Happenstance

Written by Debra Loughead

BWL Publishing

978-0-228632696

284 pp.

Ages 12+

January 2025 

 

What would bring a teen from a wealthy family with both parents and a younger brother and, until recently, a nanny/housekeeper together with a girl who lives with her struggling mom who left her abusive husband, can't hold down a job and now dates incessantly looking for a new man? A ring, a moonstone ring. One loses it, one finds it. It's all happenstance.

 

Happenstance is told in the alternating voices of Sophie and Tara. Sophie has a dad who is a bank VP and is always travelling while her mom spends tons of money, often on new age stuff. Her mom has been hospitalized previously for depression and her brother Jonah deals with anxiety. Now that Dhanu, their nanny/housekeeper, has returned to Sri Lanka, their household seems unsettled. It feels even worse when the moonstone ring Dhanu had given Sophie's mom goes missing when Sophie borrows it.

 

That very ring is found by Tara, a Grade 10 student who loves acting and is in the school's production of "Our Town" though only as an understudy to the lead role. At home, her mom had tried repeatedly to leave Tara's disreputable dad but finally made it permanent in the past year. Still Mom can't keep a job and is always going on dates with guys she meets on dating apps, hopeful of meeting the right one. Though Tara's friend Priya tells her to look for the owner of the ring, Tara is reluctant to give up something so mesmerizing, especially after her mother wins $75,000 and Tara feels like the ring had something to do with their change of luck.

 

As Tara contemplates returning the ring or not, and Sophie wonders whether to look for it or not–both girls are grappling with family dynamics that leave them resentful and confused–their lives are taking odd turns, particularly with their best friends and with a new guy, Silas. He's the lead in Tara's school play and he's Sophie's new neighbour. But who will catch his eye?

 

Debra Loughead, who has previously published multiple books as Deb Loughead including The Secrets We Keep, Bright Shining Moment and The Snowball Effect, looks at two girls and how different they may be and yet how similar too. No one would ever see the similarities, but the moonstone ring allows their lives to become parallel and flipped to some degree. The superstitions tied to that ring may or may not be legit. The coincidences that occur may be just that: accidental and unrelated. But it offers an opportunity to see that lives are not all unfortunate or all lucky. It's a question of perspective. When Sophie and Tara ultimately meet, and connect with Silas, the teens see what they have in common even among the distinctions of their lives. Their new journeys with their families, their friends, and each other may have been prompted by a moonstone, a gem that signifies new beginnings, but how those new beginnings manifest is all up to those kids. Debra Loughead gives them the character to determine the nature of those new beginnings.

 

I don't know if that moonstone ring had any impact on these teens. After all, their lives are constantly in flux with friends, family, school, career choices, and more. But Debra Loughead makes us believe that things can happen sometimes by chance and sometimes by design and it's up to us to work with what we're given and make choices that are right for more than just ourselves.

Bright Shining Moment

Written by Deb Loughead

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-068-1

178 pp.

Ages 9-13

September 2018

Twelve-year-old Adèline (Aline) Sauriol is ashamed that her family is poor. Even though they have a roof over their heads and food on their table and her clothes are always clean and mended, she is humiliated that she never has coins for the charity box on Sister Madeleine's desk or magazines at home from which she could cut pictures for a scrapbook. And she's especially abashed that Jeanine Bonenfant, her tormentor and a school troublemaker who is always getting the strap (this is 1940s Ottawa), often contributes. This is especially frustrating as it is evident that Jeanine's family is far poorer than Aline's and there are rumours that Jeanine's father is a drunk who beats his children and that Jeanine steals from her ill mother.

I like my house, even though we can only use half of it now and tenants will be living in the other half soon. I like my bed, even though it's in the living room now. I wish we weren't poor, though. I wish Papa didn't scowl so much. I wish we had bright shiny new things like some others do. I wish for a lot of things that I know will never come true. Especially the one for an "English" nose. (pg. 54)

Aline wishes for many things to be different but, in a time of economic hardships, there's not much she can do. And then she steals a dime–she intended to only take a penny–for the charity box only to find it has already been collected from the class. As her guardian angel and the devil–she is a good Catholic girl after all–try to sway her, the girl spends it all on candy for herself and her cousin Lucille, purchasing more than they can possibly eat and hiding the rest. While a shameful reminder of her indiscretion, that bag of candy helps Aline make things right for a number of people, family and not, during times of tragedy and joy.

