The Knife and the Butterfly (Flamingnet.com Top Choice)

Azael Arevalo wishes he could remember how the fight ended. He knows his MS13 boys faced off with some punks from Crazy Crew. He can picture the bats, the bricks, the chains. A knife. But he can’t remember anything between that moment and when he woke behind bars. Azael knows jails, and something isn’t right about this lockup. No phone call. No lawyer. No news about his brother or his homies. The only thing they make him do is watch some white girl in some cell. Watch her and try to remember.

Lexi Allen would love to forget the fight, would love for it to disappear back into the Xanax fog it came from. And her mother and her lawyer hope she chooses not to remember too much about the brawl—at least when it’s time to testify. Lexi knows that there’s more at stake in her trial than her life alone, though. Azael needs the truth. The knife cut, but somehow it also connected.

"An unflinching portrait with an ending that begs for another reading." --Kirkus Reviews

"Like Ashley Hope Pérez, I have been a teacher in inner-city Houston and a writer of young adult fiction. I am in a perfect position to watch in awe as she completelynails our students' experiences in her harrowing, heart-rending, and ultimately hopeful The Knife and the Butterfly. ·This is the book I wish I'd had the guts to write!" ··--Jordan Sonnenblick, best-selling YA author of Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie

• Read an excerpt from The Knife and the Butterfly here and discover tons of insights from my The Knife and the Butterfly blog tour.
• Order The Knife and the Butterfly from your favorite indie bookstore, with a school discount from the publisher, or from amazon.

What Can't Wait (YALSA Best Fiction for YA, 2012-13 Georgia Peach Book Award nominee)

Seventeen-year-old Marisa Moreno has smarts and plenty of promise, but she’s marooned in a broken-down Houston neighborhood—and in a Mexican immigrant family where making ends meet matters more than making it to college.  At school, it's another story. Marisa's calc teacher expects her to ace the AP test and to get into an engineering program in Austin—a city that seems unimaginably far away. When her home life becomes unbearable, Marisa seeks comfort elsewhere—and suddenly neither her best friend nor boyfriend can get through to her. Caught between the expectations of two different worlds and carrying a dark secret, Marisa will finally have to decide what can't wait.

"... a hopeful but never too-tidy ending. Un magnifico debut." --Kirkus Reviews

• Read an excerpt of What Can't Wait here.
• Order What Can't Wait from your favorite indie bookstore, with a school discount from the publisher, or from amazon.