Illinois Authors

Mariner Books, Boston ; 2010, ©2009.

Half a century after the marriage of her Polish grandparents is marred by World War II and a painful tragedy, Beata recreates their journey to Kraków, where she encounters a youth culture torn between the city's past and future.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston : 2009.

Half a century after the marriage of her Polish grandparents is marred by World War II and a painful tragedy, Beata recreates their journey to Kraków, where she encounters a youth culture torn between the city's past and future.

Simon & Schuster, New York : 2014, ©2013.

Adrift in a soccer-obsessed seaside village on the Italian Riviera, a young man who has recently lost his mother and brother struggles to bond with his emotionally absent father before being drawn into the world of a scandalous soccer star and his tough-love sister.

In the seaside town of San Benedetto, soccer (or calcio) is more than just a sport: it's an obsession. Twenty-two-year-old Etto, however, couldn't care less about soccer. His beloved twin brother Luca, a rising soccer star, died tragically in a motorcycle accident, and their Californian mother, unable to cope with her grief, drowned herself on the anniversary of Luca's death. This has left Etto alone to tend the butcher shop--where his father barely seems to take in his presence and entrusts him with only the most basic tasks. But then Yuri Fil, a Ukrainian soccer star who Etto's father idolizes, takes refuge from the paparazzi in a nearby villa, and Etto accidentally falls into Yuri's orbit--and that of Yuri's beautiful and tough sister, Zhuki. Under their influence, he begins to learn a few life lessons: that the game of soccer might not be a total waste of time, that he might not in fact be a total loser--and that San Benedetto, his father, love, and life itself might have more to offer him than he would have ever believed possible.