Charlie, Presumed Dead by Anne Heltzel

Charlie, Presumed Dead is a psychological thriller with a twist that leads to a shocking ending.

Nineteen year old Lena Whitney and seventeen year old Aubrey Burroughs discover each other at the funeral, in Paris, France, of their mutual boyfriend/lover, Charlie Price. Charlie died when the Cessna he was piloting crashed into the North Sea off the coast of Durham. Charlie did not have a license to fly and no one knows why he took the plane out. No body was recovered and only Charlie's bloodstained jacket was found.

With her parents currently in Marseille, Lena has no problem attending Charlie's funeral but for Aubrey who is from the United States, she had to get permission from her parents to fly over for the funeral. Aubrey doesn't know anyone at the funeral and has never met Charlie's parents either. The only person she's met from his life is Adam, his roommate from his senior year in Mumbai. Aubrey's been dating Charlie for a little over a year. In contrast, Lena is the girlfriend Charlie's family knows as they've been dating for three years.

After the service, Lena confronts Aubrey about being the other woman and they go to a cafe to talk about what's just happened in their lives. The two women soon discover that the man they supposedly know is very different. Lena reveals that Charlie told her Aubrey was the "good family friend" while Aubrey did not know about Lena. Lena knows Charlie as a jazz musician while Aubrey found him "hopeless with music". Comparing notes leads Aubrey to wonder if there is more going on than they know. Lena decides to return to London to track down Charlie's past as she believes there's a possibility he faked his death. At first Aubrey declines Lena's invitation to join her but eventually changes her mind. Aubrey wants to recover something of hers that Charlie took, but she doesn't tell Lena.

In London, Lena and Aubrey are taken by Xander, a former friend and "weed hookup" of Charlie's to a club called Fabric where Charlie partied. Aubrey knew Charlie as a gamer who tried weed but hated it, whereas Lena states that he "probably never played a video game in his life". Xander reveals that Charlie lost a brown leather journal he was obsessed about a few months ago in Mumbai. Xander shows the two women a picture of the journal, which Aubrey recognizes as hers. The journal was lost at the Taj Hotel in Colaba, a neighbourhood in South Mumbai. Aubrey tells Lena the journal is hers and she needs to retrieve it even if that means traveling to Bombay. Lena agrees, offering to pay for their trip. At this time it becomes apparent that both girls are keeping secrets from one another. Both girls acknowledge that it now seems odd that Charlie told neither of them that he had returned to Mumbai a few months ago. Lena fills Aubrey in on his backstory, telling her that Charlie spent middle school in Paris, but then was moved to Mumbai for his freshman year of high school. When that did not work out well, he was moved to London for his sophomore and junior year and then returned to Mumbai for his senior year. He traveled to New York for the summer which is when he met Aubrey. That fall Charlie started at Oxford. Both Lena and Aubrey admit they found Charlie beginning to act strange this past year, which they attributed to exam stress.

At the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel the front desk has no journal. While Lena's asleep, Aubrey decides to hook-up with Adam, Charlie's old roommate from Bombay who still works for an NGO. The next day Lena, Aubrey and Adam meet up to discuss Charlie. Adam admits to not knowing Charlie had two girlfriends. He tells them that Charlie had a friend, Anand, in Kerala who owns a tourist boat and who would supply Charlie with weed and booze. From Aubrey and Adam's behaviour, Lena realizes that they are lovers. When confronted later on by Lena, Aubrey tells her that she only cheated on Charlie once and that she told him three months ago when he visited her at her parents home in Illinois on May 19th.

Lena and Aubrey locate Anand and arrange to go out on his boat at night. On the trip Lena divulges that Charlie wrote a suicide note to his mother dated May 20 which she found in his drawer. Anand tells the two women that Charlie owes him money. He also reveals that Charlie has a half brother, Dane. Both Lena and Aubrey grow increasingly suspicious of Anand and it turns out their fears are very real when he drugs them, steals Lena's credit cards and rips their passports. Lena's parents are furious with her and insist she return home to Boston immediately. However, Lena is now determined to travel to Bangkok and she convinces her father's secretary, Cara, to book them a flight. Little do Lena and Aubrey know that this decision has sealed their fate as they have fallen for the trap Charlie has set for them.

Discussion

Charlie, Presumed Dead is a psychological thriller told by the three main characters; Lena, Aubrey and Charlie. Lena and Aubrey's narratives alternate, while Charlie's occur at specific points in the story.

