The Fine Art of Holding Your Breath

Secrets--like war--have their own casualties. MacKennas mother died when she was a baby a casualty of the first Gulf War. Now seventeen MacKenna has spent her life navigating the minefield of her dads moods certain of one thing: she is destined to follow in her mothers combat boots. But when she pursues an ROTC scholarship she finds herself at war before even enlisting. Her father forbids her from joining the military inexplicable considering hed raised her to be a warrior princess. MacKenna turns to her grandmother--who arms her with an ammo crate containing her mothers personal effects from the war. Hidden in the crates false bottom is a journal one her mom stashed there hours before her death. While MacKenna untangles the secrets of her parents tragic love story her own life unravels. Dads behavior becomes erratic her best friend grows distant and even hostile and a boy from her past returns--with a life-threatening secret of his own. If ever a girl needed her mother its now. The pen might be mightier than the sword but are a mothers words strong enough to slice through years of hidden pain? Can those words reach through the battlefields of the past to change MacKennas future?