Sixteen-year-old Celeste Blackwood has spent her high school years at an academy that teaches self defense techniques instead of P.E. class and how to crack computer codes instead of using the pythagorean theorem. She was taught how to shoot a gun when she was eight years old, and she knew how to take down a full grown man by the time she was ten. That's what you learn when you attend Briar Preparatory Academy, a school for young men and women training to work closely with the United States government. Things go south whenever a man by the name of Jasper Vegas seeks out vengeance on the school because of a dark past he has with the headmaster of the Academy. It is up to Celeste and her friends to find out why this man wants to see the destruction of Briar Prep. It is also their duty to defend it at all costs, whether it means life or death. Because when you are training to be a spy, courage is mandatory.

When her gran passes away, the only item left to Lou is a small wooden box. Although it’s not the car that her sister, Cindy, receives, Lou knows it could have been worse. She could have gotten Gran’s collection of toenails. When Lou opens the box and a guy the size of a stick of gum falls out; she changes her mind – the nail clippings would have been better. Not a day goes by that Lou doesn’t wish she could shove that guy back in the box and pretend she’d never laid eyes on him. Because of him, she discovered Gran was a sorceress and Cindy is a witch and all these years they have been keeping Lou’s magic locked away “for her own safety.” Without the magic she’s vulnerable to whoever, or whatever, is after her. With it, she’s a target for a fate worse than death.

(Chapter 1 only) In the winter of 1941-1942, Leningrad is under siege, and Karen Hamilton, a seventeen-year-old American musician, finds herself trapped and struggling to survive. Throughout the city, people are dying of starvation and frostbite, and Karen knows that if she doesn't escape immediately, she will share their fate. If she has any hope of leaving Russia and reuniting with her fiancé, Bobby, in New York, she must do the impossible: cross enemy lines and then stow away. On her harrowing journey, Karen encounters Petr, a young conscripted Russian soldier. She isn't sure she can trust him-he is equally wary of her. But as the two join forces in order to stay alive, an unexpected romance takes root. Now, as Karen gets closer to the reality of escape, she has a choice to make: Will she return to a safe life in America with Bobby, or remain in war-torn Russia with Petr? This is a sample chapter of the book that will be available October 18 from Lake Union Publishing.