The Way Back from Broken
Rakmen Cannon’s life is turning out to be one sucker punch after another. His baby sister died in his arms, his parents are on the verge of divorce, and he’s flunking out of high school. The only place he fits in is with the other art therapy kids stuck in the basement of Promise House, otherwise known as support group central. Not that he wants to be there. Talking doesn’t bring back the dead.
When he’s shipped off to the Canadian wilderness with ten-year-old Jacey, another member of the support group, and her mom, his summer goes from bad to worse. He can’t imagine how eight weeks of canoeing and camping could be anything but awful.
Yet despite his expectations, the vast and unforgiving backcountry just might give Rakmen a chance to find the way back from broken . . . if he’s brave enough to grab it.
About Amber J. Keyser (Bend, Oregon Author)
Amber J. Keyser is an evolutionary biologist-turned-writer, who loves stories about heroes, scientists, and adventurers. She grew up in Oregon backpacking, fishing, and white-water rafting. Now she lives on the dry side of the mountains with her husband, two kids, and dog that looks like a muppet. Every summer she returns to a cabin in Canada that was built by her grandmother, Ontario's first licensed, female canoe guide. If she had a choice, she would travel everywhere by canoe or on horseback.
Some of Amber’s forthcoming and recent books include Pointe, Claw (Carolrhoda Lab, 2017), a novel about claiming the territory of the body; The V-Word (Beyond Words, 2016), an anthology of personal essays by women about first time sexual experiences; and Sneaker Century: A History of Athletic Shoes (Twenty-First Century Books, 2015). She is the co-author with Kiersi Burkhart of the middle grade series Quartz Creek Ranch (Darby Creek, 2017).
