientele for his parents, who work for a Mexican drug lord. Though Brock and Ken...