Books with author DavidPatneaude

Fifteen-year-old Bobby Hastings witnesses an atomic explosion near a top secret New Mexico army base in July of 1945. Terrified, he soon heads off on his bike for home, only to encounter something that rivals the blast for drama. A girl his age stands naked at the side of the lonely desert road: underweight, unwell, and speaking with a German accent. In the coming days, she unveils an impossible story about time travel and a heartbreaking outcome of the war. She begs people to believe her warning and prevent the awful future she claims to know too well. But even if they do believe her, and the story is true, the biggest question remains: can history be undone?

In this collection of ten stories—mostly new but also newly told—David Patneaude explores the in-between, the spaces and places and people and remnants of people that we instinctively know (and sometimes fear) are there. Somewhere. Not far away.A predawn shadow moving through a fallow field. The chill of bigotry in a human heart. A clown whose mission transcends laughter. Two damaged individuals coming together to create something beyond whole, something magical. Innocent victims of a neglected planet. Bigger-than-life characters who won’t take death lying down. Evil on the wing. Extraordinary wisdom from an old soul in a young body. A gruff but lovable superhero who evokes smiles while saving the day.“Things aren’t always what they seem,” Mrs. Caruso said. “Not what they seem at all. Sometimes they’re better.”Or spookier. Or braver. Or sadder. Or funnier. Or more enlightening. Or miraculous. Because every reader—young and not-so-young—is an individual, it’s difficult to say what emotions these stories will trigger. One of them may be uneasiness. But that can be a good thing.

2097 is a transformed world. Thirty years earlier, a mysterious plague wiped out 97 percent of the male population, devastating every world system from governments to sports teams, and causing both universal and unimaginable grief. In the face of such massive despair, women were forced to take over control of the planet--and in doing so they eliminated all of Earth's most pressing issues. Poverty, crime, warfare, hunger . . . all gone. But there's a price to pay for this new "utopia," which fourteen-year-old Kellen is all too familiar with. Every day, he deals with life as part of a tiny minority that is purposefully kept subservient and small in numbers. His career choices and relationship options are severely limited and controlled. He also lives under the threat of scattered recurrences of the plague, which seem to pop up wherever small pockets of men begin to regroup and grow in numbers. And then one day, his mother's boss, an iconic political figure, shows up at his home. Kellen overhears something he shouldn't--another outbreak seems to be headed for Afterlight, the rural community where his father and a small group of men live separately from the female-dominated society. Along with a few other suspicious events, like the mysterious disappearances of Kellen's progressive teacher and his Aunt Paige, Kellen is starting to wonder whether the plague recurrences are even accidental. No matter what the truth is, Kellen cares only about one thing--he has to save his father.