The premise behind Charlie, Presumed Dead involves two young women who discover they have been dating the same man. Suspecting he may have faked his own death, they set out to learn the truth. Clues lead them from Paris, to London, to Bombay and ultimately to Bangkok. Each woman is hiding a secret motivation behind wanting to find Charlie. However, in a terrible twist, not realizing Charlie's true character, the two women fall into the deadly trap he has set for them. This twist takes the unsuspecting reader completely by surprise, although Heltzel does begin to lay the pieces out for her readers, especially with the second person narratives of Charlie.

The premise would have been more believable as a young adult novel, if the women were older, perhaps in their mid-twenties. Heltzel partly gets around this by having Lena as the rich girl who is able to jet-set to the multiple locations in the story. This allows Aubrey, who is from a middle class, small mid-west town to play her part. Nevertheless, two young girls with an unlimited supply of money, who simply disappear from their families, to follow Charlie's trail through four countries, just doesn't seem plausible.

Despite this, Heltzel does a wonderful job of drawing her readers into the story, dropping hints here and there that suggest hidden motivations for each girl wanting to find Charlie. Initially the reader doesn't really know the full motivations for each girl's desire to track down Charlie. Lena admits "Grief isn't what's driving me to London, though. It's anger. If Charlie's alive, he needs to pay for what he's done to me." Aubrey is more interested in recovering her journal, which we learn later on, Charlie stole from her. In that journal, lies Aubrey's terrible secret which is revealed during a drugged-induced dream in Kerala. It is a secret she begged Charlie to keep.

These narratives reveal Charlie to be a very disturbed man, struggling to juggle his life with two women. As his life begins to unravel, Charlie plots revenge which he doesn't reveal until the later narratives. His sick enjoyment of each step of the revenge which involves the murder of one girl and the false imprisonment of the other are graphically portrayed. "You'll lead them right to it. Lambs to the slaughter; one lamb, anyway...Sometimes you don't care which one suffers, knowing one of them will. You go back and forth about which one it should be and it gives you a thrill...It's not the destruction itself that thrills you the most --though you're looking forward to it -- it's the exhilaration of watching them as they learn that you're alive and in control. It's their inevitable terror. It's perfect." The extent of Charlie's revenge is revealed in one of his last narratives. Charlie is revealed to be completely enraged over Aubrey's betrayal and her subsequent break-up with him. "You've made simple plans for Lena. She was a burden to be discarded. But Aubrey is going to suffer. For Aubrey, you've planned a fate far worse than death."

The novel's open ending leaves readers wondering if there will be a sequel. Is Lena really dead especially given the last narrative? If not, where is she? Will Aubrey be left to rot in the Thai prison? Thai authorities have her passport so they know she's American. Will they inform the US consulate of her imprisonment and the charges against her?  A disturbing novel that is better suited for college aged readers rather than teens, and for those who like psychological thrillers.

Book Details:

Charlie, Presumed Dead by Anne Heltzel
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt       2015
263 pp.

Paige Rewritten by Erynn Mangum

Book Two in the Paige Alder series sees Paige dealing with interest from two young men while trying to decide if she should take a job at her church as a youth minister. Complicating this is the return of her younger sister, Preslee, who ran away from home years ago to live with her rocker boyfriend.

Although Paige has now managed to learn to say no to people in her life, so that at least she can have decent mealtimes and take time to relax and pray, her life still seems disorganized.

Luke Prestwick, the brother of her best friend Layla, is back in town and determined to restart his relationship with Paige. He strong-arms a lonely Paige into dinner on her birthday and then continues to show up on Saturday mornings bringing breakfast with him, even when Paige seems less than friendly.  Luke has all the trappings of success; a good job, his own apartment, is well dressed and immaculately groomed. Even more amazing, he has come back to the church.

Meanwhile her relationship with Tyler Jennings isn't faring much better. Tyler, whom Paige really likes, seems cautious and approaches their relationship as if Paige is made of glass. This makes Paige doubt whether Tyler is anything more than just a friend. However, as Tyler begins to ask Paige out to dinner and lunch more frequently, Paige begins to wonder about her own feelings towards him. His easy-going nature and quiet confidence are in contrast to Luke's more forward approach.

