New Releases by Pete Hautman

National Book Award winner Pete Hautman explores a friendship like no other—and the universal truth that dogs make life better, especially for underdogs. Evan doesn’t seem to fit in at school or at home. He goes out of his way to avoid attention. He sits at the back of the bus, keeps his head down in class, and keeps to himself. But when a burr-covered border collie—a survivor with a gut instinct about the Boy—starts following him around and joining him on his runs, Evan’s simple duck-and-dodge existence becomes a lot more complicated . . . a lot more like life. Evolving from wary companions to steadfast friends, Evan and the dog run fast and far together, thwart an abusive dog breeder and the school bully, and find the courage to stand up for themselves and to open up to those who matter most. Narrated in alternating viewpoints, this relatable contemporary novel with classic coming-of-age themes has all the hope, pathos, and emotional complexity that mark Pete Hautman’s books for middle-grade readers—and is a deeply satisfying read for animal lovers.

From National Book Award winner Pete Hautman comes a mysterious modern-day fairy tale about developing a moral compass—and the slippery nature of conscience. For Annie’s tenth birthday, her papa gives her a pad of paper, some colored pencils, and the Klimas family secret. It’s called the nuodeema burna, or eater of sins. Every time Annie misbehaves, she has to write down her transgression and stick the paper into a hidey-hole in the floor of their house. But Annie’s inheritance has a dark side: with each paper fed to the burna, she feels less guilty about the mean things she says and does. As a plague of rats threatens her small suburban town and the mystery of her birthright grows, Annie—caught in a cycle of purging her misdeeds—begins to stop growing. It is only when she travels to her family’s home country of Litvania to learn more about the burna that Annie uncovers the magnitude of the truth. Gripping and emotionally complex, Pete Hautman’s inventive yarn for middle-grade readers draws on magical realism to explore coming of age and the path to moral responsibility.

“Superb road trip novel. By turns introspective and humorous.” —Booklist (starred review) In this captivating story about loss, love, and changing your ways, National Book Awardu00ad–winning author Pete Hautman imbues the classic road trip novel with clever wit and heartfelt musings about life and death. Steven Gerald Gabel—a.k.a. Stiggy—needs to get out of Minnesota. His father recently took his own life, his mother is a shell of the person she used to be, and his sort-of-girlfriend ghosted him and skipped town. What does he have left to stick around for? Armed with his mom’s credit card and a tourist map of Great River Road, Stiggy sets off in his dad’s car. The only problem is, life on his own isn’t exactly what he expected and, soon enough, he finds himself at a crossroads: keep running from his demons, or let them hitch a ride back home with him.

What happened in the woods that day? Pete Hautman’s riveting middle-grade novel touches on secrets and mysteries — and the power of connections with family and friends. “Hatred combined with lies and secrets can break the world.” Grandpa Zach used to say that before he died, but Stuey never really knew what he meant. It was kind of like how he used to talk about quantum physics or how he used to say ghosts haunted their overgrown golf course. But then one day, after Stuey and his best friend, Elly Rose, spend countless afternoons in the deadfall in the middle of the woods, something totally unbelievable happens. As Stuey and Elly Rose struggle to come to grips with their lives after that reality-splitting moment, all the things Grandpa Zach used to say start to make a lot more sense. This is a book about memory and loss and the destructive nature of secrets, but also about the way friendship, truth, and perseverance have the ability to knit a torn-apart world back together.

Competitive eating vies with family expectations in this funny, heartfelt novel by National Book Award winner Hautman.

"Ginger Crump solves the mystery of why people in her town are forgetting things they should definitely know"--

Thirteen-year-old Ginger investigates a series of weird events taking place in her home town of Flinkwater, Iowa, beginning with people falling into comas while using their computers.

Coming of age in an insular cult, 17-year-old Jacob anticipates the Apocalypse he has been told is imminent while struggling with his faith alongside his new friends from the outside world. By the National Book Award-winning author of Godless. Simultaneous eBook.

National Book Award winner Pete Hautman weaves several diverging time streams into one satisfying masterwork in this stunning and revelatory series finale. In a far distant future, Tucker Feye and the inscrutable Lia find themselves atop a crumbling pyramid in an abandoned city. In present-day Hopewell, Tucker’s uncle Kosh faces armed resistance and painful memories as he attempts to help a terrorized woman named Emma, who is being held captive by a violent man. And on a train platform in 1997, a seventeen-year-old Kosh is given an instruction that will change his life, and the lives of others, forever. Tucker, Lia, and Kosh must evade the pursuit of maggot-like Timesweeps, battle Master Gheen’s cult of Lambs, all while they puzzle out the enigmatic Boggsians as they search for one another and the secrets of the diskos. Who built them? Who is destroying them? Where — and when — will it all end?

