Beautiful Country: A Novel by J.R. Thornton

A coming-of-age story set in modern day China centering on the friendship between an American and a Chinese boy who meet while training with Beijing’s Junior National Tennis Team.

Chase Robertson arrives in Beijing as a fourteen-year-old boy still troubled by the recent death of his older brother. He discovers a country in transition; a society in which the dual systems of Communist Era state control and an emerging entrepreneurial culture exist in paradox.

A top ranked junior tennis player in the U.S., Chase joins the practices of the Beijing National Junior Tennis Team and is immersed in the brutal, cut-throat world of Chinese sport. It is a world in which gifted children are selected at the ages of six or seven for specialized sport schools where they devote their entire youth to the pursuit of athletic excellence and are paid as professionals by the state. Athletes find themselves compelled to do anything possible to succeed—right or wrong. Those who fail to reach the pinnacle are cast aside and are left facing a desperate future without hope.

In China, Chase gains access to a culture rarely open to Westerners, and soon finds himself caught up in secrets. When his closest friend and teammate turns to him for help, Chase is faced with the dilemma of what to do when friendship, rules, and morals are in conflict.

A big-hearted debut, Beautiful Country explores a friendship against the backdrop of a quickly changing country

Beautiful Country: A Novel by J.R. Thornton is available at Amazon.com.

Comments

Gone With The Wig by Lily M. Lipstick

The drag race is on… Eighteen-year-old Drú Dylan can see the future. Tonight is her Uncle Hunter’s annual Hot Buns Halloween party, a tribute to his Dancing Queen Decade, aka the “Big Hair I Don’t Care” ‘90s. As always, he swears it’ll be G-rated. (It won’t be.) And it doesn’t take psychic powers to predict that any party held at a gay bakery built on land that happens to be the home of a thousand confederate soldiers is bound to cause chaos in this Virginia beach town. (It does every year.) That’s why Drú and her cousin Sam have their own annual competition: gazing into their crystal ball and predicting exactly what kind of chaos will be unleased at this year’s bash. Drú has a record to defend—but even she can’t predict what will happen when Uncle Hunter’s trigger-happy nemesis Rich McCarthy and his sons try to crash the party before its even started. It’s a race against the clock to make sure Uncle Hunter’s big night goes off without a hitch…Old skeletons are dragged out of the clo

The Congo Conspiracy: First Contact Donavan Speight

With the election of the 49th President of the United States of America, NASA discovers an asteroid’s trajectory change course after passing the moon now headed for Earth. The staff at NASA tracking this potential cataclysm learn something else about this wandering star. They learn that it’s being guided by a means other than its own. The asteroid is intercepted by alien ships towing it into the heart of Africa before vanishing underneath a holographic projection of the Congo jungle. America sends in a drone to look for these aliens when they discover a hidden world deep beneath the planet’s hollow surface. After learning that mysterious beings have been living under their very noses this whole time, the new President sends in a group of special forces to make contact with the alien civilization living deep under the African jungles. The U.S. troops captured by these underground aliens after battling a horde of cave monsters and are to be taken to the King for judgement. But before t

The Journey: The Ultimate Power Book 1 by Shadahyah Elizabeth

Renee, Elizabeth and Jasmine's were three ordinary girls, living a boring life in a small village right outside the great kingdom of Aden. But when a deranged king forces them to leave their village, these three girls embark on an incredible journey that will ultimately lead them to discover who they really are and what their birth means to the world. The Journey: The Ultimate Power Book 1 by Shadahyah Elizabeth is available at Amazon.com .

All Booked

Search This Blog