Added to this is Paige's jealousy over the return of her prodigal sister, Preslee, who has managed to turn her life around, become Christian and is engaged to Wes, the son of a minister and owner of his own realty company. Paige's feelings are understandable given that she was the one left to comfort their parents when Preslee vanished years ago. While Paige obeyed the rules and did what she was supposed to, Preslee went off and made plenty of mistakes and seemingly got rewarded for her disobedience and her rash ways.

I stayed. I was here. I was the one who followed all the rules, heard all the complaints, and dealt with the aftermath of Preslee's behavior. It was me who held Mom the years that Preslees hadn't even bothered to call on Christmas or Mother's Day.

Paige is now being asked to welcome Preslee back into the family, to rejoice at her upcoming marriage and her good fortune. It's a bitter pill for her to swallow despite the fact that she knows it's the right course.

Can Paige find the maturity to sort through her feelings about Preslee, can she discover what she truly feels about Luke and Tyler to choose between them and can she make a decision about whether or not to accept a job offer from Rick? There's plenty of opportunity for growth in Paige Alder's complicated life.

Paige Rewritten is mainly a story about a young woman's struggle towards adult maturity and the ability to take charge of her life. As a result, Mangum has not written a strong female lead character who knows her mind. Instead in this second novel, Paige Adler is presented as a fairly immature twenty-three year old who is somewhat of a pushover which is frustrating for readers. She doesn't seem to have learned much from her experiences in the first novel and hasn't applied it to any other areas of her life.  In the first novel she was a pushover for just about anyone - saying yes to anyone who asked her to do something. In the second novel, she struggles with the three most important relationships in her life, that of Tyler, Luke and Preslee.

Luke, the boy who left her five years ago is back and Paige simply watches as he waltzes into her life every Saturday morning with food, which seems to be the ticket to Paige's heart (and brain). Incapable of setting some firm boundaries from the beginning and telling Luke that they cannot simply pick up their relationship as if nothing happened, that she is interested in someone else, she does very little to discourage his behaviour. Part of this is the result of Paige not having worked through what happened between her and Luke, leaving her deeply conflicted. What Paige eventually discovers about herself is that she needs to forgive Luke, allowing them both to move on.

Luke is smooth, suave and polished on the surface but his actions and words make him seem insincere and creepy, especially in how he moves a few doors down from Paige, begins attending the same church as she does, and shows up unannounced at her apartment door on Saturday mornings. He does what he needs to, in order to attract Paige's attention again and admits as much; "I want you Paige. I want you back in my life. I've changed, I swear I have. I'm back at church, back reading my Bible, back to trying to walking with God." It's evident that Luke wants Paige's forgiveness, in fact, he apologizes to her many times. But Paige is not ready to hear him nor to forgive him. For her the relationship is over, but for Luke, it is not, leading to the shocking twist at the end.

In contrast to Luke, is the patient and kind Tyler, who seems to respect Paige's uncertainty. He's willing to take the time to establish trust and to honour her heart. Maybe he's not too sure yet either, but Tyler's willing to safeguard her heart before he moves too far, too fast.

A great strength of this novel is the theme regarding life in general and the idea that a person can live their life in a righteous way, as Paige has done, but this is no guarantee for happiness or success. Bad things happen to good people and plenty of good things happen to people who have behaved badly. Sometimes this realization can lead to jealousy like what Paige experiences. The difficulty is in working through those feelings and coming to the realization that God has a plan for each of us (even when things don't go according to plan) and that our plan is unique. It takes Paige some time before she realizes that her sister Preslee overcame some bad choices and had to work hard to recover her life. Paige also realizes that although she did not make the mistakes Preslee did, she nurtured pride in her heart that she was a better person than her sister and that this hardened her heart towards her sister.

It's not surprising then that the theme of forgiveness is dominant in Paige Rewritten - hence the title of the novel. Paige has to rethink each of these relationships and how she views these important people in her life.

Readers will either be frustrated by Paige's paralyzing indecision regarding the relationships in her life, or empathize with the difficulty of coping with situations that require forgiveness and new outlook. Paige Rewritten is a novel that provides plenty of food for thought despite the sometimes annoying choices of the lead character.

The final novel in the Paige Adler series, Paige Turned is now available.

Book Details:
Paige Rewritten by Erynn Mangum
Colorado Springs: NavPress   2013
297 pp.

