The Noah Confessions - Hardcover

Barbara Hall is the author of seven novels and has written and produced numerous television shows including Northern Exposure, Chicago Hope, and Judging Amy. She created the Emmy-nominated series Joan of Arcadia. She lives in Santa Monica, California, with her daughter, Faith.

Grade 8 Up—For her 16th birthday, Lynnie expects a car, which is what every girl at her Los Angeles private school gets for that birthday. Instead, she receives something puzzling, though of much greater importance: a charm bracelet that belonged to her deceased mother. Later that day, she ditches school to learn how to surf, and her dad, feeling she is becoming arrogant, gives her a long letter from her mother to a boy called Noah. The teen begins to read about her family's past and learns why she never met her grandparents. Readers will want to find out what is in the letter, but Lynnie keeps putting it down to go about her life. But she soon gets swept up in her mother's secrets and begins to doubt her own future. To prove that she can be as brave as her mom, she goes surfing during a big swell and almost drowns, and the experience leads her to move on, closer to her father and with a new boyfriend. This novel will grab readers' attention with the promise of mysterious revelations by Lynnie's mother, who was a victim of crimes not her own. A solid story, told from three different points of view, that teaches about self-examination and the ability to move away from the past.—Corinda J. Humphrey, Los Angeles Public Library
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