Booklist: Aiden Wright, a Black and autistic teenager, wants nothing more than to play football like his older brother Brandon, a quarterback, and to be on a team with Brandon before he leaves for college. Despite some challenges with the sensory experience and ableist discrimination, Aiden makes it onto the team. Unfortunately, one of Aiden’s bullies starts a fight, and the police are called. When Brandon tries to shield his brother from police violence, he gets arrested and wrongly accused of assaulting a police officer. As Brandon’s resulting trial edges closer, Aiden must figure out a way to uncover what exactly happened that day—and help clear Brandon’s name in time. Aptly named after the feeling an autistic person might experience during sensory overload, thisis a stunning debut that empathetically captures the nuances of being both Black and autistic with care and love. Aiden and Brandon’s relationship as brothers is complex and layered, and readers will root for both of them and hope they reconcile their differences. At its heart, this is a story about brotherhood, family, the fight against police brutality and the carceral system, racism and anti-Blackness, and ableism through the autistic experience—all in all, it is essential reading about activism and collective action. Aiden’s voice will linger long after you finish this riveting work.
Publishers Weekly:Though Black high school junior Aiden loves football, he’s always believed that his reactions to overstimulation connected with his autism diagnosis would prevent him from joining his older brother, star quarterback Brandon, on the high school team. When he participates in summer tryouts, his overwhelm from a multi-person pileup triggers a meltdown. Assuming he’s doomed his chances, Aiden moves on, until a confluence of events results in his making the team, a development that not everyone—including some of his new teammates—is happy about. Then Aiden is involved in a physical altercation with a white teammate, and Brandon, having protected Aiden, is wrongfully charged with assaulting a white police officer. With the future Brandon has worked so hard for—and the brothers’ relationship—in jeopardy, Aiden determines to clear his brother’s name. Chapter titles count down the days leading up to and following the incident, grounding readers and injecting immediacy into Davis’s propulsive debut. Aiden’s intimate first-person perspective offers an organic portrayal of a Black autistic teen navigating social stigma and systemic racism. Writing nuanced and complexly rendered characters, family dynamics, and social commentary, Davis delivers a powerful portrayal of identity and siblinghood that’s as gripping as it is thoughtful. Ages 14–up. Agent: Kat Kerr, Donald Maass Literary. (Apr.)
In this compelling, moving story about brotherhood, identity, and social justice, a Black, autistic teen tries to figure out what happened the night his older brother was unjustly arrested.
All Aiden has ever wanted to do was play football just like his star quarterback brother, Brandon. An overstimulation meltdown gets in the way of Aiden making the team during summer tryouts, but when the school year starts and a spot unexpectedly needs to be filled, he finally gets a chance to play the game he loves.
However, not every player is happy about the new addition to the team, wary of how Aiden’s autism will present itself on game day. Tensions rise. A fight breaks out. Cops are called.
Brandon interferes on behalf of his brother, but is arrested by the very same cops who, just hours earlier, were chanting his name from the bleachers. When he’s wrongly charged for felony assault on an officer, everything Brandon has worked for starts to slip away, and the brothers’ relationship is tested. As Brandon’s trial inches closer, Aiden is desperate to figure out what really happened that night. Can he clear his brother’s name in time?
Kirkus: An autistic Black teen in Florida battles on and off the field to define his own destiny and come to his brother’s aid. Sixteen-year-old Aiden Wright wants to play football with his older brother during their last school year together before Brandon goes to college. But sensory stress during Aiden’s team tryout leads to a meltdown, and he’s only invited to play when two other athletes leave. Meanwhile, Aiden is placed in a life skills class that’s typically reserved for kids who have challenges. There he’s partnered for a project involving getting a part-time job with friendly new girl Isabella, who got in trouble at her old school. When a teammate who’s long been cruel to Aiden because of his autism instigates a fight that escalates, Aiden becomes a victim of police violence. Brandon intervenes, trying to protect him, and is arrested and charged with assaulting an officer. Now Aiden battles complicated team dynamics while he tries to get Brandon exonerated. Aiden is a nuanced character with a well-developed inner life. The brothers’ realistically drawn relationship is both flawed and vulnerable, showing the different facets of their personalities. The coaches and about half the football players are white, and the Wrights live in a wealthy, predominantly white area of town; Davis’ debut explores the intersections of race and socioeconomic differences. An atmospheric gridiron tale that highlights the complexities of team sports, friendship, and bias.
