• Age: 10 to 18
• Grade: 5 to 12

Disasters strike in many different forms. Thirteen year old AJ Devlin believes she has a great life with a good family, two BFFs, a love for cheerleading, and a Champion Quarter Horse mare. When a new girl arrives in town, AJ thinks nothing of it. It’s only when her best friends, Julie and Jaime, begin ignoring her that she wonders why Celine is insinuating herself into AJ’s life. As her life begins to fall apart in many different directions, she realizes that the “new girl” is intent upon destroying everything AJ holds dear. Yet, when her almost-boyfriend finds incriminating evidence against Celine, revealing that this girl is not who or what she claims to be, AJ refuses to allow him to disclose it. Before AJ can settle the score with Celine, she must confront the unexpected divorce of her parents and her now unstable relationship with her father; navigate a new and shaky friendship with one of her former BFFs, and learn to cope with a devastating tragedy that comes out of nowhere.

Mikki Sadil, wife, mother, grandmother, artist, horse trainer, and author of four books and more than thirty short stories and non-fiction articles, all for kids from ten to sixteen has had a passion for writing since she was ten years old and had her first set of poems published, and that passion has continued her whole life. Mikki lives in a small Victorian town on the beautiful Central Coast of California. She and her husband share their home with an incredibly handsome and intelligent Corgi, Dylan, a lazy Siamese/Himalayan cat, Beaujangles, and their mixed-up little cockatiel, Riley, who can’t decide who in this household is boss…but, as Mikki says, "of course, I am!"

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I loved this book. Middle school is a trying time for most kids. Mikki Sadil's main character, AJ faces more trials and tribulations in one year than most kids face in a lifetime. Between her prize mare getting sick, her parents divorce and the new kid, Celine, who has decided to make AJ's life miserable, it's a wonder AJ survives.

Sherry Alexander