The much-anticipated sequel to The Obsidian Blade transports readers to the terrifying and thrilling world of Lah Lia, the enigmatic girl who changed Tucker Feye’s life. More than half a millennium in the future, in the shadow of the looming Cydonian Pyramid, a pampered girl named Lah Lia has been raised for one purpose: to be sacrificed through one of the mysterious diskos that hover over the pyramid’s top. But just as she is about to be killed, a strange boy appears from the diskos, providing a cover of chaos that allows her to escape and launching her on a time-spinning journey in which her fate is irreversibly linked to his. In this second volume of the Klaatu Diskos trilogy, Tucker Feye and Lah Lia each hurtle through time, relating their stories in alternating viewpoints that converge at crucial moments. Fans of the first adventure will be intrigued by the chance to see the world through Lah Lia’s eyes — no matter how disturbing the vision might be.

A lottery jackpot winner decides to turn one of her millions into a bounty for the man who left her Barbaraannette is decorating a cake when the Powerball numbers come in. They sound suspiciously familiar, but she finishes the cake before checking her ticket, knowing that if she wins her hands will be too shaky to handle the icing. This quiet Midwesterner has just won nine million dollars—and nine million kinds of trouble to go with it. Accepting her money on national television, Barbaraannette promises a cool million to anyone who can bring her runaway husband home to her. When he hears of the reward placed for his return, Bobby decides to claim it himself—but first, he’s got to get past a pair of bounty hunters, a psychotic pretty-boy, and a lovelorn humanities professor who won’t take no for an answer. Getting her husband home safe will be tougher than winning the lottery. Whether Barbaraannette will want him when he gets there is another question altogether.

To save a friend’s daughter from a bad marriage, Joe Crow confronts cultists, carnies, and cocaine wackos Poker-playing ex-cop Joe Crow has been dealt some rotten hands in his life, but he’s survived them all. When Axel Speeter starts begging for help, Crow suspects his luck is about to run out. A taco-dealing former poker pro, Speeter’s worried about his girlfriend’s daughter Carmen. She’s the sexiest trouble magnet the state of Omaha has ever seen, and she’s about to drag Crow down with her. Carmen has just gotten engaged to Hyatt Hilton, a onetime drug pusher who’s currently scratching out a living selling bootlegged Evian. Speeter wants Crow to make sure he’s staying on the straight-and-narrow. And it looks like Hilton’s involved in something much more dangerous than designer water. He’s about to cross the Amaranthine Church of the One—a New Age cult convinced that it’s found the secret to immortality, and doesn’t mind killing to prove it.

Desperate for cash, small town cop Joe Crow takes a security job that could cost him his life Joe Crow celebrates his thirty-third birthday in his patrol car, watching for speeders and sniffing fat lines of cocaine. A depressed cop with a faltering marriage, a rotten stomach, and an increasingly expensive drug habit, Crow is just looking for a drink and a poker game when he steps into Birdy’s. Instead, he meets a man who might be able to save his life—or destroy it. He first notices Dr. Nelson Bellwether when the liposuction expert has a chair smashed over his head. A surgeon with a big mouth, a gambler’s personality, and some serious debt to the IRS, he’s on his way to deep trouble, and he’s going to bring Crow along for the ride. Dr. Bellwether needs a bodyguard, and Crow is his man. Pretty soon, this small town cop will wish he had a bodyguard of his own.

Targeted by drug addicts, a carnival taco vendor must defend his fortune After years playing professional poker, Axel Speeter knows not to trust people. Retired from the table, this no-nonsense old salt makes ends meet by selling tacos at the Minnesota State Fair, and he’s got two things on his mind: developing a state-of-the-art burrito, and keeping an eye on the $260,000 he’s got squirreled away in coffee cans inside his room at the Motel 6. He’s so busy perfecting his Bueno Burrito that he doesn’t even notice when James Dean walks into the carnival. This James Dean isn’t famous, but he’s certainly wild. A drug addicted ex-con with a taste for mayhem, he’s got his eye on Speeter’s coffee cans, but quickly finds that the old hustler is not as brittle as your average taco shell. When a crook meets a carny, someone’s bound to get hurt.

After losing a poker hand to a sleazy stockbroker, an ex-cop must work to pay off his debt Before cocaine, Joe Crow had a wife and a job with the Big River Police Department. Now he has neither—and he’s left behind coke, too. Sober, quiet, and reflective, his only vice is poker. One night he gets into trouble, and winds up in debt to the drug-addled slimeball Dickie Wicky. As repayment, Crow agrees to do Dickie a favor. Dickie thinks his wife, a slender young thing called Catfish, is running around on him. He wants Crow to find her lover and pay him to leave her alone. But Catfish has charms and troubles of her own, and she will draw Crow into the underbelly of Minnesota—a world of drugs, murder, and the dangerous business of counterfeit comic books. This girl is one fish that Crow should have thrown back.