Miles Warren hails from a long line of psychics. Resigned to a life in the family business, Miles is perfectly happy, thank you very much. Apart from the fact he hasn’t told anyone he’s gay, and that he’s constantly exhausted from long nights spent wrangling angry ghosts in creepy cemeteries. Perfectly happy.
But Miles’s comfortable routine is interrupted when he starts having visions of an unfamiliar boy. He soon learns the stranger is Gabriel Hawthorne, whose family have a mysterious, decades-long feud with Miles’s own—and that the visions are a premonition of his murder. Gabriel is everything Miles expects from a Hawthorne: rude, haughty, irritatingly good-looking. But that doesn’t mean Miles is just going to stand by and let someone kill him.
The two form an uneasy alliance, trying to solve Gabriel’s murder before it happens. As they begin to unravel the web of secrets between their families, and with dark magic swirling around them, Miles is horrified to realize that he doesn’t hate Gabrielquiteas much as he’s supposed to. He might even like him.
Too bad Gabriel is probably going to die.
Audio rights to Miranda Lyn’s Fae Rising series, to Kerri Buckley at Dreamscape Media, in a four-book deal, by Katie Shea Boutillier (NA).
Audio rights to Nicky Drayden and Matthew Bey’s DEEP AUSTIN: CASE OF THE WEIRD CARNIVOROUS SKY, a tale of gonzo horror chock full of ghosts and other weirdness, plus a sequel, to Kim Budnick at Tantor Media, by Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
Audio rights to Caitlin Starling’s THE OBLIVION BRIDE, to Kim Budnick at Tantor Media, by Katie Shea Boutillier on behalf of Caitlin McDonald (World English).
Audio rights to Camilla Raines’s THE HOLLOW AND THE HAUNTED, to Kim Budnick at Tantor Media, in an exclusive submission, by Katie Shea Boutillier on behalf of Kat Kerr (NA).
Korean renewal rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ALL SYSTEMS RED, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, and EXIT STRATEGY, the first four books in The Murderbot Diaries series, to Alma Publishing Co., by Yujung Kim at the Eric Yang Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
Camilla Raines’s THE HOLLOW AND THE HAUNTED, to Eilean Books (France), at auction, in a two-book deal, by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Kat Kerr.
Publishers Weekly: Raines debuts with an unexpectedly charming dark fantasy set in the fictional small town of Thistle, Wash. High school student Miles Warren is part of a psychic family capable of banishing evil spirits. It’s unusual that he would receive a death premonition for a stranger, but his latest vision is just that: a strange boy pleading for his help. During a party at the home of his family’s long-standing rivals, the Hawthornes, Miles is surprised to recognize the boy, Gabriel Hawthorne, heir to the cruel and calculating Hawthorne matriarch, Felicity. Setting aside their tumultuous, century-long family feud, the two work together to understand Gabriel’s death prophecy and possibly prevent it. Along the way, they discover the ugly history that led to the rift between their families. Raines seamlessly combines horror and fantasy as she gradually unravels the threat to Gabriel’s life. A slow-burning queer romance between Miles and Gabriel adds both tension and tenderness. This will leave readers eager for a sequel. (Oct.)
A daughter’s return home opens old wounds in a novel of family, love, and emotional rescue by the author of Paper Doll Lina.
After three disastrous marriages, a series of bad dates, and a tumultuous relationship with an emotionally abusive mother, psychology professor Nancy Jewel is through with love and commitment. Romantic or familial, the notion is a waste of her time. Content with being alone, she’s starting to feel normal-ish when she learns her father, incarcerated in Georgia, has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Nancy is determined to get him a compassionate release, even if it means returning home and reaching out for help from the last attorney she wants to see: her recent ex.
Back in her estranged mother’s orbit, and dealing with the fear of losing her father, Nancy wrestles with the ghosts of her toxic childhood and her reconnection with a failed bid at love. When an unexpected career challenge pushes Nancy to the edge, her impulse is to run. What other choice does she have? Face life head-on, and maybe, for once, stay.
Congratulations to our DMLA authors who were included in Audible’s Best of 2022!
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