Publishers Marketplace: Joanne Levy

Street Wise (YA)

The most important things in Tasha Levinson’s life are her boyfriend, her upcoming trip to France with her best friend, being popular at Oakwood High and being thin and fabulous, although maybe not in that order.
But then her father suddenly dies, leaving Tasha and her mother with less than nothing, thanks to the credit crunch and a secret gambling addiction. Priorities suddenly change for Tasha who quickly realizes her mother is coming undone, spiraling down into a morass of grief and alcoholism. Naïve, broke, heartbroken and suddenly alone, Tasha ends up on the street with nothing but the clothes on her back and her determination to survive. Desperate, she enlists the help of an unlikely savior: a street-wise boy with terrible secrets of his own. Exposed to violence, poverty and hunger, it is on the street that Tasha learns the real meanings of the words survival, trust and love.

Street Wise is a gritty, poignant story about loss, strength and the endurance of the human spirit.

Street Wise Trailer

Rule of Nines (YA)
Sydney Levine is tired of being a nerdy junior whose idea of a good time is doing crossword puzzles and studying hard to get good grades. Determined to start living spontaneously, she decides to act on every Word of the Day e-mail that arrives in her inbox.

No matter what.

After a few stupid pranks, the word misanthrope brings her to Aidan MacKenna, the most mysterious guy in school. Not only is Aidan disfigured, scarred from burns he suffered in a fire, but he’s antisocial, with no friends at all and a demeanor that makes the guy in Saw seem like Mr. Rogers. Plus, many of the whispers at Somerset High say he was responsible for the fire that burned him and killed his sister and mother.
But now Sydney’s stuck with him as her partner for a term project.
Sydney doesn’t know what to believe about the rumors swirling around Aidan, but then suspicious fires start popping up in her town. As the fires get close to home and the police start looking for a serial arsonist, her suddenly not-so-boring life goes up in flames.

Rule of Nines Trailer

Legs - The Mermaid Chronicles Book 1 (YA)
Morven is looking to escape her destiny: getting engaged on her sixteenth birthday to the merman of her father’s choosing. Anti-love and anti-marriage, Morven craves seeing the land of humans before she is forced to accept her fate.

Matthew is just looking to survive high school. Bullied and virtually friendless, he can only find solace in the sea: visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium, caring for his own saltwater tank, and scuba diving on weekends. The two meet when Morven saves his life, disentangling him from a dense kelp forest. But they are literally worlds apart, their every minute together counted by Matthew’s dive computer. Determined to get to the surface to follow Matthew, Morven befriends a marine geneticist who lives in a research pod under the sea. When he’s not looking, she steals his secret formula that will enable her to transform into a human.

But only for eight days.

Just long enough to fall in love.

Misplaced(YA)

Pop Quiz: Hannah Goldberg is stressing out because:
A. She just moved to a new school where she knows exactly zero people
B. She looks Chinese but doesn’t fit in with the Chinese kids
C. She’s Jewish but doesn’t look like any of the Jewish kids
D. Her boyfriend dumped her because he doesn’t believe in long distance relationships
E. All of the above.

Answer: E

Hannah Goldberg is not your normal Jewish teenager, but she desperately wants to be. After moving from Toronto to a new town and being plunged into a new school where no one knows that she was adopted from an orphanage in China into a religious Jewish family, Hannah finds herself knee deep in an identity crisis. Where does she fit in? Who is she and what does she stand for? And how does her religion fit into everything?

At 54,000 words, Misplaced is a story about fitting in, and more importantly, fitting into your own skin.

Closets are for Clothes (YA)
Jessica Daniels is almost sixteen and has never been kissed. Her best friend Monica takes it upon herself to make sure Jessica gets her first kiss before her sixteenth birthday and even lines up the school hottie, Dave Harper to do the deed. The problem is, Jessica's not sure she wants her first kiss to be with a boy.

Jessica faces all kinds of upheaval when she finally admits the truth to herself and those she loves. She realizes quickly her greatest fear has come true; none of her relationships will ever be the same. With the help of Dave Harper and his two dads(!), she realizes that being gay does not mean you're a freak destined to live a life on the fringes of society.

Closets are for Clothes deals with the subject of being a gay teen with warmth and humor, providing the reader with a little guidance and the assurance that even though coming out can be the scariest experience in the world, you don't have to do it alone. This is a story not only about being gay, but about endurance, strength and the importance of being true to yourself.