Contemporary Authors

• Far from You Hyperion Books (New York, NY), 2014
• Barbed Wire Heart Grand Central Publishing (New York, NY), 2018
• The Evolution of Claire Random House (New York, NY), 2018

1. Barbed wire heart LCCN 2017041580 Type of material Book Personal name Sharpe, Tess, author. Main title Barbed wire heart / Tess Sharpe. Edition First edition. Published/Produced New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2018. Projected pub date 1803 Description pages ; cm ISBN 9781538744093 (hardcover) Item not available at the Library. Why not? 2. Far from you LCCN 2013037960 Type of material Book Personal name Sharpe, Tess, author. Main title Far from you / Tess Sharpe. Edition First Edition. Published/Produced New York : Hyperion Books, [2014] Description 341 pages ; 22 cm ISBN 9781423184621 (hardback) CALL NUMBER PZ7.S532313 Far 2014 LANDOVR Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE

• Tess Sharpe - http://www.tess-sharpe.com/about/

  Born in a mountain cabin to a punk-rocker mother, Tess Sharpe grew up in rural northern California. She lives deep in the backwoods with a pack of dogs and a growing colony of formerly feral cats. She is the author of Barbed Wire Heart, the critically acclaimed YA novel Far From You and the upcoming Jurassic World prequel, The Evolution of Claire.

  She is also the co-editor of Toil & Trouble, a feminist anthology about witches. Her short fiction has been featured in All Out, an anthology edited by Saundra Mitchell.

  Tess is represented by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret Literary Management. Please send all rights inquiries and blurb requests to Jim.

• Book Browse - https://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm/author_number/3053/tess-sharpe

  Tess Sharpe Biography
  Tess Sharpe was born in a mountain cabin to a punk rocker mother, and grew up in rural Northern California. She lives deep in the backwoods with a lot of dogs and a growing colony of slightly feral cats. She is the author of the critically-acclaimed YA novel Far From You and the co-editor of Toil & Trouble, a feminist YA anthology.

• The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/jun/17/interview-tess-sharpe

  Tess Sharpe: I believe in the life-saving power of YA fiction. I would not be here now without it
  The author of Far From You, our latest Teen book club focus, chats to site member ABitCrazy about Hitchcock, homeschooling, and how YA fiction quite literally saved her life
  Tess Sharpe

  Tue 17 Jun 2014 06.00 EDT First published on Tue 17 Jun 2014 06.00 EDT
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  Tess Sharpe and her dog
  Tess Sharpe (seen here with a fluffy friend): YA fiction saved my life.
  What kind of books did you read as a child and what authors did you look up to?

  I read very widely as a kid. I grew up without a TV in the house, so my primary source of entertainment was books. I was a big fantasy reader – Tamora Pierce was hugely influential on me as a teen. But it wasn't until I read Meg Cabot's The Princess Diaries at 13 or 14 that contemporary fiction really got its hooks in me, both as a reader and a writer.

  What is your strategy for writing? Do you set aside time, or just do it when you're in the right frame of mind?

  When I'm on deadline or drafting, I write 5,000 words a week. I don't do well with daily word count goals, because if I don't make the count at the end of the day, I feel like I've failed and get all drama queen about it. And I spend a lot of time editing as I go, so some days my word count falls, rather than rises. I like to take a 300-word scene and then spend 5 hours carving it down to 150 (hopefully) better words. I try to write for an hour or two in the morning, usually outside on one of the many benches I have scattered across my little chunk of the woods. And then I try to write a few hours at night, usually after 10 or so, when my dogs are finally asleep and not drooling all over my laptop.

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  What made you want to be an author and was it your intention when you first started writing to end up writing for teens and young adults?

  With the exception of a few romance novels written in college, YA has always been what I've written. Probably because I started writing as a pre-teen. I had a really tough time as a teen. I struggled a lot with depression and suicide and self-harm. By the time I was fifteen, I'd tried to kill myself twice. And I would've tried for a third and final time if a certain YA book (Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak) hadn't come into my life. It saved me. It gave me a light at the end of the tunnel I was in. So I promised myself that if I made it through that tunnel, I would dedicate the rest of my life to writing the kind of books that saved me.

  One of my strongest beliefs is in the life-saving and transformative power of YA fiction. I am proof of it. I would not be here now without it. There is rarely a time of more turmoil and pain and confusion and ecstatic joy than the teen years. To find something that speaks to you during that time – that lessens your pain, that gives you hope, that makes you feel and laugh and relate – is a gift every teen deserves to be given. I'm deeply grateful to have the chance to contribute to that, in any small way that I can.

  What inspired you to write a murder mystery?

  I am a great fan of Hitchcock, and my Gramz was quite the mystery buff. I spent a lot of time with her as a kid, watching old movies, and some of my favorites were the noir films from the '30s and '40s. I also really love puzzles. Far From You was influenced by two of my favorite puzzle narratives: Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia, which takes place in the past and the present simultaneously on stage, and the 1944 film Laura, which is about a detective investigating a murder in which glamour girl was shot in her apartment… Or was she?

  In Far From You one of your characters is gay, and another bisexual; what made you decide you wanted to write about a gay relationship and the issues that gay people face?

  Representation is a big thing for me. My life (like lots of people's) is full of family and friends of all sexualities, and everyone deserves to see themselves in books. I'm bisexual, and I hadn't read a ton of YA books with bisexual characters (though there are some great ones! Malinda Lo's Adaptation, for example), so Sophie's bisexuality was important to me personally. Also, I really like writing about girls kissing other girls.

  I was very excited when you had a positive portrayal of a home-schooled character, as I have always been home-educated. Are you in any way connected to home-education? If not what made you write about a character that was?

