Description:

When a small mistake costs sixteen-year-old Eagan her life during a figure-skating competition, she leaves many things unreconciled, including her troubled relationship with her mother. From her vantage point in the afterlife, Eagan reflects back on her memories, and what she could have done differently, through her still-beating heart.When fourteen-year-old Amelia learns she will be getting a heart transplant, her fear and guilt battle with her joy at this new chance at life. And afterwards when she starts to feel different-dreaming about figure skating, craving grape candy-her need to learn about her donor leads her to discover and explore Eagan's life, meeting her grieving loved ones and trying to bring the closure they all need to move on.Told in alternating viewpoints, *In a Heartbeat *tells the emotional and compelling story of two girls sharing one heart. ### From Booklist Ellsworth’s dual narrative explores the large and small ways medical technology forever intertwines the lives of two strangers. When 16-year-old Eagan, a figure skater with her sights on the Olympics, dies in a fall on the ice, 14-year-old Amelia receives the heart transplant that she and her family have been desperately awaiting. Trapped in a foggy limbo, Eagan must relive the defining moments of her painfully short existence before she can cross over to the hereafter. In alternating chapters, Amelia grapples with conflicting feelings over her new heart, and inexplicable changes in her post-op personality drive her to seek out her anonymous donor’s family for answers. Ellsworth’s dramatic story of loss and second chances is deftly tempered by its candid teen narration and light touches of mystery and romance, making it a highly satisfying read, especially for fans of the novels of Lurlene McDaniel and the recent Cold Hands, Warm Heart (2009), by Jill Wolfson. Grades 8-12. --Kristen McKulski ### About the Author Loretta Ellsworth is the author of two novels for young readers, both published by Henry Holt. *The Shrouding Woman*; was named to the 2003 Amelia Bloomer Project List, was a CCBC Choice, and a 2005 Rebecca Caudill Nominee. *In Search of Mockingbird* was nominated for Best Books for Young Adults, Teen's Top Ten, was a Midwest Bookseller's spring/summer pick, and won the 2007 Midwest Bookseller's Choice Award Honor Book for Children's Literature. www.lorettaellsworth.com