Waiting on Wednesday: Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert

Breaking the Spine features a weekly event where we talk about the books we can't wait to read.

This week I'm waiting on:

Conviction

By: Kelly Loy Gilbert

Release Date: May 15, 2015

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
Ten years ago, God gave Braden a sign, a promise that his family wouldn’t fall apart the way he feared.
But Braden got it wrong: his older brother, Trey, has been estranged from the family for almost as long, and his father, the only parent Braden has ever known, has been accused of murder. The arrest of Braden’s father, a well-known Christian radio host, has sparked national media attention. His fate lies in his son’s hands; Braden is the key witness in the upcoming trial.
Braden has always measured himself through baseball. He is the star pitcher in his small town of Ornette, and his ninety-four-mile-per-hour pitch al- ready has minor league scouts buzzing in his junior year. Now the rules of the sport that has always been Braden’s saving grace are blurred in ways he never realized, and the prospect of playing against Alex Reyes, the nephew of the police officer his father is accused of killing, is haunting his every pitch.
Braden faces an impossible choice, one that will define him for the rest of his life, in this brutally honest debut novel about family, faith, and the ultimate test of conviction.

I am excited to read this book, contemporary YA books that are not so cut-and-dried (aka, I can't always predict what the ending will be or even if it will be happily-ever-after) always make me feel so many emotions. I can already imagine that this book will be a roller-coaster ride. I am looking forward to seeing where Kelly Loy Gilbert takes us with this story.

Also, I was lucky enough to win a critique prize from the Freshman Fifteen (authors who are going to be published in 2015), so I can honestly say that Kelly Loy Gilbert is a super nice and cool person.