  That is so nice of you to say! I was homeschooled too – which is why you won't often see me tackling a book set in high school! I really credit my homeschooling for giving me the opportunity to become the writer I needed to be to get published. Well, homeschooling and my mum. She took me seriously when I told her I wanted to be a writer, which looking back is not a small thing at all. I was maybe 12. I could've just as easily changed my mind, but by being taken seriously and being homeschooled, I was able to dedicate a lot more time to learning and reading and honing my craft. I also had the freedom to explore and experience stuff that in-school kids might not have because of their schedules. A lot of writing is about experiencing things… sense-memory. Inspiration comes from anywhere and anything, and getting out there and experiencing life is one of the best things you can do as a writer.

  There were lots of different religious views in Far From You: Mina believed in a heaven and looking down on your friends and family once you're dead, Sophie believed you just died and that was the end. And Mina was scared to tell her Mum the truth about her sexuality because of her Mother's religion. Why did you want all these characters to have such different religious views?

  I'm fascinated by religion because I was brought up in an atheistic family and am an atheist still. But I have the best and most interesting conversations with my friends of all different religions, and I was very intrigued by the idea of exploring grief with faith – and without it.

  Sophie has a lot of core elements that I took from my teen diaries, specifically her relationship with chronic pain and her body, and the raw kind of grief you feel when you don't believe in an afterlife… when you wish you could, but you're just not built for it. No matter what, it's hard to lose anybody in your life, but Sophie doesn't have the comfort of thinking that Mina is somewhere beautiful and safe, like Trev does. I think it fuels her determination to find Mina's killer, because that's something she can actually believe in.

  Some of the characteristics of the characters in the book really reminded me of myself and people I know; are any of the characteristics of your characters inspired by people you know?

  Sophie definitely has some of my traits, I was a competitive swimmer who got derailed by chronic pain. But her injuries are actually based on my father's, who was hit by a drunk driver when I was young. When I was in college, he decided to stop taking the heavy-duty pain medication he'd been on in favour of a more natural approach, and I helped take care of him during the last few months of tapering off the pain meds. It was a very difficult experience – for both of us – and his determination always stuck with me.

  You managed to get Sophie's emotions across really well and I was really moved by her feelings, were you ever worried that you wouldn't be able to write about the characters feelings well enough to make the readers feel the character's emotion?

  Thank you! I always worry about getting the emotions right and getting the readers to feel. I tend to load a lot of problems onto my characters, and sometimes I wonder, "Is it too much?" This is why revision is my best friend and where my fondness of stripping a scene down to the barest it can be comes in. Striking the right emotional balance is hard!

  Can we expect another book from you and if so should we expect the same kind of topic, murder mystery, or will you go for a different theme?

  I am hard at work on my second book. I wouldn't describe this one as a mystery as much, though it does have a few twists. It's about two best friends who are more like sisters, and the choices you're faced with when you have someone who loves you enough to die – or kill – for you.

  There may or may not be a murder in it.

• The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/may/23/tess-sharpe-far-from-you-introduction-ya-fiction

  Tess Sharpe introduces Far From You, our newest Teen book club focus
  Tess Sharpe tells us how she came up with the story for Far From You, and explains what fuels her characters and how she gets inside their heads
  Tess Sharpe

  Fri 23 May 2014 13.00 EDT First published on Fri 23 May 2014 13.00 EDT
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  Tess Sharpe and her dog
  Tess Sharpe and a fluffy friend
  I could tell you I wrote Far From You because I wanted to write a book that took teen love seriously. Or that I wanted to write a book about two girls in love. Or because I've always been fond of puzzles, and juggling timelines and a mystery is the best kind of puzzle.

  All these things are true. But the core truth is this: I wrote this book because of 57 words.

  Each book idea comes to me differently. Once, it was staring at an oddly-shaped stump near the river, on my daily walk with my dogs. Another time, an image flashed in my head: a girl, walking down a highway in a prom dress, her heels swinging in her hand. A sunset, a want ad, a boy with a face full of secrets, anything can lead a writer down the path of "What if?"

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  For Far From You, it was three sentences, scribbled in a notebook and the image of a boy and a girl, full of grief, and kissing for all the wrong reasons:

  Later, I stare at his face in the moonlight and wonder if he can tell that I kissed him like I already know the shape of his lips. Like I've mapped them in my mind, in another life. Learned them from another person who shared his eyes and nose and mouth, but who is never coming back.

  For a month, I stared at these three sentences, and asked myself why and who. Why were these two people – the ones who would become Sophie and Trev – so sad? Why was this moment of grief-fuelled passion a bad idea for them? And who was the girl who haunted them so? That last question was the biggest. And the hardest to answer.

  Mina was a character full of secrets. Of fear. Of great cruelty and even greater sweetness. I struggled in her creation. To balance the good and the bad. I tend to write about girls who are on the cusp of becoming. Mina was the first character I created who died before she was able to. Because of this, I couldn't utilize my normal writerly tricks to get to know her, such as writing scenes from her point of view for my own use, to understand her thought process and her motivations better. I needed parts of her to remain secret even to to me, the person who created her, because the mystery of her was so central to Sophie's journey.

  But in my mind, I was always writing a love story. One that was wrapped in a murder mystery bow, but a love story at its core. And that was the key to opening the lock that the book lay behind. I've always been fascinated by love as fuel. The fuel behind Sophie's journey, behind all of Sophie's actions, is love. And love is not always healthy or kind or easy. But it can push you onto paths that you would've never journeyed without it. Sophie is pushed by Mina. To be better. To be ruthless. To keep secrets. To hide. To get clean. To find the man responsible for taking Mina away from her.

  Love makes Sophie who she is. Love make her strong.

  When I came to understand this, in that month where I stared at those three sentences, trying to figure out the girl we meet as she's dying, and the girl who is left behind, I was able to start writing their story, their shared past and Sophie's lonely present.

  Love makes the story. Love makes the character. And love fuels the writer.