After thirteen-year-old Tucker Feye''s parents disappear, he suspects that the strange disks of shimmering air that he keeps seeing are somehow involved, and when he steps inside of one he is whisked on a time-twisting journey trailed by a shadowy sect of priests and haunted by ghostlike figures.

Originally published: New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2007.

National Book Award winning author Pete Hautman lets us in on the secret.Lita is the writer. Adam is the entrepreneur. They are JUST FRIENDS.So Adam would never sell copies of a self-help book before he''d even written it. And Lita would never try to break up Adam''s relationship with Blair, the skankiest girl at school. They''d never sabotage their friends Emily and Dennis. Lita would never date a guy related to a girl she can''t stand. They''d never steal each other''s blog posts. And Adam would never end up in a fist fight with Lita''s boyfriend. Nope, never.Adam and Lita might never agree on what happened, but in this hilarious story from Pete Hautman, they manage to give the world a little more insight into what boys and girls are really looking for.

A new and enigmatic student named Shayne appears at high school one day, befriends the smallest boy in the school, and takes on a notorious drug dealer before turning himself in to the police for killing someone.

Fifteen-year-old, suburban high school student Kelleigh, who has her learner''s permit, recounts how she began stealing cars one summer, for reasons that seem unclear even to her.

A funny, clear-eyed view of the realities of teenage love from National Book Award winner Pete Hautman. A funny, clear-eyed view of the realities of teenage love from National Book Award winner Pete Hautman.Jen and Wes do not "meet cute." They do not fall in love at first sight. They do not swoon with scorching desire. They do not believe that they are instant soul mates destined to be together forever. This is not that kind of love story.Instead, they just hang around in each other''s orbits...until eventually they collide. And even after that happens, they''re still not sure where it will go. Especially when Jen starts to pity-date one of Wes''s friends, and Wes makes some choices that he immediately regrets.From National Book Award winner Pete Hautman, this is a love story for people not particularly biased toward romance. But it is romantic, in the same way that truth can be romantic and uncertainty can be the biggest certainty of all...

Sixteen-year-old Lucy Szabo is Undead -- at least according to her own theories about vampirism. Lucy believes that the first vampires -- with their pale skin, long teeth, and uncontrollable thirst -- were dying diabetics. And she should know. She''s a diabetic herself. When Lucy becomes involved with Draco -- a self-proclaimed "real" vampire she meets in the Transylvania Internet chat room -- her world begins crashing down around her. Caught up in late-night parties and Goth culture, she begins to lose control of her grades, relationships, and health. Lucy realizes she needs to make some important choices, and fast. But it may already be too late.

Nick Fashon is having a bad day. He''s just found out his estranged grandfather has died mysteriously in the Arizona desert. Then he meets his potential father-in-law, who turns out to be an ex-cop with a screw loose and a penchant for bean dip. To top it off, he returns home to find his successful clothing shop has just burned to the ground and taken his upstairs apartment with it. Love & Fashion was Nick Fashon and Vince Love''s thriving clothing store until it went up in flames -- the work of an arsonist, police say. Suddenly Nick is homeless and disillusioned, and both the insurance investigators and the police want a word with him. Where can he turn for help? He''s wearing out his welcome with his archaeologist girlfriend, Gretchen, who''s developing her own suspicions about him. His business partner and best friend, Vince, isn''t much help either, as Nick discovers more and more disturbing clues that point to Vince as the one who set the blaze. Things begin to look up when Nick finds out his eccentric late grandfather has left him an unusual inheritance: a thriving pet-coffin business and a barn full of peculiar inventions, including one particularly interesting doohickey called the HandyMate. The HandyMate is the ultimate kitchen gadget -- a simple tool that can cut, core, chop, slice, and potentially transform the domestic world. Full of entrepreneurial zeal, Nick is determined to see one in every kitchen drawer in America. But Nick isn''t the only one planning to strike it rich with the HandyMate. Yola Fuentes, Nick''s grandfather''s irresistibly sexy business partner, is so determined to get the HandyMate that she makes Nick an offer he can''t refuse. And Robo Fuentes, her jealous ex-husband, has a bullet with Nick''s name on it if he takes her up on that offer. Nick quickly finds himself caught in a situation where a twisted thing of plastic might end up costing him his girlfriend, his self-respect -- and his life. With the help of a cast of colorful characters, master storyteller Pete Hautman delivers a stylish and funny mystery with more twists and turns than the HandyMate itself.

