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Barbed Wire Heart

Tess Sharpe

Ages 16–18

Readers rate it 3.5 (2 on Hardcover)

411 pages · Released Mar 6, 2018

Content report card

Barbed Wire Heart parent’s guide: what’s inside

Medium confidence

LGBTQ+ themes

What it offers

Educational value

A note for parents

Barbed Wire Heart is a dark crime thriller centered on a teenage protagonist navigating a drug empire. The book contains significant violence, drug manufacturing and trafficking, murder, and mature criminal themes. While Harley's resistance to her father's legacy offers some redemptive arc, the story is gritty and intense. This is solidly young adult in audience but at the older, more mature end of the spectrum.

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From the publisher

This powerful debut thriller from "a major new talent" (Kirkus) set in a poor, rural community where loyalty is everything, "packs an emotional punch" (Lisa Gardner) as the daughter of a meth kingpin is forced to choose between family, or freedom. Never cut the drugs--leave them pure. Guns are meant to be shot--keep th... This powerful debut thriller from "a major new talent" (Kirkus) set in a poor, rural community where loyalty is everything, "packs an emotional punch" (Lisa Gardner) as the daughter of a meth kingpin is forced to choose between family, or freedom. Never cut the drugs--leave them pure. Guns are meant to be shot--keep them loaded. Family is everything--betray them and die. Harley McKenna is the only child of North County's biggest criminal. Duke McKenna's run more guns, cooked more meth, and killed more men than anyone around. Harley's been working for him since she was sixteen, dreading the day he'd deem her ready to rule the rural drug empire he's built. Her time's run out. The Springfields, her family's biggest rivals, are moving in. And they're coming for Duke's only weak spot: his daughter. Duke's raised her to be deadly -- he never counted on her being disloyal. But if Harley wants to survive and protect the people she loves, she's got to take out both Duke's operation and the Springfields. Blowing up meth labs is dangerous business, and getting caught will be the end of her, but Harley has one advantage: She is her father's daughter. And McKennas always win.

Shelved under

  • Fiction
  • Young Adult
  • Suspense
  • Thriller
  • Fathers and daughters
  • Organized crime
  • Vendetta
  • Fiction, suspense
  • Fiction, thrillers
  • Fathers and daughters, fiction
  • Fiction, coming of age
  • Fiction, thrillers, general

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ISBN 9781538744109 · Grand Central Publishing

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