• Bitch Media - https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/bitch-interview/tess-sharpe-on-barbed-wire-heart

  RURAL SAVIOR
  “BARBED WIRE HEART” OFFERS A VIOLENT HEROINE WE CAN ALL ROOT FOR
  by s.e. smith
  Published on March 12, 2018 at 11:20am
  Tess Sharpe
  Tess Sharpe (Photo credit: Tess Sharpe)

  Tess Sharpe’s Barbed Wire Heart is a compelling thriller set in a fictional Northern California county that’s falling apart at the seams. The book’s heroine, Harley McKenna, is the daughter of a meth kingpin—and she has a plan. Harley wants to unravel his empire and liberate her community from the ravages of the drug trade. The book is lush, atmospheric, tinged with violence, and feminist to the core, from Harley’s support of women fleeing abusive relationships to her challenging the patriarchal systems that hold sway in her community.

  It’s also unusual: Books featuring violent female heroines are often the province of male authors, and they tend to be one-dimensional and simplistic. Sharpe’s work is also distinctive as a rural woman writing about the rural communities she grew up in—and continues to live in. Her very immediate and personal experience of a county being destroyed by meth and other drugs informs the world of Barbed Wire Heart, which took most of her 20s to write. I caught up with her for a chat about her work.

  This is a unique book. Can you tell me a little about the responses you’ve received?

  This one got rejected across the board by editors. Everybody was like, “This book is way too violent. We’re horrified by this characters’ actions,” over and over and over again. The only person who wanted it was the amazing Lindsey Rose at Grand Central. She understood the feminism and understood what I was trying to do. I really hope I’m able to work with her again.

  I was kind of surprised at the editor response. While I do think it is a violent book, and it’s about really horrific things, I worked really hard to not make it gratuitous. To have the violence be a reflection of her life, it would be dishonest to not have it be super violent. As we moved toward publication, I thought, “Nobody’s gonna like this book!” Then we started getting the trade reviews, and everybody is loving it. I’m really grateful. It’s been really rewarding to see that people are understanding what I set out to do.

  Barbed Wire Heart by Tess Sharpe
  Barbed Wire Heart by Tess Sharpe (Photo credit: Grand Central Publishing)

  Everybody’s calling it timely, which is funny, because I started writing it 10 years ago. It is getting published at a really interesting time. We’re attempting to honestly deal with sexual abuse and sexual harassment. Also, it’s coming at a time when we’re actually talking about white supremacy for the first time in the larger scope of America. I didn’t set out to pick this spot in time. I started writing about the problems I saw outside the window. I’m really looking forward to the readers where reading it is like stepping into home, stepping into their reality. Most books about rural women are not about rural crime. I did a lot of reading of the grit lit genre, and it was very interesting because it’s so male dominated. We never really get to see rural women’s stories in these kinds of contexts. You don’t get to be a criminal very often.

  Can you tell me a little more about how editors responded to the book?

  There was a point when I signed with Jim [McCarthy, my agent] and I asked him if he thought that it might be a good idea to send it out under my initials. At the time he didn’t. He wanted to use the critical acclaim of my YA debut to kind of push me forward and give me legitimacy in the adult world. If I had been TN Sharpe, I genuinely wonder how different the perception would’ve been. Men get praised for writing female characters all the time. They get lauded for doing things with female characters that women don’t get away with. If we had obscured [my identity] and gender, we might have had a different response.

  If you come to me and say, “Your female character is way too violent,” I say, “Would you say that if it was Harold instead of Harley, Ted instead of Tess?” They get so defensive because deep down, there’s that niggling worry that they’re judging it because she’s a woman. One of the big things about why Harley’s violence is unacceptable to people, to the patriarchal mindset, [is] because she wasn’t sexually assaulted. Women are allowed to be on a rampage of revenge if someone has killed their child. Harley’s violence is all about protecting other women. It’s about protecting a place. It’s about dismantling an empire that men built. It’s about using the culture that men raised her in to destroy them. That makes people uncomfortable.

  As a fellow resident of the rural United States, this book really resonated with me. What was navigating the urban/rural divide during the editorial process like?

  Lindsey was so respectful. Jim and Lindsey both knew going in that Barbed Wire Heart was based to a certain degree on my childhood. I watched things like this happen [and] some things happened to me. Lindsey’s whole attitude was “you’re the expert on the world.” She drew some beautiful character stuff out of me that I really needed to get out there.

  Tess Sharpe and her dog Bodhi
  Tess Sharpe and her dog Bodhi (Photo credit: Tess Sharpe)

  I’ve had experiences before where editors haven’t understood rural poverty. I had an editor who didn’t understand why one of my female characters didn’t apply to college. It blew her mind when I told her that I didn’t apply to Yale because I knew my mother would mortgage the house if I got in. She was shocked that I dropped out of college and don’t have a Bachelor of Arts. New York is a completely different world than this area, and I think that’s why this book appeals to the people that it does. It’s like stepping into a different world.

  Let’s talk about Harley for a moment. She’s a character who defies a lot of tropes.

  If she were a male character, she would be lauded as feminist, as strong, as all these things that I’m not sure she’ll be lauded as by readers because she’s female. She was born out of a very childish desire—my own desire—to save my hometown. I couldn’t do it in reality because it’s not possible. It’s too corrupt, the drugs are too entrenched in our culture, and this place is rotting from the inside in many ways. It’s been tragic to watch my entire life.

  I love it here. I live here still. I bought my home here. I plan to be here for at least five more years. It’s been one of the most depressing things in the world to watch people waste away. I wanted to save it. I couldn’t do it myself, so I created a girl who did. I’m very proud of that. I really view this book as a superhero origin story. It’s how she becomes who she is. I don’t think we get to see that as much in adult fiction. That’s where my YA influence really comes into play. My YA stubbornness and focus on girlhood, which has been such a big part of my career, really influences this book. I don’t think that I would have written Barbed Wire Heart the way I did if I wasn’t a YA writer.

  It’s the most personal thing that I will ever write. It’s probably the most empowering thing for me. It is my love letter and it is my hate letter to where I grew up. It’s my book about staying. I used to write a lot about leaving your small town; it was a very prevalent theme of my early books. I felt very trapped here. And then I did leave—and I came back. I came back, and I almost immediately started writing this book. It was a 10-year process about learning how to stay and learning how to fight to stay. It’s all about trying to stay in a place that is not all good, and not all bad, and there’s some crazy shit going on, and really dangerous shit going on, but if you leave, then you’re abandoning everything that you are, and everything that you will be. And you’re abandoning all these people, so you must stay.

