QUEEN OF SECRETS

Orphaned at three and raised by her loving, overprotective grandparents, Essie Green has always longed for a stronger connection to her cousin Micah’s family, but when they move back to Pershing, Mich., from New York after a lengthy estrangement, it’s not what she’d imagined. The car accident that killed Essie’s parents is still a flashpoint among her relatives, and Essie suspects that there’s more to the story of her parents’ death than she knows. Meanwhile, Micah is such a disruptive presence—a proudly observant Jew, his kippah makes him stand out in both the hallways and on the football field—that Essie, a newly minted cheerleader, can’t bear to tell her popular friends or her boyfriend, dazzlingly handsome quarterback Austin King, that Micah is her cousin. When run-of-the-mill teasing turns to anti-Semitic hazing, Essie realizes she must choose between her family and her relationship with Austin. As befits the heroine of a book loosely and skillfully based on the Book of Esther, Essie is believably naïve but exhibits a core of strength and menschlichkeit that would make any Jewish grandmother proud. (Fiction. YA)