Spark (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780228860396)

Remember the time you realized your parents were not the indestructible heroes you believed them to be, but they were actually flawed human beings who made mistakes like everyone else? And from that moment on you saw them, and the world, through a different lens? Equally world-changing was the moment your parents no longer saw you as a child, but rather as the person they no longer needed to rule.

How quickly our view of the world can shift.

Regardless of how divided we all may feel, what binds us is knowledge: of our favorites to our fears, and that moment, that single moment, when we understand what it means to be alive.

Set in the fictional coastal town of Hurstbridge, SPARK follows the journey of Jonah, a bookish loner with an attraction to electronics. The son of two intercultural women and unmistakable bully bait, Jonah desperately seeks the friendship of Mack, his disillusioned alpha-bigot neighbor.

A retired electrician, Mack is new to the community, where he believes he's found the perfect place to spend his final days. Relentlessly pursued by Jonah, Mack decides to take the boy under his wing, to help him become the only kind of person he thinks should exist in the world, a man not unlike himself. Jonah, grateful for the father figure, is willing to do what it takes to make Mack a friend, even going beyond what he believes to be right when Mack asks him to keep the ultimate secret: the day Mack has chosen to die. Each has their own agenda, each expecting a certain outcome.

Told through the eyes of twelve-going-on-thirteen-year-old Jonah, SPARK is a tale of innocence lost, knowledge gained and lessons learned as he navigates friendships, keeps secrets and realizes what it means to grow up.