  I will continue to put my faith in our wonderful activists, and the wonderful people who work so hard to make this place a welcoming area. But I also see the writing on the wall, and eventually it will be time to go. That’s really sad. It’s sad to think about leaving the place that shaped me more than anything. It shaped me as a person, it shaped me as a writer, and it is a place that is beautiful and dangerous and full of some really amazing people.

  Sharpe has provided trigger warnings for Barbed Wire Heart. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

• Query Tracker - https://querytracker.net/success/tess_sharpe.php

  Literary Agents
  Success Story Interview
  An Interview with Tess Sharpe upon receiving an offer of representation.
  09/08/2012

  Tess Sharpe (sharpegirl on QT) has signed with agent Sarah Davies of Greenhouse Literary Agency.

  Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you’ve found representation? What inspired you to write it?
  FAR FROM YOU is a contemporary YA mystery told non-sequentially. It’s about a seventeen-year-old girl fresh out of rehab who’s determined to solve her best friend’s murder—while trying to keep her friends and family from discovering their biggest secret. My wonderful agent, Sarah Davies of the Greenhouse Literary Agency, recently sold it at auction to Disney-Hyperion in a two-book deal to be published Spring 2014. It’ll also be published in the UK by Indigo, an imprint of Orion, around the same time.

  This book was one that kind of came out of nowhere. I’d written the closing paragraph to one of the flashback chapters at the beginning of September and sat on them for a month, trying to figure out the story behind those 57 words. It just snowballed from there until it was a book.

  How long have you been writing?
  Since I was a kid—about 15 years, give or take a few months.
  How long have you been working on this book?
  I started FAR FROM YOU in November 2011 and finished the first draft in February 2012. After revising with the help of my amazing critique partners, I started querying in April and got my first offer of representation at the end of the month.
  Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?
  Not with this book, but I definitely felt that with previous manuscripts. The only sure-fire way I know to snap out of a rejection funk or the dreadful feeling of “this book is going nowhere fast”? Write something new.
  Is this your first book?
  Nope. I’ve got a few trunked manuscripts.
  Do you have any formal writing training?
  I’ve had some stuff workshopped, but my training is all in theatre. I learned a lot about plot, pacing and building three-dimensional characters by performing and in play analysis class.
  Do you follow a writing "routine" or schedule?
  My only hard and fast rule is that when I’m drafting, I have to write 5,000 words a week.
  How many times did you rewrite/edit your book?
  I revised once before querying, and once with my agent before we went on submission.
  Did you have beta readers for your book?
  I did! I have the best betas in the world. I’d be lost without their encouragement, advice, honesty and tough love.
  Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?
  I’m a big fan of outlining. I like to know where I’m headed.
  How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?
  I queried for three or four weeks with FAR FROM YOU before I got my first offer. But I queried for about a year with another manuscript and six months with another about five years ago.
  About how many query letters did you send out for this book?
  Nineteen.
  On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?
  I knew I wanted an editorial agent, so I paid close attention to that by reading interviews and blog posts. And because I tend to write on the darker side of teen life, I also looked at agents who had clients who pushed boundaries in subject matter.
  Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?
  I tailored only the queries that went to agents who had expressed an interest in seeing future work from me after they’d read a previous manuscript.

  I learned an important lesson with this one. I queried an agent who’d read a manuscript of mine five years earlier. I almost didn’t mention that she had invited me to submit future work because I was sure she wouldn’t remember me or the old manuscript after all that time. One of my critique partners encouraged me to mention it, and not only did the agent remember me, but she remembered details of the old manuscript that I’d forgotten. So even if you think an agent doesn’t have a long memory, sometimes books they reject stick with them.

  What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?
  Be patient. Be professional. Don’t get discouraged about form rejections; they come with the territory. Make friends with other writers, because no one outside of publishing will understand what the heck you’re talking about. Research your agent choices carefully, and use the awesome tools and connections that QueryTracker and other writing forums and communities provide.

  Be writing something else when you start querying, it’ll be a nice distraction from frantically checking your e-mail.

  Also, try to get some idea of what you’d like your writing career to be, because sharing the same outlook on your career as your agent is vital. And if you’re looking at multiple offers, having an idea of where you want to go will really help you make the right choice.

• Book Web - http://www.bookweb.org/news/indies-introduce-new-voices-qa-tess-sharpe

  An Indies Introduce New Voices Q&A With Tess Sharpe
  By Anne Caldwell on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2014
  Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly versionSend by emailSend by email
  Tess Sharpe is the author of Far From You (Disney-Hyperion), a spring 2014 New Voices debut for young adults. Sharpe grew up in rural Northern California and interned for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival before studying theatre at Southern Oregon University. She abandoned the stage to work as a professional baker. She now lives, writes, and bakes in Northern California.

  When her best friend, Mina, is murdered, everyone thinks Sophie’s past addiction to Oxycontin is the cause. After a short stint in rehab, it’s up to Sophie to discover the truth behind Mina’s murder. With every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina, and about the secret they shared. “Part murder mystery, part forbidden romance, this lovely novel is both chilling and poignant … The nail-bitingly tense action kept me up reading until late in the night, and the thrilling conclusion didn’t disappoint,” said Emily Ring of Inklings Bookshop in Yakima, Washington.

  What inspired you to write this book?

  Tess Sharpe: Far From You didn’t really have a core inspiration. It was more of a bunch of things I knew I wanted to write about, and when I put them together in my brain blender, Sophie and Mina came out. My only clear notion was I wanted to write about the different kinds of love: how messy it can get, how it twists you up and screws you over, how complicated and painfully joyous it can be, and how love can mirror — and sometimes be as harmful as — addiction.

  What advice would you give a young adult interested in writing?

  TS: The two obvious things: read a lot and write a lot. I’d also say: Live a lot. Love a lot. Do a lot. Feel and rage and cry and laugh and keep yourself open to possibilities and change. It’ll inform your work.