Paige Torn by Erynn Mangum

Author Erynn Mangum, well known for her Maya Davis series, quickly sets the tone of this first novel in the Paige Adler series. Twenty-two year old Paige's best friend Layla Prestwick excitedly announces her engagement to boyfriend, Peter, and immediately draws Paige into helping her plan her fall wedding. But before that event, Layla is also organizing her parent's 25th wedding anniversary party and for that she desperately needs Paige's help. Paige can't turn down her best friend and is quickly drawn into helping her for this event too.

Meanwhile at work, Paige who is a receptionist at a private adoption agency, Lawman Adoption Agency, is busy organizing the agency's fundraising banquet, also to be held in February. Paige has a degree in child learning and development, hopes to take on cases some day, but so far that hasn't happened. Paige finds herself doing whatever it takes to keep the office running smoothly, including transcribing three interviews one night for one of the counselors.

Paige is also very involved in her church, Grace Church in Dallas, attending services and teaching the ninth grade girls youth group. At church she meets twenty five year old newcomer, Tyler Jennings, a computer software specialist, who has volunteered to take over the ninth grade boys group. The pastor of the church, Rick and his wife Natalie are expecting their first child any time now, meaning that Paige will be needed even more. Once Natalie's baby arrives, Paige is asked to fill in even more at the church and even ends up spending a weekend helping Natalie with her new baby.

It soon becomes apparent that Paige's life is off track. Between the demands of her coworkers, her pastor, the kids at the church, and her beloved best friend Layla, Paige can't find the time to eat, shop for groceries, or do her laundry. And she has even more trouble making time to pray. Her inability to say no has put Paige Alder on a treadmill she can't get off. When Tyler begins calling to ask her out, Paige, who finds Tyler very handsome, is almost too busy to accept. But Tyler has a way of making dates with Paige happen, all the while warning her that she needs to slow down and learn to say no to people. Paige is also reluctant to get involved with another guy and is still not completely recovered from her break-up with Luke Prestwick, Layla's older brother. Can Paige get her priorities in order and recognize

Erynn Mangum does a good job of demonstrating how Paige's life quickly becomes too busy and loses it's focus. However, Paige gradually recognizes that there is something amiss with her life. She ends each day looking at her Bible sitting on the nightstand, yet again untouched and thinks "tomorrow". But she seems powerless to change things until friends intervene.

Paige thought that God's plan for her was to spend each and every moment serving him through service to others. But when she reads the story of Jairus and his daughter, she realizes that Jesus was careful to spend the time he had not trying to do everything people wanted of him, but to do what mattered and to make time to pray.This revelation helps Paige begin to bring some order and perspective into her life and to change her behaviour. Instead of micromanaging everything for her friends and coworkers, she begins to try to look realistically at what she ought to be doing.

Against this backdrop is the blossoming relationship between Tyler and Paige and that's the hook which draws readers into this novel and ultimately the next in the series. The author focuses their relationship on the formation of a friendship, which if successful, will perhaps lead to something more. Tyler is respectful and tender towards Paige, and acts as a leader in their friendship. At the same time he encourages Paige to make her needs and views known, thus modelling a healthy friendship for readers. The hanging ending, a total surprise in a rather predictable book and the possibility of a love triangle in the next book will leave readers yearning for more.

Although this novel was placed in our Young Adult section it really is part of a new genre termed "New Adult", which refers to young adults who are at least 18 years of age up to about 25 years of age. Themes in this genre deal with leaving home, sexuality, courtship, marriage, and work, essentially all those areas that new adults who are either off to college or finished their education and now working, must navigate. Mangum's offering will be appreciated by her many fans because it is also Christian fiction, part of publisher Think, an imprint of NavPress the publishing ministry of The Navigators, a Christian organization that encourages personal development. The front of the novel indicates that "some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life".

Book Details:
Paige Torn by Erynn Mangum
Colorado Springs: NAVPRESS     2013
289 pp.

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

Lilac Rose LaRoux is the only child of Roderick LaRoux, the wealthiest and most powerful man in the universe. Lilac is traveling through dimensional hyperspace on the Icarus, one of her father's spaceships with a friend, Anna and her bodyguard, Swann, on her way home to Corinth. On the same ship is decorated war hero, eighteen year old Major Tarver Merendsen, heading home for his next posting. Men consciously avoid Lilac LaRoux, heiress to an unimaginable fortune, because even to be seen talking to her can have deadly consequences for a man.

