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by Gail O. Dellslee (Author)
Sixteen-year-old "Bertha the Barbarian" never asked to move from the big city to a ghetto, and she definitely never asked for friends.
With a blunt tongue, gray hair, and zero interest in romance or "proper lady" expectations, Bertha plans to survive by keeping everyone at arm's length.
But Charleston has its own rules.
A local teen gang called the Black Cats controls the town through fear, drugs, and a warped code of rebellion. After a surprise fistfight with Bertha leaves the gang humiliated, she becomes their newest enemy. Yet beneath the hostility, they're more alike than they'd ever admit--tough, anti-social, and united in their hatred for conformity and adult hypocrisy.
When the gang's leader spares Bertha's life and instead lashes out at his own friend for toying with a little kid, betrayal brews in the alley. One member is kicked out and replaced by a newcomer who has darker ideas for how to pass the time. What starts as boredom curdles into something far more dangerous. On Halloween night, Bertha and the gang must decide what they stand for before the last shred of innocence is lost.
Gritty, fierce, and darkly hilarious, this novella tells the story of rebels who learn the value of friendship and the true meaning of nonconformity.
