In the Wild Light
Life in small-town Tennessee has never been easy. Cash already lost his mother to an opioid addiction and is losing his papaw, who raised him, one labored breath at a time. But loss has led him to Delaney Doyle, and she’s been his salvation. The trouble is that canoeing on the river and hiking the East Tennessee mountains might be all he needs to fill his soul, but Delaney is meant for so much more.
So when Delaney makes a scientific discovery that gets them both full rides at an elite boarding school in Connecticut, Cash has to make the tough decision to leave behind his place of the heart to support his person of the heart. Will the decision to go to Middleford Academy be the thing that finally breaks Cash, or will it be the making of him?
Jeff Zentner is the author of New York Times Notable Books The Serpent King and In the Wild Light, as well as Goodbye Days and Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee. Among other honors, he has won the ALA’s William C. Morris Award, the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award twice, the Muriel Becker Award, the International Literacy Association Award, and been longlisted twice for the Carnegie Medal. He’s a two-time Southern Book Prize finalist; and was a finalist for the Indies Choice Award. He was selected as a Publishers Weekly Flying Start and an Indies Introduce pick. His books have been translated into fifteen languages. Before becoming a writer, he was a musician who recorded with Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, and Debbie Harry. He lives in Nashville.
He became interested in writing for young adults after volunteering at the Tennessee Teen Rock Camp and Southern Girls Rock Camp. As a kid, his parents would take him to the library and drop him off, where he would read until closing time. He worked at various bookstores through high school and college.
He speaks fluent Portuguese, having lived in the Amazon region of Brazil for two years.
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