Silver Stars

By Michael Grant

The second novel in the epic new young adult series that Michael Grant is calling his best yet!

It's WWII but not as you know it from school. This time the girls are on the Front Lines and not on the Home Front. Summer 1943. The enemy has been bloodied, but Nazi Germany is very far from beaten. Now the American army is moving on to their next target: the Italian island of Sicily.

With heavy memories of combat, the three young soldier girls – Rio, Frangie and Rainy – now know what they are willing to do to save themselves, and understand the consequences of those actions. On the front lines, they will again come face to face with the brutality of war until they win or die, while simultaneously fighting their own personal battles. No one will emerge unscathed.

In the tradition of The Book Thief, Code Name Verity and Between Shades of Gray, Front Lines gives the experience of WWII a new immediacy while playing with the ‘what ifs?’ of history.

Exclusive Front Lines story, Dead of Night to be 2017 World Book Day book.

Praise for Front Lines: “What if American women had fought alongside men in World War II? Michael Grant gives us a magnificent alternate history that feels so real and right and true it seems impossible that it wasn’t. Every one of these fictional soldiers has wrapped herself around my heart.… (Elizabeth Wein, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Code Name Verity)

“Michael Grant is a master of twists that not only tear at his readers’ consciences, they hold a mirror up to our here and now and insist we consider what might otherwise be. Front Lines is a masterpiece of speculative story crafting.… (Andrew Smith, Printz Honor winning author of Grasshopper Jungle)

Front Lines was shortlisted for Feminist Book of the Year in the Maximum Pop Bookish Awards.

Michael Grant has lived an exciting, fast-paced life. He moved in with his wife Katherine after only 24 hours. He has co-authored over 160 books including the bestselling GONE series but promises that everything he writes is like nothing you’ve ever read before!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Feb 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781780316550

Michael Grant

Michael Grant, author of the Gone series, the Messenger of Fear series, the Magnificent Twelve series, and the Front Lines trilogy, has spent much of his life on the move. Raised in a military family, he attended ten schools in five states, as well as three schools in France. Even as an adult he kept moving, and in fact he became a writer in part because it was one of the few jobs that wouldn’t tie him down. His fondest dream is to spend a year circumnavigating the globe and visiting every continent. Yes, even Antarctica. He lives in California with his wife, Katherine Applegate, with whom he cowrote the wildly popular Animorphs series. You can visit him online at www.themichaelgrant.com and follow him on Twitter @MichaelGrantBks.

Reviews for Silver Stars

[jessika.c · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I feel like I’m the only one that doesn’t like Michael Grant’s books as they go on. This book felt like a lot happened but resulted in nothing. It’s kind of the same way I felt about the Gone books too. Rio, Frangie, and Rainy had new missions and assignments to complete. Rio grows up but goes through a change of morals that shake her up. Frangie struggles with being taken seriously as a medic because of her blackness and female-ness. Rainy is given a super secret mission that could help win a battle but kill her in the process. It just took so long to get to the point that by the time I did I was bored and ready to move on. If Grant could get someone to help him come up with better titles to his books that don’t make me have false expectations, that would be great. Or maybe I’m just the only person who doesn’t feel satisfied until I know where a book gets its title from.

[billiebook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't review this when I rated it because I really didn't know what to say. Or, rather, I knew what I wanted to say, but not if I would be able to do so.

This was not the book that I should have been reading in the aftermath of the election. One wouldn't normally think that an alternative history written for the young adult audience would be anything other than escapism. However, in Grant's alternate world, the only difference is that women were allowed to serve on the front lines of World War II. That's it. That's the only difference. So this is a war novel, with all of the violence and death and despair that such novels normally entail. But, even with women serving alongside men on the front lines, Grant doesn't lessen or sugarcoat the sexism and it's fugging (Grant's alternative to one of my favorite words, employed in an attempt to keep the novel clean enough to get past the censors) depressing to read and to recognize as things still being said and done today, and even glorified by a certain DJT and his supporters. And, as bad as the sexism is, the racism is far worse and this Grant did tone down quite a bit. Racism, sexism, war—there was as much about this book that made it feel as much like it might be about the future as it was about the past and it hit me hard.

This is a strong novel about strong women but, had I read it at a different time, it would likely not have had as great an emotional impact as it did. Just more proof, if any were needed, that books are different for different readers, and even for the same reader at different times. I don't know that this was the book I should have been reading at this time, but maybe it was the book I needed to read. It reminded me that things often get worse before they get better and even during the darkest times, there are moments of joy to be found. And even though the story of Frangie, Rio, and Rainy hasn't reached that point in the future just yet, even Hitler was eventually defeated.

(And, please, don't comment on this review if you just want to argue politics. This is about the book and the emotional reaction I had to it in light of the recent election. If you can frame your political discussion in terms of this book and your reaction to it, fine. If not, this is not the place.)