As with most children, Aline sees what she perceives others to have as better than what she has, whether it be money to share for charity, a big house and hot water as her friend Georgette has, or a radio, beautiful clothes and a Christmas tree as their new tenants, the English-Protestant Coleman family, have. In her home, Aline knows how fortunate she is, proud of her mother's baking and care of her family, or her father's hard work and telling of Ti-Jean stories, and her siblings who bring life to her family. But when at school or on the street or visiting the Coleman's apartment or Georgette's house, she is envious of all they seem to have. Of course, Deb Loughead makes sure that Aline realizes that the grass is not always greener and that there are those who are happy to share their bounty. Fortunately, Deb Loughead's touch in Bright Shining Moment is subtle, never moralizing, always recognizing that people's stories are far greater than outward appearances may suggest. There is an appreciation for those who struggle and understanding for those who put on façades while still recognizing that there are those who are more fortunate and still charitable.

Aline may be searching for bright shiny new things, but Bright Shining Moment is one in itself, with its setting effusive with the times and the lessons both discreet and smart. Amidst her personal struggles with envy and shame and wishes for more, Aline eventually finds that brightness and it comes from the familiar. It comes from home.

The Secrets We Keep

by Deb Loughead

Dundurn

978-1-459737297

184 pp.

Ages 12-15

December 2016

Not all secrets are bad; in fact, The Secrets We Keep ends on a very sweet one.  But the secrets being kept in Deb Loughead's newest young adult novel are the destructive kind, the kind that destroy relationships and souls, the kind that erode slowly the edges of what is good until it becomes a slippery slope with a pit at the bottom.

Ever since that field party at the quarry last June when challenged teen Kit Stitski disappeared and was later found dead, drowned in the water, fifteen-year-old Clementine has been tortured with guilt, convinced that she played a role in his death.

It’s like his ghost will not go away and leave me alone.  And now that I know his mother’s still hunting for answers, my secrets are spooking me even more. (pg. 15) 

Worse than her own guilt, Clem’s supposed best friend, Ellie Denton, who had also been secretly at the quarry, partying with Mac, a boy on whom she’d been crushing, is manipulating Clem with the threat of exposure.  With excessive demands on Clem to always be available to cover for her and Mac, Ellie becomes a menace that Clem can’t seem to shake.  Though Clem wishes she could speak to her family about this, she finds some relief when she convinces her tech-addicted parents and younger brother to agree to put aside their devices regularly for some quality family time, including at night when Ellie regularly texts Clem.

That might get Ellie somewhat off her back but Clem is still plagued by a guilty conscience and a crush on Grade 10 student, Jake Harcourt, with whom she’d once been part of a Circle of Friends support group for Kit in middle school.  When the two finally reconnect as friends who've both taken on blame for Kit’s death and recognized how the circumstances have changed them, Clem and Jake look for ways to be something positive in the lives of Kit’s mother and younger brother, as well as expose a lot more secrets concerning the young man’s death.

Though The Secrets We Keep is not a mystery, there is a problem to be solved and secrets to be exposed and Deb Loughead never lets the reader’s adrenalin levels subside.  The tension that Clem suffers at the hands of her friend drives the story and her to find some resolution, one with which she can live.  And though it is never obvious, Jake, the boy who defends another teen rumoured to have fought with Kit that night, is the means to that resolution, as well as a sweet respite from the strain of keeping secrets and harbouring guilt.  The Secrets We Keep has both the strong plot and character development to hook teen readers but its strong message about connecting and disconnecting, both personally and digitally, makes the story one worth reading and heeding.

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Reviewed just in time, The Secrets We Keep launches this Wednesday, December 14, 2016 at Harbourfront's Lakeside Terrace in Toronto.  Details here.

The Secrets We Keep: Book launch (Toronto)

Deb Loughead

author of 

numerous young adult CanLit

will be launching her newest title

The Secrets We Keep

by Deb Loughead

Dundurn

978-1-459737297

184 pp.

Ages 12-15

December 2016

on

Wednesday December 14th, 2016

7:00 p.m.

at

Harbourfront Centre

Lakeside Terrace

The book is described as follows, on Dundurn's website:

First she blamed herself. Now she doesn’t know who to trust. 

When Kit disappeared at a party and was found drowned in the quarry the next day, Clem knew who to point the finger at: herself. She was the last person to see him alive, the last person who could have helped. If she had just kept a closer eye on him instead of her crush, Jake, maybe Kit would still be here. She knows she made a mistake, and wishes she could just forget about it — but Clem’s friend Ellie says she’ll expose Clem’s secret if she doesn’t play along with Ellie’s lies. 

Jake seems to have his own difficult secrets, and when he and Clem start to talk, they make a plan to help themselves move on. But when an unexpected discovery at the quarry makes everyone question what they thought they knew, Clem and Jake decide it’s up to them to uncover the truth.

Retrieved from https://www.dundurn.com/books/Secrets-We-Keep on November 29, 2016.