The Edge of Anything

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020
One of A Mighty Girl's Best Books of the Year
​A Bank Street Best Books 2021
Finalist for the Cybils Awards

Len is a loner teen photographer haunted by a past that's stagnated her work and left her terrified she's losing her mind. Sage is a high school volleyball star desperate to find a way around her sudden medical disqualification. Both girls need college scholarships. After a chance encounter, the two develop an unlikely friendship that enables them to begin facing their inner demons.

But both Len and Sage are keeping secrets that, left hidden, could cost them everything, maybe even their lives.

Set in the North Carolina mountains, this dynamic #ownvoices novel explores grief, mental health, and the transformative power of friendship.

A graduate of Vermont College of Fine Art's MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program, Nora Shalaway Carpenter is the author of the forthcoming YA contemporary novel, The Edge of Anything (Running Press, April 7, 2020), editor and contributing author of the forthcoming YA anthology Rural Voices (Candlewick, Fall 2020), and author of the picture book Yoga Frog (Running Press, out now). Before she wrote books, Nora worked as associate editor of Wonderful West Virginia magazine and has been a Certified Yoga Teacher since 2012. Originally from rural West Virginia, she currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, three young children, and the world's most patient dog and cat.