  What is your earliest memory related to reading?

  TS: Sitting on the arm of my Gramz’s Lay-Z-Boy, listening to her read me The Moffats by Eleanor Estes out loud. I was probably six or seven. She read me the opening sentence of the book and then turned to me and said: “Tess, you must always start your stories with something attention grabbing.” It’s still the best writing advice I’ve ever gotten.

  Why do you think Young Adult fiction is so important?

  TS: YA is such a transformative category. There is no other time in a person’s life when fiction can change you the way it can when you’re young — when it can leave its mark on you so deeply that it can save your life. Finding yourself and your strength in other people’s words tells you that it’s gonna be okay, that other people feel this way, go through this and survive, so you can, too. That’s a powerful thing to have at any age, but especially as a teen, when it can feel like the entire world is working against you, not with you.

  You blog about women and LGBT rights and YA fiction. Do you feel that women and LGBT are equally and accurately portrayed in YA?

  TS: I think we’re making progress, but, as in society, there’s a lot of room for improvement, acceptance, expansion, and diversity of characters, cultures, and situations. There are still a lot more books about gay boys than gay girls, and definitely not enough books exploring the teen trans experience. It’d be great to see more books featuring non-binary or genderqueer characters, as well as asexual and bisexual characters. Representation matters, and every kind of teen deserves to be able to find a character like them in the YA section. I do consider myself lucky, though — I was a teenager when a lot of the groundbreaking LGBT books came out by authors like Malinda Lo, Brent Hartinger, Julie Anne Peters, and Alex Sanchez. To be able to see the expansion of LGBT YA in the last decade has been wonderful.

  If you were a bookseller, is there a book you would say YA readers just have to read?

  TS: Okay, I’m gonna cheat and name two: I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak and Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

  If you were stranded on a desert island, what three titles would you want to have with you?

  TS: A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, The Princess Diaries (Book 1) by Meg Cabot, and I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak.

  Are you working on anything now?

  TS: I am hard at work on my second book for Hyperion, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell y’all what it’s about yet!

