Gateway Reviews

LOCKJAW He was raised on a playing-card-spoked bike, where people looked away. Away from the names on the playground, away from the kids walking into graves, or else shoved into them. Paz Espino knows there's something wrong with this town. She's always known it, but what happened to Chuck Warren just proves it. Sure, the cops said it was just a tragic accident, but Paz knows better. There's a monster in the old mill. There's a monster stalking this town. And if nobody else will take her seriously, well, she and her friends will have to be the ones to root it out and get rid of this evil for good. When Asher drifts into town, he's just looking for a place to call his own. A place that doesn't know him. A place that will give him a chance, with his new name and his new look and his scruffy dog. This town doesn't want to be that place, but Asher's willing to do what it takes to force his way in anyway. But with a monster stalk

RIOT ACT Max Bowl is dead. He's pretty damn aware of that fact, too. It isn't exactly his choice to be hanging around the world of the living after the fact, but it wasn't his choice to die in the first place, either. He's got the new U.S. government to thank for that. Stuck following his best friend around like an unseen shadow, Max can't help but want to warn her. There are more secrets at play than Gigi realizes, and nobody's safe. Max's death speaks to that. But no matter how hard he tries, Gigi can't hear Max's warnings--and she's got plans of her own. Gigi's a theatre kid at heart. They all are (were), and they've gotten in trouble before for putting on now-banned plays--plays that push a little too hard at the new authoritarian government in place. But it's 1991, her best friend is dead, and Gigi is running out of things to lose. What's a little rebellion gonna cost her, right?

EIGHTEEN ROSES Lucia Cruz isn't the debutante type. Plus she doesn't exactly have the friends for a traditional Filipino debut anyway. She'd need at least eighteen of those to fill out her posse, and she's got exactly one. And she doesn't want more than that. When an argument sparks between Luz and her best friend, Luz's grand total of friends goes to exactly zero. And on top of that, Luz finds out that her mom has planned a debutante ball behind her back. One that Luz can't exactly back out of, considering her grandma will be flying in all the way from the Philippines to attend. Forced to cobble together a court of eighteen "friends" on short notice, Luz can't exactly stay in her comfort zone. And branching out might mean the unthinkable: participating in an after-school club. And joining a club means finding something Luz is good at. Which isn't exactly an easy task.

NEAR MISSES & COWBOY KISSES Riley Thomas doesn't want to be here. A weeklong Oregon Trail excursion with her family is not her ideal summer vacation. And knowing that she'll have to stay in Nebraska even when the week is done, since her parents decided to uproot the family when the school year finished up? Well, it's definitely not the senior year she had in mind, either. Plus the airline lost her luggage, so she'll be spending the week in rural gas station clothes--yippee. Colton Walker, on the other hand, is no stranger to long treks into the Great Plains. His family runs guided tours, pioneer wagons and all, every summer. Colton tolerates the tourists. But there's nothing better than a night out alone under the stars, just him and his horse. So when he runs into Riley Thomas the day before they're set to head out on the trail, he isn't impressed. He knows a prairie princess when he sees one--California tourist g