Colt is mad. The 12-year-old idolizes his dad, a champion bull rider on the professional rodeo circuit, but has lived with his mom since his parents' divorce. And now she's up and dragged him away from Idaho Falls to a strange new home in northern California, where she rediscovers gourmet cooking and launches a friendship with their handsome neighbor, Angelo. And then wouldn't you know it, Colt's beloved pet cat, Smoke, goes missing, and the boy waits for a dangerously dark and stormy night to set off on a solo search. What next? Hint: things will get worse before they get better. Jukes, a Newbery Honor winner, has written a fitfully engaging but often predictable story about an appealing boy trying to come to grips with a new life. Yes, adult readers may find her tone a bit patronizing at times, but kids enamored with cats and cowboys probably won't care about that. And did I mention there's a ghost, too?

Colton, his mom, and his beloved Maine coon cat, Smoke, move from Idaho to California. Smoke disappears, and Colton ends up barricaded in a mountain cabin with (is it?) a cougar outside. Jukes is a risk-taking writer, and this novel's action and adventure coexist well with an introspective tone, lots of exposition, unusual setting(s), and uniquely direct characterizations.

Two sisters wrestle with guilt and fear after one kills the father who battered them. Readers last saw 17-year-old Pattyn at the cliffhanger ending of Burned (2006), immediately after her beloved boyfriend and their unborn baby were killed in a car wreck. Stunned with grief and fury, and with nothing left to lose, Pattyn vowed to shoot her long-abusive father, whom she blamed for the accident. This much-desired sequel begins two weeks later--and Dad's dead. Escaping town, Pattyn meets a warm, welcoming family of mostly undocumented farm laborers. They find her a ranch job, where she hides from law enforcement. Meanwhile, 15-year-old Jackie is stuck at home, narrating her own half of the story. Through free-verse poems thick with the weight of trauma, the shooting's details emerge. A schoolmate raped Jackie; blaming Jackie, Dad broke her ribs and loosened her teeth; Pattyn's gun stopped Dad forever. Now Pattyn faces "blood-caked nightmares," while Jackie fights a mother and two LDS church leaders who insist she forget her rape. Waiting for the past to "tackle [them] from behind," both girls struggle toward fragile new connections and inner strength. The lives of undocumented Americans, a renegade hate movement and a wild horse wary of trust are all organic to the plot. A strong, painful and tender piece about wresting hope from the depths of despair. (author's note) (Verse fiction. 13-17)

Gr 9 Up-Readers last left Pattyn in Burned (S &; S, 2006), where she was mourning the loss of her love, Ethan, and their unborn baby. Smoke starts with a bang-literally. Pattyn walks in on her father beating her sister Jackie (whom he'd interrupted mid-rape by a boy from their LDS church). When he won't stop attacking her, Pattyn presumably shoots him dead, though only Jackie and Pattyn know the truth. Clearly this is not light fare. The book, told in the author's signature verse, alternates between the girls' voices. The narrative follows Pattyn as she befriends an immigrant family and anonymously seeks refuge as a housekeeper for a family with looming problems of its own. Jackie, the one left behind, must deal with their six siblings, a weak-willed mother, and the fallout from their father's death. Hopkins's popular novels are typically a chorus of downward spirals, and, at times, character development can get lost in the cacophony. Perhaps because Smoke focuses finely on only two voices, it doesn't suffer such a fate. Pattyn and Jackie are given the time and space for full-bodied development. Both have overcome (and are still living in) horrific circumstances, but neither is a victim. They are strong, sympathetic characters for whom readers will root as new love sweetly weaves its way back into their lives. Though some will likely take issue with the extremist portrayal of the Mormon church, Hopkins's fans should and will clamor for this sequel. While certainly enhanced when read in conjunction with Burned , Smoke can more than stand on its own. Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