Print Marked Items
Barbed Wire Heart
Michele Leber
Booklist.
114.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2018): p42.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text: 
* Barbed Wire Heart.
By Tess Sharpe.
Mar. 2018.416p. Grand Central, $26 (9781538744093); e-book, $13.99
(9781538744109).
Harley McKenna grows up fast. The only child of crooked Duke McKenna, who runs drugs and guns and
holds the power in North County, she sees her mother die in an explosion when she's eight. From then on,
Duke trains and protects her, and she marks her own firsts as she grows, from slitting a deer's throat at nine
to pulling a gun on a person at 12 to being responsible for a man's death at 16 to shooting a man and getting
rid of a body at 17. As she approaches 23, she's lost people she loved to violence, the long-standing truce
between the McKenna and Springfield families is being violated, and Harley, poised to take over her father's
illegal empire, has a bold and dangerous plan to change things. At the same time, she's facing devastating
personal loss and a potentially deadly power struggle. Sharpe has fashioned a pulse-pounding thriller with a
strong moral underpinning and a wrenching love interest, in which Harley's contemporary activities are
interspersed with her bloody backstory. Strong, graphic violence may limit the appeal of this masterfully
written and constructed novel, but Harley McKenna is a striking protagonist and, with her powerful debut,
Sharpe is definitely a name to watch.--Michele Leber
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Leber, Michele. "Barbed Wire Heart." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 42. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525185594/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b8ffa272.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525185594
Sharpe, Tess: BARBED WIRE HEART
Kirkus Reviews.
(Jan. 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Sharpe, Tess BARBED WIRE HEART Grand Central Publishing (Adult Fiction) $26.00 3, 6 ISBN: 978-1-
5387-4409-3
In this hard-edged thriller set in the gold rush country of Northern California, the daughter of a murderous
meth dealer finds that escaping the life of crime her notorious father has trained her for will be more difficult
than she imagined.
"My childhood wasn't bikes and swim parties, it was full metal jackets and other men's blood crusted
beneath Duke's fingernails," recalls 22-year-old Harley McKenna, referring to her father. In flashbacks, we
learn that she was 8 the first time she saw Duke kill a man and that a few weeks later, her mother was killed
in a meth lab explosion. Harley was 12 the first time she pulled a gun on someone and 17 the first time she
shot a man. "I'm what Duke made me," she says. "There's no running from it. There's only facing it." How
the conscience-torn Harley faces it--and faces up to Duke's sworn nemesis--will impact the lives of many
people, including Will, the good-hearted childhood friend with whom she has fallen in love (and whose
mother also died in the explosion). Early on, the novel tends to go over the same ground too many times and
takes too many narrative beats to reach a conclusion. But it has a welcome, powerful feminist sensibility--
Harley is closely involved with a shelter for abused women and children--and with its relentless intensity,
gritty atmosphere, and compelling father-daughter psychology (as much of a monster as Duke is, he loves
his "Harley-girl," and she can't shake her family pride), this promises to be one of the best books of 2018.
Sharpe's first adult novel, following her gritty young-adult effort Far From You (2014), introduces a major
talent to the crime fiction genre and, with a sequel all but promised, an exciting protagonist.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Sharpe, Tess: BARBED WIRE HEART." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A520735835/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=10e876da.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A520735835
5 bookseller choices March
Marilyn Brocklehurst
The Bookseller.
.5653 (Jan. 23, 2015): p18+.
COPYRIGHT 2015 Bookseller Media Limited
http://www.thebookseller.com
Full Text: 
1 MICHAEL FOREMAN THE SEEDS OF FRIENDSHIP Walker, 5th March, 11.99 [pounds sterling],
9781406356502
Adam is experiencing a new life in a strange, new city, and misses the comforts of his faraway home. In this
important book, Michael Foreman's glowing pictures illustrate how both friendship and happiness flourish
when they are nurtured.
2 FRANK COTTRELL BOYCE THE ASTOUNDING BROCCOLI BOY Macmillan, 26th March, 10.99
[pounds sterling], 9781405054676
Rory likes to think he's ready for anything, until he finds himself quarantined in hospital with two other
children because he has turned green! Written in Cottrell Boyce's relaxed, comedic style, this entertaining
book will be immensely popular.
3 DAN GEMEINHART THE HONEST TRUTH Chicken House, 6.99 [pounds sterling], 5th March,
9781910002131
In this thought-provoking, moving story, 12-year-old mark knows he is dying, so makes a heart-rending
decision to end his life. The final journey he makes with his beloved dog is vividly described, and the
reaction of his friend Jessie to his disappearance is authentic.
4 TESS SHARPE FAR FROM YOU Orion, 8.99 [pounds sterling], 27th March 9781780621630
A thrilling debut romance/ murder mystery for older readers, which will keep them guessing. Sharpe's feisty,
intelligent narrator determines to uncover the truth behind an unsolved murder case, and in so doing
unravels important complications in her own life.
5 ANDREW SMITH THE ALEX CROW Electric Monkey, 7.99 [pounds sterling], 5th March,
9781405273428
Three compelling plot strands intertwine in smith's brilliantly constructed story about Ariel, a young refugee
who is adopted by an American family after a horrific massacre. A book for older teens, at times it is truly
horrifying, at others thoughtful and funny--but always utterly intriguing.
MARILYN BROCKLEHURST NORFOLK CHILDREN'S BOOK CENTRE PROPRIETOR Norfolk
Children's Book Centre, Alby, Norwich, Norfolk R11 7HB
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Brocklehurst, Marilyn. "5 bookseller choices March." The Bookseller, 23 Jan. 2015, p. 18+. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A398953942/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=2ec8d078. Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A398953942
Sharpe, Tess. Far From You
Mary Ann Darby
Voice of Youth Advocates.
37.2 (June 2014): p65.
COPYRIGHT 2014 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
Full Text: 
3Q * 4P * S
Sharpe, Tess. Far From You. Hyperion, 2014. 352p. $17.99. 978-1-4231-8462-1.
Seventeen-year-old Sophie Winters has just survived an attack by a masked man in the woods; her best
friend, Mina, was not so lucky. When police decide that Mina's murder is the result of a drug deal gone bad,
fingers are pointed at Sophie. Sophie has been fighting an addiction to pain pills since an accident three
years earlier, and although she has finally beaten the addiction, no one is willing to believe her. She is forced
into rehab, and by the time she is released, people who were friends have turned their backs on her,
including Mina's brother, Trev. When Sophie starts digging for the truth, more layers of mystery are
uncovered, with additional characters and elements introduced. The last chapters answer most of the story's
questions, including the true nature of Mina and Sophie's relationship and why Mina was murdered.
Although high school teens may well be hooked into the story's murder mystery, which is introduced
immediately, Sharpe's first novel seems to have a bit of an identity crisis, taking on too many angles for a
single story. Elements of a love story, a love triangle, drug dependency and recovery, as well as additional
subplots of a mysterious disappearance and pregnancy, are a great deal to untangle cleanly. Throw in a series
of flashbacks from very different times in Sophie's life, and there are too many threads to weave smoothly.
Themes and content make this most suitable for mature young adult readers.--Mary Ann Darby.
Darby, Mary Ann
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Darby, Mary Ann. "Sharpe, Tess. Far From You." Voice of Youth Advocates, June 2014, p. 65. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A375949323/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e79a633b. Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A375949323
Far from You
Kara Dean
Booklist.
110.17 (May 1, 2014): p53.
COPYRIGHT 2014 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text: 
Far from You. By Tess Sharpe. 2014.352p. Disney/Hyperion, $ 17.99 (9781423184621). Gr. 9-12.
Debut novelist Sharpe attempts a delicate balancing act between past and present in this murder mystery
about secrets and truth. The story begins with the crime, which is then unraveled by our narrator, Sophie, as
she describes how she got to the point where her best friend, Mina, was murdered. Sophie alternates
between telling her current story and relating past events, starting with the car accident three years before,
which ravaged her physically and led to an OxyContin addiction. It will not take the reader long to realize
that Sophie and Mina were not only best friends but in love with each other; Sophie's heartbreak is as much
about this as it is about Mina's death. Despite Sophie's eagerness to find the killer, the hunt for him feels a
bit abandoned as past events are continually revisited and analyzed. Fortunately, Sharpe's writing is
beautiful and her characters are fully realized, which should carry readers through to the book's sorrowful
finale. --Kara Dean
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Dean, Kara. "Far from You." Booklist, 1 May 2014, p. 53. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A368378944/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e1fc8061.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A368378944
Sharpe, Tess: FAR FROM YOU
Kirkus Reviews.
(Mar. 1, 2014):
COPYRIGHT 2014 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Sharpe, Tess FAR FROM YOU Hyperion (Children's Fiction) $17.99 4, 8 ISBN: 978-1-4231-8462-1
This beautifully realized debut delves into the emotions of a girl recovering from drug addiction and grief,
all wrapped up in a solid mystery. Sophie and Mina have been best friends since second grade. When they
were 14, they were involved in a car accident that nearly killed Sophie, who became addicted to OxyContin
during her recovery. Sophie has kicked her habit with the help of her bounty-hunter aunt and clings to each
day that she stays clean. As the book opens, however, readers learn that Mina has been murdered. Since the
murderer planted OxyContin in Sophie's pocket, everyone, including Sophie's mom and the police, believes
that the girls were trying to buy drugs. Sophie knows the murderer will go free unless she uncovers a story
that Mina was investigating for the local newspaper-but pursuing him will put her in grave danger. Sharpe
writes in chapters alternating between scenes from the past and present as she moves the story forward.
Within the mystery plot, she focuses mostly on Sophie's battle against drugs and against those who refuse to
believe her-and on an emotional secret the two girls shared. She doesn't settle for simplistic, onedimensional
characters, giving each flaws and virtues, strengths and weaknesses, from Sophie's parents to
her friends. An absorbing story full of depth and emotion. (Mystery. 14-18)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Sharpe, Tess: FAR FROM YOU." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2014. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A359847940/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a9965204.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A359847940

Leber, Michele. "Barbed Wire Heart." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2018, p. 42. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525185594/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. "Sharpe, Tess: BARBED WIRE HEART." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A520735835/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. Brocklehurst, Marilyn. "5 bookseller choices March." The Bookseller, 23 Jan. 2015, p. 18+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A398953942/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. Darby, Mary Ann. "Sharpe, Tess. Far From You." Voice of Youth Advocates, June 2014, p. 65. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A375949323/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. Dean, Kara. "Far from You." Booklist, 1 May 2014, p. 53. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A368378944/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. "Sharpe, Tess: FAR FROM YOU." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2014. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A359847940/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018.