A teen develops a gambling addiction in this risk-heavy read—in trade paperback for the first time. Sixteen-year-old Denn Doyle’s troubles begin with a seemingly harmless—and extremely profitable—game of poker with some neighborhood kids. Eager to join the adult world, Denn realizes that casinos and poker are a means to do exactly that. His “hobby” progresses to a habit and then to an addiction that threatens relationships with his parents, girlfriend, and best friend. Hautman explores the escalation of Denn’s gambling without preachiness, dealing with his problem in a straightforward and knowledgeable manner.

In 2028, a deadly Flu virus ravages the earth. Only one in two thousand survive the virus, and these "Survivors" are rarely left unaffected. By 2038, only 38 million people remain on Earth. Most of them live in small communities, ever fearful of outsiders who might bring the deadly Flu. Ceej Kane lives with his uncle and his Survivor sister Harryette in an abandoned hotel on the rim of the Grand Canyon. His quiet, boring life suddenly becomes a desperate adventure when Uncle and Harryette disappear. Searching for them, Ceej and his only friend, Tim, are attacked by the Kinka, a renegade band of half-mad Survivors who spread the Flu to make more of their own. Worse yet, it appears that Harryette has joined them. Fleeing deep into the Canyon, a narrow land of ghosts and ancient secrets, Ceej and Tim meet Bella, a mysterious Hopi girl. She has been searching the canyon for the Sipapuni, a mystical portal that the Hopi believe leads to another world. Tim thinks Bella is crazy, but Ceej is not so sure. Maybe there is a way out of this Flu-ravaged world. But first they must find out what happened to Uncle, and they must save Harryette from the Kinka -- if she wants to be saved. As with his earlier novels, Mr. Was and Stone Cold, acclaimed author Pete Hautman pushes the boundaries of young adult fiction. Combining action, science fiction, and spirituality, Hole in the Sky is the rarest of novels: a thrilling page-turner that will make you think.

"Why mess around with Catholicism when you can have your own customized religion?" Fed up with his parents'' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god -- the town''s water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-as-a-button (whatever that means) Magda Price, and the violent and unpredictable Henry Stagg. As their religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. While Jason struggles to keep the faith pure, Shin obsesses over writing their bible, and the explosive Henry schemes to make the new faith even more exciting -- and dangerous. When the Chutengodians hold their first ceremony high atop the dome of the water tower, things quickly go from merely dangerous to terrifying and deadly. Jason soon realizes that inventing a religion is a lot easier than controlling it, but control it he must, before his creation destroys both his friends and himself.

Brian and Roni are looking for another case to crack when Roni finds an age-progressed picture of a boy who looks alarmingly like Brian on a missing children website. Brian is sure it is only a coincidence?after all, he?s lived happily with his adoptive parents for as long as he can remember. But then again, his parents have never really told him about his adoption . . . Could there be more to his family history than he knows? As Roni and Brian piece together the clues, other people emerge from the shadows of the past and suddenly Brian isn?t just a detective on the case?he?s the key to a mystery that everyone is after. Can he and Roni uncover the truth before it?s too late? Featuring the strong plotting and offbeat humor that won the Bloodwater Mysteries a prestigious Edgar nomination, Doppelganger is full of twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the very end.

High school newspaper reporter Roni finds an age-progressed photograph on a missing children''s website of a boy that looks just like her sidekick Brian, throwing the pair into an investigation of Brian''s past and family heritage.

In this futuristic satire--a "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year--by a National Book Award winner, a teen is sent to work at a pizza factory in the Canadian tundra after being accused of causing a rash that plagues his school.

National Book Award winner Pete Hautman delivers a fast-paced mystery set in the torrid, unforgiving Southwestern desert, where the stakes are sky high and all bets are off. Peeky Kane is a prop player at an Arizona casino owned by the Santa Cruz tribe. Her job is to play poker. She makes a handsome living off the suckers who populate the card room. Life is sweet. But something''s not right at Casino Santa Cruz. When Peeky inadvertently finds herself in a fixed game and comes away a couple thousand dollars richer, she finds herself drawn unwittingly toward the dark side of professional poker. Peeky has always thought of herself as a straight shooter, but now things aren''t so clear. And they''re about to get a lot murkier. When a band of clown-masked robbers makes off with millions of the casino''s dollars and leaves behind four corpses, Peeky recognizes one of the robbers as a casino employee, and fears that one of her closest loved ones might also be involved. That same day, Peeky''s son-in-law turns up to tell her that Jaymie, her beloved daughter, has been stealing money from Peeky for years to feed a crack habit. Numb from these revelations, Peeky is compelled to action by an unlikely source when the most powerful member of the Santa Cruz tribe calls upon her to help him save his troubled casino. Peeky must draw on her years of reading poker faces and playing the odds to save the casino, her daughter, and herself.