Tarver is unaware who Lilac is when he first sees her. He moves to intervene in an altercation and manages to meet Lilac, whose beauty, red hair and straightforward manner appeal to Tarver. They spend a few minutes talking until Anna returns and Tarver understands he is supposed to leave. When they meet a few nights later on the observation deck of the Icarus, instead of a friendly encounter, Tarver finds he is dismissed abruptly by Lilac. Although Lilac finds she likes Tarver, she knows that he might be in danger from her father if they are seen together.

Their lives are suddenly thrown together again when the Icarus is ripped from hyperspace and begins to collapse. As Tarver is making his way to his escape pod he manages to save Lilac from the chaos of panicking crowds. They make it to a pod which aborts its launch due to a power failure but Lilac hotwires it and they escape the dying ship.  Tarver and Lilac are shocked to discover that they are near a planet on which they crash land. Both Tarver and Lilac are uninjured, but their communication array has been destroyed.

Tarver decides  to hike to the top of a nearby hill to get a look at the surrounding area. They appear to be on a terraformed planet, but Tarver notes that the vegetation is unusually uniform and very large, despite the planet's rich air. Lilac insists on accompanying Tarver, despite wearing a long gown and designer high heels. During their hike, they watch the destruction of the Icarus as it enters the planet's atmosphere and crashes beyond the mountains in the distance. Tarver tells Lilac that if they are to have a hope of being rescued they need to be where the Icarus crashed as that is where the rescue crews will search.

Most of the novel now recounts their journey towards the Icarus and the change in their relationship as they endure the hardship of survival on an alien planet. Their walk through the forest is slowed by Lilac's large dress and her unsuitable footwear which cause her feet to swell and blister. She is convinced that they should stay at the escape pod and this leads to an argument and the two of them separating with Lilac determined to return to the pod. It is at this time that Lilac begins to notice the background whispers of the forest; "Snatches of sound rise up from the awful, untidy forest all around me for a moment sounding just like voices, high and distressed." Lilac notes that Tarver doesn't seem to hear the voices or if he does, they don't seem to bother him.

 On her journey back to the pod, Lilac is immediately confronted by a large cat-like animal. When Tarver returns to rescue Lilac they continue their journey onward but things rapidly begin to change.  While waiting in the forest as Tarver scouts ahead, Lilac again notices "The forest is full of sound and movement I can't track, things that flicker out of the corners of eyes, vanishing before I can focus on them. The major doesn't seem to notice...But it's as though the forest is whispering all around us...".

From his scouting, Tarver finds an escape pod at the edge of the forest with all the occupants dead. He buries them but does not allow Lilac to see how many or who they are. He strips the boots off a dead woman and gives them to Lilac. She is horrified but agrees that if they are to make it to the Icarus she needs something more suitable to wear. When they arrive at the edge of the forest they make camp at the beginning of the plains. That night Tarver is awakened by Lilac who insists she can hear a woman crying - a woman whom she later realizes sounds like her. All-night searches by Tarver reveal no human presence.

As they journey across the plains, they see no signs of colonists, but Lilac insists she hears a man's voice. Worried, Tarver urges Lilac to rest, concerned that she is suffering from exhaustion and hallucinating. Because they are running out of the nutrition bars they have been surviving on, Tarver collects grasses for them to eat and also sets snares to catch small animals.

Lilac continues to hear the voices but now they are coming from the direction of the mountains and the Icarus wreck. She also notices for the first time, that what they thought was a second moon appears to be an array of lights in orbit. As they journey across the plains in a soaking downpour, Lilac hears heartbreaking sobs over the rain. Struggling to maintain her sanity, Lilac is further frightened when she goes to the river to get water and sees a group of people pointing towards the mountain pass leading to the wreck of the Icarus. Lilac however, doesn't believe she is going insane because she tells Tarver that one woman wasn't wearing boots and of the five people she saw, one was a soldier with dog tags and two were men in evening dress. She is convinced that these are the dead people from the escape pod and she knows she is correct by Tarver's reaction.

Their understanding of what is happening on the planet changes drastically when Lilac is warned by the voices to leave the cave they have sheltered in during a blizzard. Both Tarver and Lilac begin to realize that she is not going mad and they must consider "the possibility that she's receiving communications..." from something or someone. They are pushed further in this direction when both see the same vision of Tarver's home. When they arrive at the Icarus they work to unravel a startling mystery about the planet that will forever change their lives.