• The Real Book Spy
  https://therealbookspy.com/2018/02/18/a-book-spy-review-barbed-wire-heart-by-tess-sharpe/
  Word count: 571

  A Book Spy Review: ‘Barbed Wire Heart’ by Tess Sharpe
  ORDER NOW
  Barbed Wire heartYA author Tess Sharpe explodes on the thriller scene with Barbed Wire Heart, a hard-boiled, gritty crime novel set in California.

  Duke McKenna is the drug king of northern Cali, ruling a vast empire that he’s built from the ground up — cheating, stealing, and killing his way to the top. Meth has made him big money and given him lots of power, but it’s come at a cost. Years back, the Springfields, the McKennas’ rivals, took out the first lady of the McKenna empire in a meth lab explosion, leaving Duke alone to raise Harley, their only child.

  Now Harley is twenty-two and the heir to her father’s throne. She is, after all, what he made her — which is a hardened criminal. Whereas other kids grow up doing normal things and activities with their parents, Harley grew up learning the best ways to torture people who threaten their family and business and how to handle herself. She’s shot people before and seen her father kill men. She lost her innocence at a young age, but managed to hide just enough of it away that she’s not completely sold on taking over for her father when his time as kingpin is done.

  When the Springfields roll back into town, a turf war quickly breaks out, and Duke’s enemies know that his one weakness is Harley, which puts a big target on her back.

  Forced to confront her past actions and her future, Harley decides to stop blaming her father for who and what she is for the first time. Realizing that she has a choice is only half the battle, though. Having the courage to make the right choice is the really hard part. But when Harley does make that decision, there’s no going back, and she launches a secret plan to bring down the Springfields. . . and her father’s empire, once and for all.

  Right out of the gate, Tess Sharpe proves that she can punch with the best of them. After some early head-hopping (multiple POV shifts that get a tad confusing), Sharpe settles in and delivers a powerful story about a young woman who has every reason to do wrong but makes the more difficult choice to ultimately try and do what’s right.

  The subject matter and world the characters live in are very dark, and it’s Sharpe’s ability to bring raw emotions to life that makes this story work. Harley isn’t an antihero, but she’s not exactly likable in the beginning, either. Essentially, Sharpe’s setup is predicated on her finding ways to endear Harley to readers, which she pulls off as the story unfolds, developing her strong protagonist through a series of childhood flashbacks that paints a striking and vivid picture of Harley’s violent childhood.

  Fast-paced and well-written, Barbed Wire Heart packs a surprise message wrapped in a gritty, violent plot that fans of Don Winslow and Meg Gardiner will enjoy. Tess Sharpe is the real deal, and her first adult thriller is an absolute knockout.

  Book Details
  Author: Tess Sharpe
  Pages: 416 (Hardcover)
  ISBN: 1538744090
  Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
  Release Date: March 6, 2018
  Book Spy Rating: 7.5/10

• Book Page
  https://bookpage.com/reviews/22426-tess-sharpe-barbed-wire-heart#.WwG7-tMvxR0
  Word count: 348

  Web Exclusive – March 06, 2018

  BARBED WIRE HEART
  A rough-and-tumble heroine to steal your heart
  BookPage review by G. Robert Frazier

  Harley McKenna wasn’t raised to be a good girl. She wasn’t raised to be someone’s perfect wife. Harley McKenna was raised to kick ass and take names.

  In YA author Tess Sharpe’s first novel for adults, Barbed Wire Heart, Harley is the daughter of Duke McKenna, one of the meanest, most ruthless crime kingpins in the backwoods of North California where guns, drugs and violence are a way of life. Death awaits anyone who crosses him or threatens his daughter. But Duke knows he can’t be there to protect her all the time, so he trains her the only way he knows how. Every moment of her life is punctuated with brutal lessons in how to survive, how to thrive and, if necessary, how to kill. These are skills Harley calls upon again and again as she learns her role in the family’s meth-making business.

  Amid this harsh reality, Harley somehow develops her own moral code. She defends the beaten and downtrodden, whether they are in abusive relationships or are being bullied by neo-Nazis. She’ll shoot to kill if she has to, but she’ll run if that means escaping to fight another day. That’s how Duke trained her.

  But with Duke close to death from pancreatic cancer, Harley discovers she finally has to make a choice. She can take over the business as her father always prepared her to do, or she can cut and run. She can start a new life that's free of fear and bloodshed. That is, if Duke’s rivals, the Springfields, don’t kill her first.

  Barbed Wire Heart is a gritty, bloody, in-your-face affair and definitely not for the faint of heart. Her heroine is fiercely independent, morally complex and desperate to forge her own path to freedom—no matter the cost. She is, after all, a McKenna.

• Washington Independent Review of Books
  http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/barbed-wire-heart-a-thriller
  Word count: 568

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  Book Review in Fiction, Mystery & Suspense
  Barbed Wire Heart: A Thriller
  By Tess Sharpe Grand Central Publishing 416 pp.
  Reviewed by Marvin McIntyre
  March 23, 2018
  A kick-ass heroine dominates this violent, riveting tale.

  Written in first person, Tess Sharpe’s Barbed Wired Heart faced the challenge of engaging me from the start. Most thrillers that I’ve read speak from the third person, and I believe that the degree of difficulty increases dramatically when the author deviates from that voice. However, if your opening sentence is, “I’m eight years old the first time I watch my daddy kill a man,” you might just be able to do it.

