Now in paperback, this debut from an award-winning high school teacher is the story of what happens when an unlikely duo--the star basketball player and a brainy girl--is paired up for a class project. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Davidson, a high school teacher, debuts with a tried-and-true teen romance, unusual chiefly for its setting in an affluent black suburb of Detroit. Jason, 16, is gorgeous, smart, graceful on the basketball court, and he dates popular, beautiful Lisa. But "fine-as-hell, super-jock, popular-as-Nikes-in-the-NBA, can-have-anybody-he-wants" Jason falls for "double-brained-nappy-headed-sweet-but-nobody" Kyra, his nonconformist, highly academic research partner from AP English class. Davidson describes the beginnings of their mutual attraction in spine-tinglingly prolonged detail, effectively camouflaging the staple elements of her plot: only Kyra understands that Jason, whose mother died when he was three and whose father leaves on frequent business trips, experiences his solitude as loneliness, not as freedom to do as he likes; Lisa, furious at being dumped by Jason, gets revenge in a manner that will be familiar to readers of middle-grade and YA fiction. But other story lines advance the narrative, too, such as Kyra's dedication to her project for a Westinghouse-like national science competition. Readers with an appetite for love stories are likely to follow Jason and Kyra's pas de deux from its beginning straight through to its satisfying end. Ages 12-up. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr. 7-12. Set in an upscale African American community in Detroit, this starts off as a typical dreamy, sexy YA romance: gorgeous, cool high-school basketball star Jason and brainy, outsider Kyra fall in love, then part in fury when Jason's ex-girlfriend makes trouble. But this highly entertaining first novel breaks with formula in many ways. For one thing, Jason's sports games and Kyra's science competition get equal attention, with tension building steadily to each one's winning moment. Davidson also constructs their sexual relationship with truth and subtlety, switching viewpoints to show that the teens adore one another. Jason has had sex before; Kyra is excited by the physical intimacy (they even prepare with condoms), but they both know she isn't ready to lose her virginity. The novel is much too long, and constant references to what each character is wearing, head to toe, become tiresome. But the turnaround is tense, and teens won't be able to stop reading until Jason and Kyra are back in a loving embrace. HazelRochman. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.