Published by SPARKPR on May 10th 2016
Genres: Coming of Age, Fiction, General, Historical, Romance
Pages: 282
Format: Paperback
Goodreads
They say that right before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. But what they don t say is that the same thing can happen when your soul mate is dying. After spending most of her 17 years being shuffled between families that don t want her, Bless Adler has no intention of opening her heart to anyone. And then she falls in love with Liam Reid. The closer Bless lets Liam get, the more fearful she becomes. Then her new friend, Maylee, convinces her to go see a local psychic and the woman s glimpse into the future is anything but reassuring: Bless s absent father, drunk and bitter. A frantic crowd gathered at the beach. Liam lying in a pool of blood, a gun at his side. Now Bless has 14 blocks to reach Liam on the shores of Lake Michigan. If he s still alive, she’ll beg for him to fight for his life. If he’s not, she’ll say goodbye to the first person who made her want to fight for her own. Edgy, intense, and emotional, Running for Water and Sky is a story of the elation and angst that comes with love, and the challenge of learning to trust when betrayal is all you’ve ever known.
Every now and again, I’ll catch myself reading a book labeled “YA” because I’m just curious what the “young adults” are actually reading these days. Today’s review is on a book with that label entitled Running for Water and Sky by Sandra Kring.
I had never heard of Sandra Kring, but that means nothing! When I looked her up, I see she’s got books published as far back as 2004 so I must have had my eyes shut when I walked down the “K” author aisle in the book store! It looks like Running for Water and Sky is Ms. Kring’s first young adult attempt, and I was pretty impressed.
When I read the description, I thought it was a little predictable sounding, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see that it was actually a pretty good “coming of age” story.
Her name is actually Bless – Bless Adler, and she’s 17. She’s been abused and shuffled and unloved for so long that just didn’t want her and she has closed her heart to love. Bless lives with her horrible grandparents in Nebraska after her mother dies. Her down-on-his-luck father shows up and takes her to live with his family in Wisconsin.
At school, Bless becomes friends with Maylee, while at the same time, she falls in love with Liam Reid, a new student in town. Maylee convinces Bless to go to a local psychic who tells her a bunch of bad news – the psychic sees a frantic crowd gathered at the beach with Liam lying in a pool of blood with a gun at his side.
Everyone knows I don’t write spoilers, so you’ll just have to read the book to see what happens with this storyline. Trust me when I tell you the plot moves right along and the characters keep you on your toes. While some characters are predictable, others keep you wanting to read more. If you have a young adult in your life, this is a book you’ll want to pick up for them to read. You may catch yourself reading it too! I’m pretty sure I’ll be going back to read some of Sandra Kring’s other books since I really did enjoy her writing style.
She lives in Northern Wisconsin with her high school sweetheart; they have three grown children. Writing is her greatest passion, but she also loves reading, music, and movies. Running for Water and Sky is her first YA novel.
I received a complimentary paperback copy of this book from the publishers and BookSparks as part of the 2016 Young Adult Summer Reading Challenge #YASummerReads in exchange for this post, which is my honest review and unbiased opinion.
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