Bad Apple
by Barbara Morgenroth
Book One in series
Genre: Mature YA
Publisher: DashingBooks
ASIN: B0045JK2XW
Word Count: 39,000
Cover Artist: Photo by Aleshyn Andrei.
Cover design by Barbara Morgenroth
Find it at: Amazon | Kobo
Book Description:
“You tell and next time you won’t even be able to crawl away.”
Neal Marchal lived with this threat for the next eight years. When she finds her neighbor murdered, she knows who did it. The why is the secret the family has been keeping forever. The reminder to never reveal the secret is her limp.
She rebuilt her life and now Neal has everything to live for—music, performing and a growing affection for the young man who pulled her to safety.
Then Joe comes home. Neal knows Joe’s going to finish what he started 8 years ago because she told. But this time Neal vows the outcome will be different.
My review:
In my opinion, Barbara has written an excellent book here, one where the reader can easily connect to, fell for, and relate with the characters. I love a story that hits on so many different emotions, and this story does just that. This story brings many real life themes and tragedy to the front lines.
This story finds a budding musician, Neil, struggling to deal with everyday existence after rebuilding her life the best she could following some horrible events which include being threatened to keep some appalling family secrets. Neil was forced to grow up way to fast after her dad's death in my opinion. Sadly, she's much older than her years in life experiences. Neil doesn't communicate much with her words, though she speaks an abundance through her music.
Along comes Truly, who understands that getting to know and understand Neil wont be an easy feat. Luckily, he is able to learn a lot about her through her music. Truly learns about Neil's frightening past, including the threats that could very soon become reality, and is dedicated to stay and help her.
I love the fact that even though you learn about the physical and sexual abuse from Neil's past, the author doesn't feel the need to get overly graphic on these subjects, but instead chooses to let the reader imagine how bad the situation must have been. This was a very refreshing thing for me these days, as so many authors feel the need to get overly graphic, and often forget like in this case, that they are writing a novel geared toward young adults.
This book doesn't have your typical happy ending, which I loved, but instead offers you a powerful, realistic, and believable ending. Because even though everyone likes a happy ending, we all know that in reality, not every story actually has a happy ending.
One more thing, this story kind of leaves you hanging in the end...but the good thing is, this book is part of a series and once you've finished the first one, you can run right out and purchase the next one.
About the Author:
Barbara was born in New York City and but now lives somewhere else. By now, she thinks of herself as a country girl and knows more about gardening and animals than how to ride the subway.
Starting her career by writing tweens and YA books, (and did the cover photography for her first two books published by Atheneum so continuing to do the covers to her ebooks is predictable), she was actually aiming at the small screen. Television seemed like the perfect place for her even if she had no clue how to get there. Life is funny and often presents opportunities. Advice--Grab Them! Through a neighbor, Barbara wound up getting an introduction to a lower honcho at ABC and an audition to write for them. Her hopes were more than dashed, they were disintegrated, evaporated, demolished when ABC couldn't find a place for Barbara on General Hospital. (No Luke and Laura in her future!) To ease the crushing disappointment, Barbara wrote “In Real Life I'm Just Kate” about a 17 year old girl who becomes a star on a soap opera. That became an open sesame moment and shortly thereafter Barbara became the last headwriter for NBC's daytime serial, The Doctors, where she was ordered by the network to kill Alec Baldwin, shooting him not once but twice. With two different guns. From different directions. Ah, good times. You can read the book that started Barbara’s television career as the Kindle YA ebook, “Just Kate”, now with a substantial tweak because living life made her smarter. You can also read about some could-be-hers-could-be-rumors experiences gleaned during Barbara’s stint in daytime television in the Kindle romantic comedy, In Under My Head. Barbara is a recipient of a Writers Guild of America Best Writing Award for her work on One Life To Live.
Whether you're looking for a Mature YA or a romantic comedy, Barbara has a book for you!
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