Done Dirt Cheap

January 23, 2017
Tourmaline Harris and Virginia Campbell just graduated from the same high school, but what they know of each other is all rumors and front. Tourmaline is the goody-two-shoes daughter of the president of the Wardens, the feared local motorcycle club; Virginia is a beauty pageant winner. Both have a darker reality. Virginia sells drugs for the corrupt attorney who helped her mother; Tourmaline’s mother is in prison, and the boyfriend/dealer convicted along with her was just released—and has a grudge against Tourmaline. The girls’ relationship begins to change when the attorney sends Virginia to get dirt on the club. Debut author Lemon spins a complicated story of revenge, motorcycles, female friendship, and sexy bikers who appreciate and protect the strong women they fall for. The Wardens’ vigilante morality isn’t questioned all that much, and at times the tale has a TV-movie quality—the high level of violence, everyone’s ability to get beaten up and keep going, and how good-looking they all are—but the book is undeniably fun to read, with a satisfyingly hard-won happy ending. Ages 13–up. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Agency.

January 15, 2017
Tourmaline Harris and Virginia Campbell have only crossed paths as students in the same high school. Now, it's the summer after graduation, and the girls' lives are about to collide.When Virginia's slimy boss, a dirty lawyer named Hazard, commands her to take down the Wardens of Iron Gate, a local motorcycle gang, she has to ingratiate herself with Tourmaline, for befriending the Wardens' president's daughter is the quickest way to penetrate the inner circle. Meanwhile, Tourmaline has a problem of her own: her mother's recently released drug-dealing ex-boyfriend wants revenge for Tourmaline's role in his incarceration. As the girls get to know each other, Virginia reveals to Tourmaline that the Wardens aren't as harmless as Tourmaline has believed. Who are they, really? Tourmaline has always thought of them as a benevolent extended family, but her father has always protected her from the reality. Violence, deception, and crime are tempered with love and friendship as Virginia and Tourmaline help each other in their missions to survive the limits and dangers placed on them by the men in their lives. Most characters appear to be white by default; Tourmaline's forbidden love interest (canoodling with the president's daughter is verboten), Cash, the Wardens' newest conscript, is black. Readers will stand up and cheer for these mighty heroines. (Fiction. 13 & up)

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January 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Tourmaline Harris is an honor roll student whose mother is in jail and whose father is president of the Wardens of Iron Gate motorcycle club. Virginia Campbell, her classmate, has experienced abuse and addiction at home and has spent years hustling drugs and doing other illegal work for Hazard, a crooked lawyer. When Hazard instructs Virginia to infiltrate the Wardens in order to help him bring the club down, the girls form a surprising and complicated friendship. Before long, they are dealing with the tight-knit bikers and suspicious detectives, sorting out truth from lies, and figuring out the ways their lives have been tied together. Neither is quick to trust, but they're aware that girls are better off if they stick together, and they work as a team to make plans and plot revenge. The risks they take extend to the complex choices that they make in romance and beyond. This gritty story is told through strikingly beautiful writing, and the Southern setting (West Virginia and Virginia) leaps off the page. While the plot is a bit slow to start, the pace picks up, and the narrative is filled with unpredictable turns. The unique premise-girls who have seen far more than their 18 years would suggest, embedded in a biker gang, surrounded by drugs, corruption, and lies-makes for a wild, enthralling journey. VERDICT Recommended for general purchase, this title will appeal broadly to readers who like realistic fiction with a hard edge.-Amanda MacGregor, formerly at Great River Regional Library, Saint Cloud, MN

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2017
Eighteen-year-old Tourmaline Harris is the daughter of the president of the Wardens, a feared biker club in southern Virginia. Virginia Campbell's shady employer has told her to investigate the Wardens. They forge an unexpected friendship and defy the expectations of the men in their lives. This debut's prose can be overwrought, but Tourmaline and Virginia stand out as strong and determined protagonists.

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)