Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

For anyone who has wanted to change the past, this captivating and haunting novel is about seemingly innocent choices and their devastating consequences.

When Michael fires his new rifle into the air on his seventeenth birthday, he never imagines that the bullet will end up killing someone. But it does--and Michael's world is changed forever. Desperate, he wrestles with his guilt and keeps silent as his life begins to fall apart.

When Jenna's father is killed in a freak Fourth of July accident, she's devastated. As she grieves, she tries to understand why she no longer feels comfortable with her boyfriend, Jason, and why a guy named Michael keeps appearing in her dreams. . . .


"[An] electrifying portrayal of fear and deception." - Publishers Weekly

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

It was all true, then. The nightmare was real. Michael could no longer pretend, as he sometimes did, that there was a chance he hadn't fired that fatal shot. The bullet had come from somewhere in his neighborhood. The chances of someone else in such a small area shooting off a gun around noon on that same day were probably one in a million. He had spent weeks trying to get used to the idea that he had committed this hideous act. But always, somewhere, there had been hope. A bullet traveling a mile or more through the air could have come from as far away as the next town over. There had always been the outside chance that someone else had fired a gun into the air that Fourth of July afternoon. Now that chance no longer existed. Excerpted from Swallowing Stones by Joyce McDonald All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

A bizarre Fourth of July accident, which leaves an innocent man dead, sets McDonald's (Comfort Creek) spiraling drama in motion, drawing together four teenagers whose lives are drastically changed by the incident. Caught in the eye of the storm are 15-year-old Jenna Ward, whose father is struck by a stray bullet, and Michael MacKenzie, the 17-year-old who unknowingly fires the fatal shot. More distanced from the action are witnesses Joe Sadowski, Michael's loyal buddy and Amy Ruggerio, a misunderstood teen with a "loose" reputation. The alternating points of view of Jenna and Michael reflect their psychological turmoil. Jenna's grief surfaces in anxiety attacks, usually occurring when she is around her boyfriend, the last person she spoke to before her father's death. Michael is racked with guilt, but admitting his involvement in the accident is as difficult as "swallowing stones." The intensity of the teens' emotions increases to a feverish pitch as the police edge closer to the truth. At a crucial moment, Amy forces Michael and Jenna to face the facts that they have tried to avoid. While the novel's sequence of events is rather farfetched, the characters' reactions are real. Readers will quickly become absorbed in this electrifying portrayal of fear and deception. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

When 17-year-old Michael discovers that he has accidentally killed the father of a schoolmate, he wrestles with his own guilt until he can no longer keep his terrible secret. A compassionate story focusing on both the killer and the family left to grieve the loss of a father and husband. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 7^-10. When Michael MacKenzie fires his grandfather's Winchester rifle into the air to celebrate his Fourth of July birthday, he has no idea that he will kill Jenna Ward's father as he patches the roof of his home a mile across town. Handsome, popular Michael knows immediately that it is his gun that killed Charlie Ward when he hears the radio news story the next day, but he and his friend Joe decide it will be smarter to bury the gun and feign ignorance rather than own up to the crime. Alternating chapters focus on Michael and then Jenna, examining the effect that an unpredictable tragedy can have on seemingly totally unrelated lives. McDonald masterfully moves both teens to an inevitable, if somewhat nebulous, final confrontation, as Michael appears to accept the consequences of his actions. Indeed, only the ending mars an otherwise classic example of Burns' oft-quoted lines, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." --Frances Bradburn

Horn Book Review

On his seventeenth birthday, Michael randomly fires a rifle--unaware that the bullet travels for a mile, fatally wounding Jenna Ward's father. Upon learning of the accident, Michael desperately tries to hide his involvement. His increasing panic and guilt are related in a parallel story line with Jenna's grief and recovery. Three-dimensional characterizations with sound psychological underpinnings lend distinction to this somber novel. From HORN BOOK 1997, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

The best day of Michael Mackenzie's life becomes the worst when the bullet he exuberantly fires into the air during his 17th birthday party comes down a mile away and kills a man. When he hears the story on the radio, the news hits him like a lightning bolt. Numbly following the advice of his best friend, Joe, he buries the rifle and tries, without much success, to get on with life. So does the victim's 15-year-old daughter, Jenna, who had been present when the bullet struck. Switching between Michael's point-of-view and Jenna's, McDonald (Comfort Creek, 1996) sends the two teenagers dancing slowly toward each other, using mutual acquaintances, chance meetings at parties and the community pool, and glimpses at a distance. Both go through parallel phases of denial, both are tortured by remorse, exhibit behavior changes, and experience strange dreams; both eventually find ways to ease their grief and guilt. When the police close in, Joe takes the blame, giving Michael the nerve to confess. In the final chapter, McDonald shifts to present tense and brings Michael and Jenna to a cathartic meeting under a huge sycamore said in local Lenape legend to be a place of healing--an elaborate and, considering the suburban setting and familiar contemporary characters, awkward graft in this deliberately paced but deeply felt drama. (Fiction. 11-13)