Fifteen-year-old Aura Ambrose has been hiding a secret. Her mother, a talented artist and art teacher, is slowly being consumed by schizophrenia, and Aura has been her sole caretaker ever since Aura’s dad left them. Convinced that “creative” equals crazy, Aura shuns her own artistic talent. But as her mother sinks deeper into the darkness of mental illness, the hunger for a creative outlet draws Aura toward the depths of her imagination. Just as desperation threatens to swallow her whole, Aura discovers that art, love, and family are profoundly linked—and together may offer an escape from her fears.

A Blue So Dark Excerpt

A Blue So Dark Discussion Questions

Playing Hurt centers on two former athletes: Chelsea Keyes, a basketball star whose promising career has been catastrophically snipped short by a horrific accident on the court, and Clint Morgan, an ex-hockey player who gave up his much-loved sport following his own game-related tragedy.

Chelsea meets Clint (who’s working as a resort fishing guide) soon after arriving with her family for a summer vacation in Lake of the Woods, Minnesota. Sparks fly, igniting the pages, even though Chelsea has a boyfriend back home in Missouri… and even though Clint has sworn never to put himself in the position to be hurt emotionally again.

Their unlikely romance has the potential to heal their heartache and force Chelsea and Clint to realize just how timidly they’ve been living-but are they really ready to give themselves completely to one another? How will the weeks spent in another man’s arms play into Chelsea’s feelings for her boyfriend when she returns home? Will Clint allow himself to fall for a woman who’s bound to leave him at the end of her summer vacation? By playing hurt-entering into a  romance with already-broken hearts-are they just setting themselves up for the kind of injury from which they could never recover? Will Chelsea and Clint pull away from each other before they have a chance to find out just how beautiful their story could be?

Laugh-out-loud humor and quirky, lovable characters fill the pages of this modern-day fairy tale in which dogs, not dragons, rule the land.

Desperate to make her own way in New York City, Ma Barker, a “mutt” from Queens (who’s nothing at all like the tough gangster nickname her father bestowed on her) begins working for an unruly, spoiled Upper East Side Pekingese…only to learn that Innis, the Peke, belongs to the pedigreed Jason Mead, a young veterinarian and breeder of AKC dog show champions.

The needle on Ma’s Esteem-O-Meter shows that the tank is bone dry…so how can Jason convince her that she has the talent to become a professional dog show handler?  Can Petal Stevens, Ma’s health-fanatical roommate, tame Ma’s mangy appearance to fit AKC breed standards?  Will four overly-protective Barker brothers and a successful wedding planner (with her china pattern picked out and her eye on Jason) allow the relationship between Ma and Jason to blossom? 

…Will Ma ever allow herself to believe that she could be in a show ring, competing against blue bloods?

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