Sixteen-year-old runaway Cassie Weathers is utterly alone, living on the streets as winter sets in. Then she meets Skylark, a young girl who introduces her to a community of street-dwellers and runaways. As Cassie settles in to the community, the city is rocked by the news that a number of young prostitutes have been murdered.Cassie grows closer to Skylark, but the night terrors and sleep paralysis Cassie suffered as a child begin to return, and the mystery as to why she ran away from home deepens. While it seems she ran to escape abuse, the actual reason might be more terrifying: helpless to resist her dreams, did she kill her father and leave home to protect her mother and sister?In the camp, Cassie's dreams take another turn: she dreams of killing one of the members of the community, a woman whose body is found nearby the following morning after an apparent suicide. When Cassie dreams of killing Skylark, she tries to run again only to find...

They say there are three sides to every story. Yours, mine and the truth. In Before I Wake, debut novelist Robert J. Wiersema cleverly introduces a multitude of voices to tell this astonishing story of loss, redemption and forgiveness. And the truth? Well, when miracles start happening around Sherry Barrett, a three-year-old girl in a coma, explanations of a rational kind no longer seem important.Injured by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the street, Sherry Barrett lies in a hospital where her doctors say she will never wake up. Her distraught parents, Karen and Simon, make the painful decision to take her off life support. But when they do, Sherry spontaneously begins breathing on her own, the first of many miraculous events to occur. Henry Denton, the driver who struck Sherry, is haunted by the accident and attempts to take his own life, only to be saved by an unexplained force. Sherry's nurse discovers that the little girl has the power to heal....

There are dozens of books about the Boss, exploring every facet of his career. So what's left to say? Nothing objective, perhaps. But when it comes to music, objectivity is highly overrated. Robert Wiersema has been a Springsteen fan since he was a teenager. By most definitions, he's a fanatic: following tours to see multiple shows in a row, watching set lists develop in real time via the Internet, ordering bootlegs from shady vendors in Italy. His attachment is deeper than fandom, though: he's grown up with Springsteen's music as the soundtrack to his life, beginning with his working-class youth in rural British Columbia and continuing on through dreams of escape, falling in love, and becoming a father.Walk Like a Man is liner notes for a mix tape, a frank and inventive blend of biography, music criticism, and memoir over the course of thirteen tracks. Like the best mix tapes, it balances joy and sorrow, laughter seasoning the dark-night-of-the-soul questions that...

