When You Least Expect It

by Lorna Schultz Nicholson

Overview

Seventeen-year-old Holly Callahan desperately wants to make the national rowing team so she can compete overseas, but she is the last rower cut. Her summer dreams are shattered, and she finds herself back at home, living with her mother's annoying new boyfriend, Super Stew.

Holly's not a quitter. She lands a summer job, and then is handed an unexpected lifeline in the person of a man who offers to coach her in a single rowing boat. For a girl raised without a father, the coach's generosity — and rigorous demands — are a gift. But where did he come from and who is he, really?

Discovering the answer plunges her into sadness — but then he inspires her to work beyond her comfort zone.

Lorna Schultz Nicholson's compelling account of a teen athlete's life-changing summer will keep readers riveted until the last page is turned.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780889956803
Publisher:	Red Deer Press
Publication date:	10/27/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
File size:	855 KB
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Lorna Schultz Nicholson is the author of many books about Canadian sports figures, as well as the celebrated One-to-One series of novels. A former radio host and health&lifestyle reporter, she is now a full-time author and presenter. She lives with her family in Edmonton.

Editorial Reviews

2021-09-15
Seventeen-year-old Holly spends her summer secretly training in competitive rowing.

All Holly Callahan had been looking forward to this summer was traveling to Europe with the Junior Canadian Rowing Team—so she’s devastated when she narrowly misses making the cut. In their small Ontario city, Holly and her mother have recently moved in with her mother’s too-cheerful new boyfriend and his tween sons. To make matters worse, Holly learns her mother’s pregnant and has been hiding the big news. To distract herself, she gets a job hostessing where she meets attractive, kind Tim, the restaurant’s assistant manager, who shows a romantic interest in her. When the recreational rowing team is a bust, Holly finds herself coached to row a single by Alan, a serious man hiding a tragic past. Though he encourages her to tell her mother about their sessions, Holly lies to her family about her hours spent practicing, focused on making it to a big regatta. While the main story is told in first-person prose from Holly’s perspective, alternating chapters in verse from a mysterious narrator’s point of view add an intriguing element, leading up to an interesting reveal. However, with one-note characters and extensive descriptions of rowing training bogging down the plot, this sports-centered novel will mostly appeal to rowing fans. Main characters are White; Tim is Black.

Emotional, if lacking in substance. (rowing glossary, author interview) (Fiction. 12-17)

Kirkus Reviews