Knockout Games is set in modern day St. Louis amidst a disturbing rash of seemingly random attacks on bystanders by a group of urban teenagers in a crew called the TKO club. The protagonist, Erica, is one of a few girls who is down with TKO in part due to her natural skill with a video camera and her ability to make art out of the attacks.

PMW–Perfect Monster Wave. It could be the answer to all Logan’s problems. He could ride it and figure out what to do about his deadbeat dad, who turned out to be a major loser. He could figure out how to help his mom out of the financial jam his dad put her in. He could decide whether going to college and forsaking the wave and the surfer’s life are really what he wants to do. He could even forgive his former best friend, Fin, for being the greatest surfer Hermosa Beach has ever seen. The Perfect Monster Wave. But when it comes, Logan doesn’t expect to see Fin riding it. He also doesn’t expect Fin to die riding it. Logan didn’t even know anyone his age could die. Suddenly his world is in a tailspin, but his faithful bud, Z-boy, may have the answer for Logan–a summer job muling illegal cargo cross-country.  

While Logan knows it’s not the smartest thing to do, it does seem like the only thing to do. A road trip could be just what he needs to clear his head and make some quick cash. But with Z-boy’s constant screwups, a band of Nazi surfers out for blood and a mysterious stranger on their tail, Logan is starting to have some serious doubts about this summer job, and wonders if he’ll even make it home alive.  

Long before they became famous writers, Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) and Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) were childhood friends in Monroeville, Alabama. This fictionalized account of their time together opens at the beginning of the Great Depression, when Tru is seven and Nelle is six. They love playing pirates, but they like playing Sherlock and Watson-style detectives even more. It’s their pursuit of a case of drugstore theft that lands the daring duo in real trouble. Humor and heartache intermingle in this lively look at two budding writers in the 1930s South.