Innocent

March 9, 2015
The ultra-competitive world of professional ice skating comes to life under the deft touch of Comeaux (Life on the Edge), who pairs an insider’s view of the skating world with a sweet romance in the first installment of a contemporary series. After pair skaters Courtney and Mark turn in a poor showing at the World Championships, Courtney’s long-distance boyfriend dumps her for someone else—and Courtney and Mark’s longtime coaches announce that they will be simultaneously training the skaters’ biggest rivals, Stephanie and Josh, a top-rated sibling team. Courtney and Josh soon strike up a romance, but ice princess Stephanie is determined to break them up. Courtney is conflicted, realizing that her partner and her coaches likely wouldn’t approve of the match, yet she falls more deeply for sweet, shy Josh with every moment they spend together. As Courtney and Josh wend their way past the enormous roadblocks of their relationship, readers will find their story immensely satisfying, though the ending is a tiny bit rushed. This solid effort will especially delight skating fans who want an inside look at the sport.

July 15, 2015
A young woman loses everything and must plumb her past before she can build a new life for herself. When a fire destroys the Ontario orphanage Betty has called home for most of her life, she is sent to Kingston to work for the city's most wealthy and influential family. Shortly after taking up her new position, Betty discovers her mother was also a maid for the Remington household prior to her death at the hands of Betty's father 14 years before. After a visit to her mother's grave, a curious Betty faces her imprisoned father, who insists he's innocent. Subsequently, Betty enlists her cop boyfriend, David, to help her dig up the facts about what really happened to her mother. Although Betty is slow to pick up the clues, readers will realize the truth before she does (see the book's title). The 1964 setting appears arbitrary, established by the book's relationship to the others in the Secrets series rather than narrative needs; period details are few, and without consistent time-appropriate cultural references, the resulting story feels anachronistic to today's readers. The plot moves quickly, but the conclusion is tidy and cliched. The big reveal-who killed Betty's mother and why-unfolds more like the unveiling of a vaudeville villain (sans twirling mustache) than a dramatic novel. Lukewarm and unremarkable. (Historical fiction. 12-16)

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October 1, 2015

Gr 7 Up-In 1964, a girls' orphanage burns to the ground and its seven oldest residents, each armed with a cryptic clue about her past, are sent out into the world to make their way. Each entry in the "Secrets" series of seven linked YA novels details a different girl's rocky start. In Walters's Innocent, Lizzy is offered a job in her hometown, where she discovers that her father, having murdered her mother, is still doing time in the local prison. Drawn to him despite warnings from her seemingly kind employer, the protagonist discovers a cover-up involving nearly the entire town. Although it gets off to a slow start, this volume delivers some tense moments as Lizzy makes her way through the local web of lies. Armstrong's The Unquiet Past features a creepy supernatural element. Tess's search for the meaning of her waking visions leads her to an abandoned mental hospital, a series of illegal experiments, and a boy who's looking for answers of his own. These installments target reluctant readers with their short sentences, plot-driven events, and light character development. VERDICT Purchase where historical fiction is popular.-Elizabeth Friend, Wester Middle School, TX

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

memoiloveit - Innocent, a mystery and historical fiction book, by Eric Walters, is about a girl named Elizabeth Anne Roberts (Betty), who is an orphan since she was three years old. One night, there is a fire at the orphanage Betty stays at, resulting in the orphans splitting up. The younger ones are adopted by families, but the older ones, like Betty, are scattered throughout America in 1964 to work. Betty is a maid for the wealthy Remington family. Before she leaves for the Remington estate, Betty’s caretaker, Mrs. Hazelton, leaves Betty with an envelope with papers about when her father was convicted of killing her mother when Betty was three years old. This is the reason nobody would adopt Betty when she lived in the orphanage. While Betty works at the Remington estate, she learns that her mother used to work there as a maid too and that she looks and acts exactly like her mother. Through this all, Betty uses her breaks to visit her father in prison and has to figure out if her father actually did kill her mother, or if he was set up and got convicted, with the help of her new friend, David, a police officer. Throughout the book, Mrs. Remington and one of her sons say that it was Betty’s father that killed her mother and that they tried to stop her mother from running away to be with her father because Betty’s mother supposedly believed only positive things about people. In the end, when a gun is pointed at Betty by Mrs. Remington’s son, Betty realizes that it is him who killed her mother and that Mrs. Remington set up her father. A quote from Innocent that connects to its overall message is, “...I’m not going to let anybody harm you…” (Walters 242) This quote connects to the book’s overall message because the overall message is to trust no one, especially those who protect you the most because they might be not who they seem to be. Mrs. Remington and her son were like the “wolves in sheep’s clothing” because they pretended to be the “good guys” by earning Betty’s trust. Betty is deceived the whole time and almost killed, until the other workers of the Remington estate saved her, made sure Mrs. Remington and her son were sent to prison and made sure Betty’s father is let out of jail. I can connect this book to my life because it shows how people should be more careful of others. I learned through this book that you can not really rely on anyone, you have to be independent, and that you should judge people carefully. If you are not careful enough, you can put your life in danger. In Innocent, Mrs. Remington and her son killed Betty’s mother for an evil reason. “He [Mrs. Remington’s son] nodded his head. ‘Really, she did is to herself. If she’d listened to me, it all could have been different.’” Betty asks, “...Why did you do it?” “‘She [Betty’s mother] rejected me, told me to leave...and then…’” (Walters 249) Another example of how people should be more careful of others is when Betty’s father has to gain Betty’s trust throughout the story, but Betty does the opposite of trusting the wrong people. Instead, she does not trust the right person. I also did not judge him correctly either since anybody in prison would say they are innocent and should not have been sent to prison, but he actually is not lying. Betty not remembering much about her father contributes to her not trusting him but wanting to trust him, which is how I realize that you should only trust the people you really know if you have to trust someone.