Can a person's life really be over at just 19? Sarah challenges this notion when, after a spectacular failure in what she thought was going to be her career, she decides to return to her hometown. Home is the hardest place for Sarah to teach herself to stop being a victim. But it is also likely the most important place to do it. In ANGEL ROCK LEAP, Sarah finds life in the otherwise quiet hamlet of Palenville, New York, to be unsettling, as she is continuously reminded of unpleasant childhood memories involving her ex-boyfriend, Gary, and her high school nemesis, Pamela. Sarah is deflated by Gary's indifference toward her when the two first reunite, and she tries unsuccessfully to get Pamela to apologize for her cruelty when they were school mates. She is also faced with the disturbing discovery that Gary and Pamela share a complex romantic relationship. Adding to Sarah's distress are strange incidences that lead her to believe that she is being watched or followed. Sarah's instincts prove to be correct when an ominous stranger, menacing and eccentric, surprisingly reveals himself to be Doug, Sarah's first love. Sarah's happiest memories are of the days she and Doug, only children at the time, had spent together at the popular local ravine, Angel Rock Leap. Disheveled and lost, the vagabond and older Doug is at first unrecognizable to Sarah. Doug looks to Sarah, a symbol of purity and innocence, for comfort. He comes back into Sarah's life broken, having had a promising career in football cut short by an injury accidentally inflicted on him by Pamela, with whom he had a brief, but serious, relationship. Similar to Sarah, Doug cannot suppress his anger and resentment toward Pamela, and blames her for ruining his life. Like Sarah, Doug is a victim. The back and forth exchanges between Doug and Pamela culminate in one final dangerous act of deception that almost brings more irreparable harm to Doug. Sarah's encouraging words and gestures of love and caring bring him to safety. The incidence forces Sarah and Pamela to talk openly and honestly, a conversation that reveals several sources of conflict and serves to bridge an angry distance that had existed for years. In ANGEL ROCK LEAP, passivity ends and growth begins once Sarah decides to stop being a willing victim- both professionally and personally- in order to find her path to success. She uses her newly found knowledge about herself to pull Doug and Pamela out of their own victimhood, as love is rediscovered and friendship is borne out of enmity. This is a coming of age story in which adversity turns out to be the healing remedy for three people whose inability to let go of the past has prevented them from moving forward toward the future. Kirkus Review BOOK REVIEW What at first appears to be an overblown high school drama proves to be an astute look at the painful connection between low self-esteem and bullying. After her professors encourage her to quit her undergraduate degree in pharmaceutical science, 19-year-old Sarah returns to her hometown of Palenville, New York, where bad memories and old rivalries await her. While she is certainly not the first college student to have picked the wrong major, Sarah quickly succumbs to melancholy as she replaces her dream of curing the illnesses that took her parents with desperate fantasies of winning over the old classmates who once rejected her. The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks from school and Sarah's short stories and poems, which are unfortunately too similar to each other to firmly establish Sarah as the budding writer that she hopes to be now that her pharmaceutical career is over. But authors Weisberg (Making Emmie Smile, 2012, etc.) and Yoffe develop Sarah's obsession with the initially bland high school bully, Pamela, with great skill. Pamela, now a waitress, barely remembers Sarah's name when she takes her order at a diner, but Sarah persistently picks at the scab of their rivalry until the truth about Pamela and Sarah's ex-boyfriend Gary, as well as her long-lost childhood sweetheart, Doug, bleeds out. The French doors of Sarah's dilapidated apartment also create an unsettling, almost gothic, backdrop for emotional turmoil when a creepy man from Sarah's past turns up on her doorstep. Too pushy to take no for an answer, Sarah's stalker forces her to resolve her victim mentality and defend herself—until he reveals a secret that changes the way she sees him. While the other characters seem to have given up on life before their time, Sarah's best friend, Scott, balances their negativity with quirky observations and good cheer: "You can't live without passion. It might get cooled from time to time, but it's always there. Just waiting to be reheated. Waiting to be revived. Waiting to chase after dreams." A unique voice emerges from an unlikely heroine in this quickly paced coming-of-age story. Angel Rock Leap Ellen Weisberg and Ken Yoffe Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (01/16) "Ang