Ghost Medicine

by Andrew Smith

Genres: Young Adult

Synopsis

The summer before Troy Stotts turns seventeen, his mother dies. Troy and his father barely speak, mostly communicating instead by writing notes on a legal pad by the phone. Troy spends most of his time with his closest friends: Tom Buller, brash and fearless, the son of a drunk; Gabe Benavidez, smart enough to know he'll never take over the family ranch; and Gabe's sister Luz, whose family overprotects her, and who Troy has loved since they were children.

Troy and his friends don't want trouble. They want this to be the summer of what Troy calls "ghost medicine," when time seems to stop, so they won't have to face the past, or the future. But before the summer is over, their paths will cross with people in dangerous and fateful ways.

Troy and his friends want to be invisible. Instead, they will become what they least expect-brothers, lovers, heroes, and ghosts.

Release date: September 2, 2008

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Print pages: 368

Sample

I can see myself lying in the dirt, on my back, on a warm, starry night, with my feet up on those rocks, ringing a swirling and noisy fire, listening, laughing, seeing the sparks that corkscrew, spinning above me into the black like dying stars, fading, disappearing, becoming something else; my hat back on my head so I can just see my friends from the corners of my eyes. I can feel the warmth of the dirt in my hair, smell the smoke, hear the horses' hooves as they move restlessly in the humid summer dark. And I can close my eyes and see the conjuring, electrified, and vaporous shapes of the granite mountains, those two fingers; parting the wind, luring the thunder in that time of year.