Books by Brian Shawver

Aftermath

by Terri Blackstock, Kelley Armstrong, Brian Shawver, Joel Meyerowitz, LeVar Burton

Aftermath is set in East Breed’s, Pennsylvania, a blue-collar town that simmers with barely concealed prejudices and unspoken rules. One Friday night in the parking lot of a chain restaurant, class tension erupts in a brutal fight between the privileged boys from St. Brendan’s and a group of kids from the local high school. Casey Fielder, the restaurant’s manager, watches the melee but does nothing to stop it. When the fight ends, Colin Chase, a handsome, cocky student at St. Brendan’s, is left severely brain-damaged.

In a compelling and at times heartbreaking narrative, Brian Shawver portrays the lasting effects of one night. Casey, ostracized by his unforgivable behavior, loses his job and dedicates himself to investigating the causes of the fight, hoping that his discoveries will provide some justification for his failure to act. For Lea, Colin’s mother, the incident ironically offers a way to reclaim the defiant, arrogant son she hardly knew and could barely love. Although she hopes that the guilty boy will be found and punished, Lea can’t escape the feeling that Colin somehow brought the horror upon himself. As she looks for clues that will help her understand him, she discovers his apparent devotion to a young woman named Jenny, and she seizes on this relationship as the key that will finally allow her to love her son unconditionally.

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Aftermath

by Terri Blackstock, Kelley Armstrong, Brian Shawver, Joel Meyerowitz, LeVar Burton

Secrets don't remain hidden for long in this thrilling read from a #1 New York Times bestselling author that's perfect for fans of Adam Silvera's More Happy Than Not and Barry Lyga's Bang.

Three years after losing her brother Luka in a school shooting, Skye Gilchrist is moving home. But there's no sympathy for Skye and her family because Luka wasn't a victim; he was a shooter.

Jesse Mandal knows all too well that the scars of the past don't heal easily. The shooting cost Jesse his brother and his best friend--Skye.

Ripped apart by tragedy, Jesse and Skye can't resist reopening the mysteries of their past. But old wounds hide darker secrets. And the closer Skye and Jesse get to the truth of what happened that day, the closer they get to a new killer.

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Aftermath

by Terri Blackstock, Kelley Armstrong, Brian Shawver, Joel Meyerowitz, LeVar Burton

This archive of pictures is the only existing photographic record of Ground Zero after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001. Fenced off and classified as a crime scene, the area was closed to all photographers, and only scant information was available about the activities in the guarded enclosure that became known as "the forbidden city." Through sheer persistence involving almost daily acts of resourcefulness and defiance, Joel Meyerowitz became the sole photographer to have continued access to the site and describe its transformation over the next nine months from a place of total devastation to cleared bedrock.
Published to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, this book serves not only as an elegy to the thousands who lost their lives, but also celebrates the tireless effort and bravery of the thousands of police officers, fire fighters, construction workers, engineers, and volunteers who assisted in the clean-up process.

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Aftermath

by Terri Blackstock, Kelley Armstrong, Brian Shawver, Joel Meyerowitz, LeVar Burton

The acclaimed actor’s shockingly prescient novel of speculative fiction “presents a near-future United States torn apart by civil war and deep racial strife” (Tampa Bay Times).

America today is teetering on the edge of the alarming vision presented in LeVar Burton’s debut novel, written more than two decades ago . . .

In 2012, the first African American president is assassinated by a white extremist—just four days after he is elected. The horrific tragedy leads to riots, financial collapse, and ultimately, a full-on civil war. In its aftermath, millions are left homeless as famine and disease spread throughout the country.

But from Chicago, a mysterious voice cries out . . .

To Leon Crane, a former NASA scientist now struggling to survive on the streets, the pleas he hears remind him of the wife he could not save—and offer him a chance at redemption.
To Jacob Fire Cloud, a revered Lakota medicine man, the voice is a sign that the White Buffalo Woman has returned to unite all the races in peace and prosperity.
And to little Amy Ladue, the cries are those of her mother, who disappeared during the devastating St. Louis earthquake—and who must still be alive.

These three strangers will be drawn together to rescue someone they have never met, a woman who holds the key to a new future for humanity—one remarkably brimming with hope.

“LeVar Burton brings a strong new voice to science fiction with this powerful, even disturbing, novel.” —Ben Bova, New York Times–bestselling author

“An amazingly good first novel.” —Rocky Mountain News

“I highly recommend this book!” —Whoopi Goldberg

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Aftermath

by Terri Blackstock, Kelley Armstrong, Brian Shawver, Joel Meyerowitz, LeVar Burton

This gripping new thriller will leave you on the edge of your seat.
A devastating explosion.
Three best friends attend a concert. Only one makes it out alive.
A trunk full of evidence.
When police stop Dustin Webb with a warrant to search his trunk, he knows there’s been a mistake. He’s former military and owns a security firm. But he’s horrified when the officers find explosives, and he can’t fathom how they got there.
An attorney who will risk it all for an old friend.
Criminal attorney Jamie Powell was Dustin’s best friend growing up. They haven’t spoken since he left for basic training, but she’s the first person he thinks of when he’s arrested. Jamie knows she’s putting her career on the line by defending an accused terrorist, but she’d never abandon him. Someone is framing Dustin to take the fall for shocking acts of violence . . . but why?
Praise for Aftermath:
“In Aftermath, Terri Blackstock plumbs the depth of human emotion in the face of devastating tragedy, grief, and loss. Yet, she still manages to give readers her trademark suspenseful story, sweet romance, and hope for the future. From gut-wrenching scenes in a cancer patient’s hospital room to seeing the world through the eyes of a young woman with a debilitating mental health disorder, Blackstock pulls no punches about human frailties. Does the end justify the means? Romantic suspense lovers won’t want to miss Aftermath.” —Kelly Irvin, bestselling author Stand-alone mystery and suspense thriller Book length: 72,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs Other suspense novels by Terri Blackstock: If I Run, If I’m Found, If I Live, Smoke Screen, Cape Refuge, and Truth-Stained Lies

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The Language of Fiction: A Writer’s Stylebook

by Brian Shawver

Grand themes and complex plots are just the beginning of a great piece of fiction. Mastering the nuts and bolts of grammar and prose mechanics is also an essential part of becoming a literary artist. This indispensable guide, created just for writers of fiction, will show you how to take your writing to the next level by exploring the finer points of language. Funny, readable, and wise, this book explores the tools of the fiction writer’s trade, from verb tenses to pronouns to commas and beyond. Filled with examples from the best-seller lists of today and yesterday, it will help you consider the hows and whys of language, and how mastery of them can be used to achieve clarity and grace of expression in your own work. Here, you’ll find Encouragement and advice to face the big questions: Past or present tense? Comma or semicolon? Italic or roman? Should your dialogue be phonetically rendered, or follow standard rules of grammar? (And where does that pesky quotation mark go, again?) Warning signs of the betrayal of language, and ways to avoid it: Unwitting rhymes, repetition, redundancy, cliché, and the inevitable failure of vocabulary How-to (and how-not-to) examples: The grammatical “mistakes” of Charles Dickens; ambiguous pronoun usage by Nathaniel Hawthorne; the minefield of paragraph fragments found in one of today’s most successful authors.

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