  She did. Killed it. This is one of the best books I’ve read.

  “I’m twelve the day I pull a gun on someone for the first time.” These unique chapter openings are liberally sprinkled throughout the book, a strategy that not only feels new, but is also compelling. The pacing is extraordinary, and changing from past to present feels like only a slight turn on the radio dial: absolutely no static.

  One of the objectives of today’s thriller genre is to incorporate strong females into the plot. No longer is it the predictable male hero coming to the rescue against a typical male antagonist. Let me assure you, Sharpe’s heroine checks all the boxes. After her mother is burned to death by a psychopath, Harley McKenna is raised by her brutal father to kill or be killed.

  Each character in this riveting novel feels authentic and necessary. Harley’s father, Duke, has moments of tenderness with his young daughter, but with the rest of his world, he is a ruthless dictator presiding over a meth-making, gun-running, loan-sharking empire. His justice is immediate and terminal, but he’s taught her, trained her, and tortured her, and Harley backs down from no man, not even him.

  In earlier times, it seemed like the recipe for creating a strong female character was that she had to be gorgeous, use her “feminine wiles” to accomplish her goals, and then ultimately be a foil for the male hero. Well, Tess Sharpe rewrote the script. Harley-girl is a warrior, a Wonder Woman without super powers. Her strength comes from her fearlessness, her cunning, and her resolve.

  Sharpe’s message is found not in dialogue, but in a few telling sentences near the end of this compelling read: “And I can see it in his eyes, the moment he realizes that he’s screwed. That he’s nothing. That there’s nothing stronger than a woman who’s risen from the ashes of some fire that a man set.”

  Barbed Wire Heart may not be for the faint of heart, for violence is served as the appetizer, main course, and dessert. Yet it’s impossible not to root for a character whose mission is to protect abused women, and it’s impossible not to thank the author for introducing us to her.

  Marvin McIntyre is the number-one-rated financial advisor in Washington, DC, by both Barron’s Magazine and Forbes. In addition, he has written three well-received financial and political thrillers.

• The YA Kitten
  http://www.theyakitten.net/2018/05/07/review-barbed-wire-heart-by-tess-sharpe/
  Word count: 778

  Review: Barbed Wire Heart by Tess Sharpe
  May 7, 2018 Paige Reviews 0 ★★★★

  Review: Barbed Wire Heart by Tess SharpeBarbed Wire Heart by Tess Sharpe
  Published by Grand Central Publishing on March 6, 2018
  Genres: Adult, Adult Thriller
  Pages: 416
  Format: eARC
  Source: eARC via NetGalley
  Goodreads
  four-stars
  Never cut the drugs--leave them pure.
  Guns are meant to be shot--keep them loaded.
  Family is everything--betray them and die.

  Harley McKenna is the only child of North County's biggest criminal. Duke McKenna's run more guns, cooked more meth, and killed more men than anyone around. Harley's been working for him since she was sixteen--collecting debts, sweet-talking her way out of trouble, and dreading the day he'd deem her ready to rule the rural drug empire he's built.

  Her time's run out. The Springfields, her family's biggest rivals, are moving in. Years ago, they were responsible for her mother's death, and now they're coming for Duke's only weak spot: his daughter.

  With a bloody turf war threatening to consume North County, Harley is forced to confront the truth: that her father's violent world will destroy her. Duke's raised her to be deadly--he never counted on her being disloyal. But if Harley wants to survive and protect the people she loves, she's got to take out Duke's operation and the Springfields.

  Blowing up meth labs is dangerous business, and getting caught will be the end of her, but Harley has one advantage: She is her father's daughter. And McKennas always win.
  Oh lord, this YA reviewer read some adult lit?! Yep! Solely because the book sounded great and the author is a really amazing person who also writes great YA. Also, I follow her on Instagram and I’m really invested in her three dogs and her four cats, three of whom were former ferals rescued from the semi-magical forest. Good enough reason to read a book/author as any! Barbed Wire Heart is a difficult read emotionally and Sharpe provides trigger warnings both in the book and on her website for readers who need them. If you’re comfortable reading it, you’re in for a treat!

  Harley is a wonderfully rendered and complicated character: a fierce defender of abused women who runs a motel inherited from her mother’s family as a domestic violence shelter and the only heir to Duke McKenna, the emperor of a massive criminal empire buried in the forests of North Carolina. Part of what keeps the Rubies, as the women who seek shelter at the Ruby motel are called, safe is Harley’s reputation as both Duke’s daughter and a terrifying force in her own right.

  But Harley is tired of this status quo. The Rubies deserve better, the Indigenous people who live all around deserve better, and everyone hooked on either McKenna meth or meth from the rival Springfield family deserves better. From the first page to the last, Harley’s mission is to destroy both drug-trafficking empires once and for all–and her crusade comes with a body count.

  That sounds straightforward, right? It’s really not. Barbed Wire Heart is full of twists to Harley’s story that reveal how deceptive she is. One such example from a quarter into the book: Duke’s cohorts think he’s down in Mexico for a few months, but Harley’s only letting them think that. He’s actually still at home and also on death’s doorstep due to advanced cancer. His impending death is what leads Harley to make her move to clean up the county by getting her hands very, very dirty.

  What else is there to say? The book is hard to put down as Harley methodically plays people against one another as necessary, brings the two families to the brink of war while using the chaos as a cover, and puts the hurt on two Springfields who decided being neo-Nazis was the way to go. OH YES, THE NAZIS SUFFER. Alternating chapters give us a glimpses of formative moments from her past and a front-row seat to her three-day operation in the present.

  So read Barbed Wire Heart if you can. Don’t feel bad if you can’t due to triggers because that’s not a failing on your part, it’s you protecting yourself. The novel is also a great reminder that California isn’t a monolithic liberal paradise because it’s got plenty of remote pockets full of conservative communities as well as drug-trafficking, meth-making wank blizzards.

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