Poverty Fiction

But the weather-beaten sailboat Chance Taylor and his father call home is thirty years old and hasn’t sailed in years. One step from both homelessness and hunger, Chance worries about things other kids his age never give a thought: Where will the money come for the electricity bill, grocery bill, and moorage fees? So when a new job falls his way, he jumps at the opportunity. He knows how much he will earn; what he doesn’t know is how much he will pay.

Best friends Ray and Jose are not your typical teenagers. They've escaped foster care and juvenile detention centers to live on their own together in an abandoned stationhouse in New York City's Ten Mile River Park. Ray and Jose are as close as brothers. But then they meet Trini, the smart, beautiful, and confident girl from their local barber shop, and they both fall for her immediately. As tension creeps into their relationship, Ray must struggle to find an identity separate from Jose and try to envision a future for himself beyond Jose and Ten Mile River.

Piper’s life is turned upside down when her family moves into a shelter in a whole new city. She misses her house, her friends, and her privacy - and she hates being labeled the homeless girl at her new school. But while Hope House offers her new challenges, it also brings new friendships, like the girls in Firefly Girls Troop 423 and a sweet street dog named Baby. So when Baby’s person goes missing, Piper knows she has to help.

Worn out by poverty, Lettie Radley and her miner husband Tommy grasp at the offer of their very own smallholding - part of a Government scheme to put the unemployed back to work on the land. When she comes down to Essex to join him, it's not Tommy who greets her, but their new neighbours. Overbearing and unkempt, Jean and Adam Dell are everything that Lettie can't abide. But as Lettie settles in, she finds an unexpected joy in the rhythms of life. She's hopeful that her past, and the terrible secret Tommy has come to Foxash to escape, are far behind them. But the Dells have their own secrets.

Floss's parents are divorced, and she divides up her week, spending five days with her mum, her new step-dad and her baby half-brother. The other two days Floss spends with her dad, helping him to run his greasy spoon cafe. But their simple arrangement is thrown into disarray when Floss's mum decides to move to Australia. Making the difficult decision to stay at home, Floss moves in permanently with her dad and they muddle along happily together, surviving on chip butties and enjoying visits to the local funfair.

Travis’s Tacey’s mother has had an accident, a bad one, and the family is falling apart. His father, lost in a haze of grief, has focused his anger and guilt on his oldest son. Which is why, at age 14, Travis finds himself out of a home and on the road in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains. With no more than a few dollars, a change of clothes, and his great-great-great grandfather’s guitar, Travis wonders how he is going to survive.

School is out for the summer, but not for 18-year-old Michael and 17-year-old Shelly. The pair of them meet while serving court-ordered community service, and both are driven by secrets and lies.

Anya Anderson doesn't just need a big break, she needs any break. Living on the streets doesn't leave a girl many options, so when she scores a gig reporting on the Seconds to Juliet tour, she jumps at the chance to earn enough money to sleep somewhere safe. And the paycheck will get bigger—and keep her off the streets for good—if she can dig up dirt on Will Fray, the irritatingly hot "shy guy" of the band.

On a night of wild storms, two troubled figures escape from captivity. One is a 15-year-old boy, Samuel Miles, a.k.a. "Smiler", wrongly convicted of theft and sent to a young offenders institution. The other is a cheetah, Yarra, a restless resident of Longleat Wildlife Park. Both are in danger from the outside world—and each other—but somehow their lives become inextricably bound up as they fight for survival on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

Danny gets a terrible start in life and runs away from his drunken father when he thrashes him to within an inch of his life. But life on the streets is no better, and he falls into the clutches of evil men, finding that being big and strong for his age is no protection from the people who want to do him harm. Help comes in the form of Constable Jones, who is determined to help out the children who need it, and new friends Ron and Cassie, who are also runaways. Can Danny’s dream of a loving home ever be a reality?

Jonny has had a bad start in life and has been taken in by a neighbour after the death of his mother. Small for his age, he is prey to a band of local thugs, so he joins the boxing club and learns to defend himself. When a violent altercation ends in tragedy, Jonny runs away and meets a homeless young girl called Cassie, who has been living in an abandoned house - touched by her predicament, Jonny vows to look after her, whatever that takes. Cassie desperately needs love and a safe place to call home, and there are kind hearts who want to help.

Nikki Black finds herself homeless and wandering the streets of Los Angeles, when she begins to uncover a sinister cover-up that endangers herself and others.

Some battles cannot be won. The time has come to fight. There are no allies left. There is nothing but flames ahead. The end has arrived. Prepare for the final installment in the Ena of Ilbrea series.

Ancient magic lurks in the shadows. The Black Bloods’ home is more magnificent than Ena imagined, and more perilous than the life she fled. The time has come for the Black Bloods to unite against the Guilds, but loyalties born in blood will be tested by fire. And not everyone she loves will survive the flames. As murder and malice surround her, Ena must prove her innocence or risk a fate worse than death. Facing her enemies will test every friendship she has and risk the heart she has won.

Leo's running from her past. Finlay's running into trouble. Together, they stumble into a crazy new world of secrets, lies and Chinese food. But someone is on Leo's trail. With Finlay's help, can she escape her pursuer and find what she is desperately searching for? Don't tread on the cracks. If you tread on a crack, it could be him.

When 13-year-old Eric Parrish comes across glowing mushrooms in the woods behind his house, he's sure there's a scientific explanation. But when they start encroaching on the town - covering the football field and popping up from beneath the floorboards - Eric knows something's seriously wrong. Not that much else is going right.... Then a runaway girl from a nearby boarding school warns Eric that the fungus could portend doom.

Emily, Simon und Marcus erkunden eine alte Burg im tiefsten Winter. Obwohl Emily und Simon wenig über den enigmatischen Marcus wissen, steckt seine Begeisterung für die Festung sie an.

Twelve-year-old Olivia Hales has a foolproof plan for winning a million dollars so that she and her little sister, Berkeley, can leave behind Sunny Pines Trailer Park. But first she has to: Fix the swamp cooler and make dinner and put Berkeley to bed because her mom is too busy to do all that. Write another letter to her dad even though he hasn't written back yet. Teach Berk the important stuff, like how to make chalk drawings, because they can't afford day care and Olivia has to stay home from school to watch her.

In the city of Lovecraft, the Proctors rule and a great Engine turns below the streets, grinding any resistance to their order to dust. The necrovirus is blamed for Lovecraft's epidemic of madness, for the strange and eldritch creatures that roam the streets after dark, and for everything that the city leaders deem Heretical—born of the belief in magic and witchcraft. And for Aoife Grayson, her time is growing shorter by the day.

Otello is South America’s star soccer player and has just signed a deal to play for a team in the southern part of his country, a region with a history of racism toward black northerners like Otello. Desmerelda is a white pop star and the daughter of a right-wing politician. Their sudden and controversial marriage propels them to center stage, where they burn under the media spotlight. But celebrity attracts enemies -  some very close to home. When a young girl is found murdered, Paul Faustino, veteran soccer reporter for La Nación, witnesses the power of the media in making - and breaking -  lives.