Discussion

These Broken Stars is a well-written novel with a unique and interesting story. The novel begins with two young people, a heroic soldier and a beautiful, wealthy heiress marooned on a strange planet. Initially they struggle to work together to survive. However, it quickly becomes apparent that something very strange is happening, when Lilac begins hearing what she describes as whispers and then seeing visions. 

The struggle to survive gradually begins to draw Tarver and Lilac closer together. The previous misconceptions they had about one another begin to dispel as they learn more about each other. They spend time talking about their lives and Tarver reveals that his mother is the famous poet, Emily Davis, whom Lilac happens to read. Lilac also learns that Tarver's older brother, Alec, was killed in action. For the first time since meeting Lilac, Tarver feels that she is finally seeing him as he really is, and not as a war hero or a lower class soldier. Similarly, Lilac begins to sense that Tarver is becoming more comfortable with her and that he considers her beautiful. As their relationship develops they work together to discover that Lilac's father's corporation is involved in the imprisonment and torture of a unique group of aliens, for personal and industrial gain. 

Lilac and Tarver come to realize that they are experiencing some kind of telepathic communications and they must now determine their origin. The mystery of the "whispers" and visions that Lilac is experiencing is gradually revealed throughout the remainder of the novel. The mysterious "whispers" eventually lead Lilac and Tarver to an abandoned station on the planet but not before Lilac dies and is brought back to life. At the abandoned base they are able to communicate with the "whispers" who confirm they are responsible for Lilac's recovery and they have been the source of the visions. In their search for the station's power source, they see the upside-down letter V of the lambda - the insignia of LaRoux Industries which once operated the station.

Lilac senses that there is something unusual in the station. This is confirmed by their discovery in the basement of the station, of a circular door made to dilate like the iris of an eye as they both experience strange shivers and a coppery taste. Documents at the station mention a dimensional rift and attempts to recreate the rift using the super-orbital reflectors around the planet as well as on another planet, Avon, which Tarver was stationed on a few months earlier. They also mention the "extraction of test subjects" from the dimensional rift which are described as having telepathic abilities and are "phased life-forms, energy based, noncorporeal". Lilac realizes that "these beings, experimental test subjects to my father's teams, have led us across the wilderness to this spot...I wish we knew what they want."

Lilac also understands that the "whispers" are able to temporarily convert energy which is what they did to make her come alive again and that she needs to get behind the door to help them and save herself.  Using her name as the password, she opens the door and gets the power to the base running to send out a weak distress signal. In the power control room they discover the rift but also realize that the "whispers" or creatures are the power source for the station and are trapped in the power grid. With Lilac beginning to fade, Tarver destroys the dampening field, allowing the "whispers" to speak to him using his dead brother, Alec's form. They tell him that they came to Tarver's world out of curiosity but were imprisoned, unable to enter this world or return to their own and then became unwilling test subjects. They are all interconnected but somehow, LaRoux was able to separate them, making them weak.  Tarver is told that Lilac's distress signal is weakening them so he shuts it down. To save Lilac, Tarver jumps into the dimensional rift thereby closing it, creating a large energy surge. This ends the rift for the "whispers" and saves Lilac.

Lilac and Tarver are rescued by one of her father's ships where they learn that fifty thousand souls died in the Icarus accident. They are separated, inspected, monitored and interrogated. But during interrogation, Lilac and Tarver each play their part, Lilac "a spoiled heiress, too traumatized to remember anything" and Tarver, "a big, dumb soldier." in order to protect what they found on the planet. Both have developed a mutual respect and maturity that enables them to take on Lilac's powerful father.  The only issue in this story is the age of the two major characters: they are far too young and would have been more suitable as young adults in their twenties.

Kaufman and Spooner tell their story in the alternating narratives of Tarver and Lilac. In between sections of this narrative is a short page featuring part of Tarver's debriefing by authorities post-rescue, which reveals to readers that the two are ultimately rescued and indicates that Lilac's father and the scientists know Tarver has not revealed what really happened on the planet. This seems to set up the next installment in this series, which is called Starbound. The second novel will be a companion novel which tells another related story but with different characters.  If it's as unique as the first novel, readers will be in for yet another treat from this wonderful writing duo.

Book Details:
These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
New York: Hyperion      2013
374 pp.