Eleven-year-old Brian Page spends every waking moment in the forest behind the house where he lives with his father. But forests are always deeper than anyone can know. Secrets are hidden in the eternal twilight of the trees. Those secrets emerge into light when Brian disappears in the forest, as his father did three decades before. His father, however, came home with no memory of the events in the depths of the forest. What has drawn Brian away? Will he emerge, shuddering and broken, as his father did, or will the forests close around him, as they have done so often before?From Publishers WeeklyWiersema's haunting novella-whose title aptly references a line in William Butler Yeats' poem "The Stolen Child"-revolves around an 11-year old boy named Brian whose love of the woods behind his father's house in rural southwestern British Columbia leads him to supernatural discoveries-namely Carly, an ethereal girl. Carly shows the boy a breathtakingly beautiful "hidden world" in the forest. When Brian disappears one day, his father is forced to revisit obscure memories from his own youth-memories that involve the mysterious forest and a girl named Carly. Powered by a sublime sense of wistfulness and a setting that is simultaneously natural and otherworldly, Wiersema's novella seamlessly blends literary fiction with mythic fantasy to create a lyrical, surreal and deeply melancholic reading experience. The book also includes an essay entitled "Places and Names," in which the author explores the signification of "personal geography" and explains how his fictional town of Henderson (the setting for his story) was created. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ReviewWith THE WORLD MORE FULL OF WEEPING, author Robert J. Wiersema proves that one can tell an eerie and captivating story without resorting to violence or spilling a single drop of blood. This short novella, about a preteen who goes missing in the same woods that his father did as a child (where they both encounter a strange girl), is graceful and potent, and will appeal to fans of quiet, introspective horror. ----Monica S. Kuebler, Rue Morgue Magazine Wiersema displays a fascination with hidden worlds, inexplicable phenomena and the ineffable, and a talent for working them into taut and suspenseful narratives. ----Karen Virag, The Edmonton Journal Wiersema's haunting novella-whose title aptly references a line in William Butler Yeats' poem 'The Stolen Child' - revolves around an 11-year old boy named Brian whose love of the woods behind his father's house in rural southwestern British Columbia leads him to supernatural discoveries-namely Carly, an ethereal girl. Carly shows the boy a breathtakingly beautiful 'hidden world' in the forest. When Brian disappears one day, his father is forced to revisit obscure memories from his own youth-memories that involve the mysterious forest and a girl named Carly. Powered by a sublime sense of wistfulness and a setting that is simultaneously natural and otherworldly, Wiersema's novella seamlessly blends literary fiction with mythic fantasy to create a lyrical, surreal and deeply melancholic reading experience. The book also includes an essay entitled 'Places and Names,' in which the author explores the signification of 'personal geography' and explains how his fictional town of Henderson (the setting for his story) was created.' --Publishers Weekly --Publishers WeeklyWiersema displays a fascination with hidden worlds, inexplicable phenomena and the ineffable, and a talent for working them into taut and suspenseful narratives. ----Karen Virag, The Edmonton Journal'Wiersema's haunting novella-whose title aptly references a line in William Butler Yeats' poem 'The Stolen Child' - revolves around an 11-year old boy named Brian whose love of the woods behind his father's house in rural southwestern British Columbia leads him to supernatural discoveries-namely Carly, an ethereal girl. Carly shows the boy a breathtakingly beautiful 'hidden world' in the forest. When Brian disappears one day, his father is forced to revisit obscure memories from his own youth-memories that involve the mysterious forest and a girl named Carly. Powered by a sublime sense of wistfulness and a setting that is simultaneously natural and otherworldly, Wiersema's novella seamlessly blends literary fiction with mythic fantasy to create a lyrical, surreal and deeply melancholic reading experience. The book also includes an essay entitled 'Places and Names,' in which the author explores the signification of 'personal geography' and explains how his fictional town of Henderson (the setting for his story) was created.' --Publishers Weekly --Publishers WeeklyWiersema displays a fascination with hidden worlds, inexplicable phenomena and the ineffable, and a talent for working them into taut and suspenseful narratives. ----Karen Virag, The Edmonton Journal'Wiersema's haunting novella-whose title aptly references a line in William Butler Yeats' poem 'The Stolen Child' - revolves around an 11-year old boy named Brian whose love of the woods behind his father's house in rural southwestern British Columbia leads him to supernatural discoveries-namely Carly, an ethereal girl. Carly shows the boy a breathtakingly beautiful 'hidden world' in the forest. When Brian disappears one day, his father is forced to revisit obscure memories from his own youth-memories that involve the mysterious forest and a girl named Carly. Powered by a sublime sense of wistfulness and a setting that is simultaneously natural and otherworldly, Wiersema's novella seamlessly blends literary fiction with mythic fantasy to create a lyrical, surreal and deeply melancholic reading experience. The book also includes an essay entitled 'Places and Names,' in which the author explores the signification of 'personal geography' and explains how his fictional town of Henderson (the setting for his story) was created.' --Publishers Weekly --Publishers Weekly

A hitchhiker grants a boon to the young man who picks her up . . . the ghostly wife of a country singer follows her husband from town to town, exacting a peculiar vengeance . . . the disappearance of a young boy changes the life of his older brother . . . the wildly successful prodigal son returns to the town where he grew up to find his first love waiting for him . . . the last circus comes to Henderson . . . an expectant mother is tormented by a crying within the walls of her home. . . . In his debut collection, Seven Crow Stories, bestselling novelist Robert J. Wiersema draws on myth and folktale, ghost stories, and fairy tales to share a glimpse of the worlds bordering our own. With his short fiction, Wiersema explores the mysterious realms of the shadows, the mirrorlands where time runs strange. Reminiscent of Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Neil Gaiman, these stories are truly unique, truly Wiersema's own—explorations of the human heart pushed to its very limits,...