• Age: 11 to 15
• Grade: 6 to 10

What would you do if you only had one week to live? A skateboarding accident claims 14-year-old Jade's life when she skitches (hitches herself to a car) in order to appear on youtube; she neglected to wear the helmet she promised her father she would always use. In a Japanese garden she meets her mother who died when Jade was eight. She begs for the chance to return to earth if only to improve relations between her brother and father and Mom negotiates a one week do-over for her. What can she achieve? A date for her father? A new job for her brother? Her first kiss? Jade can't tell anyone what is going on, which is bad enough, but after discovering a love for life that she's never known, will she be able to let go? Or will she try to cheat fate?

Sylvia McNicoll wrote her first book, Blueberries and Whipped Cream, as a project for a college writing course in order to explore a tragedy that occurred in her own high school. She went on to teach creative writing at that same college for nine years, edit a parenting magazine for another eight years and write 29 more novels for a variety of age groups.
Most acclaimed are her three dog guide fostering stories: Bringing Up Beauty, Beauty Returns and A Different Kind of Beauty, which won and were nominated for many children's choice awards. Last Chance for Paris, her adventure book set on the ice fields of Columbia, explored ecological issues with glaciers before climate warming became a popular issue.
Her recent novel, Crush. Candy. Corpse, tells the story about a teen on trial for the manslaughter of an Alzheimer's patient. Reviewers and bloggers have declared it a must read for all high school students. In her thirtieth book Death Goes Viral, already a blockbuster hit in Norway, Sweden and Finland, Sylvia returns to the theme of life and death and the values our own mortality inspires in us.

Sylvia McNicoll's profile page

• Joint winner, CCBC Best Books for Kids and Teens
• Commended, OLA Best Bets - Young Adult Fiction
• Joint winner, Resource Links Magazine