Twelve-year-old Julie has had plenty of scuba-diving experience helping her dive-master father. When he falls ill on an expedition in the Gulf of Mexico, she must take over and lead his two reckless clients on a dive. Then disaster strikes, and Julie and a supercilious boy must survive in the Gulf with no boat, no supplies, and little hope in an action tale that stretches credulity.

Twelve-year-old Julie supervises an important dive for her father's scuba-diving business, but she soon learns that when you play against Mother Nature it is for keeps.During the school year, Julie lives with her mother in Atlanta, but her summers are spent with her father in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Unfortunately, although her mother's law career is taking off, her father's dive business is struggling. When a wealthy businessman and his arrogant son, Shane, demand to see the artificial reef her father owns, the money is just too important to turn down. Her father, a diabetic, decides Julie should run the dive, so when the anchor pulls, leaving the three of them lost at sea, it is up to Julie to do what she can to save them all. But sharks, hypothermia, dehydration, and exposure might prove more than she can handle. Inspired by a diving accident the author himself experienced, this is a gritty look at what can happen when everything goes wrong. Julie is arrogant and fearful, but she's also strong and quick-thinking. Shane likewise evolves during the ordeal, but it is the beautiful, terrible, and dangerous Mother Nature who steals the show. Julie is depicted as white on the cover, and the book seems to adhere to the white default.A nail-biting survival tale. (Adventure. 10-14)

Key (Hideout) offers plenty of nail-biting suspense in this survival tale about a deep-sea dive off the Alabama coast that goes horribly wrong. When scuba dive guide Gibson Sims falls ill on his boat, his 12-year-old daughter, Julie, leads two particularly obnoxious clients-Hank Jordan and his son, Shane-into the water. Problems start underwater, and the trio resurfaces to discover that the boat carrying Julie-s father has disappeared. With land nowhere in sight, Julie and