There is a pecking order to every family. Seventeen-year old Clare is the overprotected baby; Peter is the typical, rebellious middle child; and Luke is the-canrs"t-do wrong favorite. To their mother, they are a normal, happy family. And then there are the roles we give ourselves. Clare: the ambitious striver; Peter: the angry ticking time bomb; and Luke: a drug addicted, convicted felon who has been in and out of jail for as long as Clare can remember. To Clare, they are a family on the verge of disaster.Clare has long refused to believe her brother is truly bad...he dotes her, doesn't he? But as Clare starts piecing together the truth about her brother's stints in jail, it starts changing the way she thinks about him. It has also changes the way the community views the family. The only thing it hasnrs"t changed is the way their mother feels about Luke. Each time she welcomes him home with open arms and brushes off his crimes as "wrong place and wrong time," Clare can feel a little piece of her happy home life being taken away. And when her mother does the unthinkable-takes Clarers"s hard-earned college savings to post bail for Luke's latest transgression-Clare has to decide if sticking up for herself and her future means selfishly turning her back on familyhellip;or if it's the only way to keep herself from drowning along with them.Debut novelist Anna Shinodars"s raw, gritty, powerful novel cuts right to the bone and brings to life the skeletons the lurk in the closet.

Anna Shinoda was raised in a mountain town so small it lacked a stoplight. She used to escape into the high branches of trees to read and dream stories, out of reach from her own family skeleton. Eventually she climbed down with Learning Not to Drown, her debut novel. Visit Anna at AnnaShinoda.com.