Philip Beardas stunning debut novel is fifteen-year-old Tess DeNunzioas letter to her sister, Zoe, lost to a hit-and-run driver on a day when it seemed that nothing mattered but the tragedies playing out in New York and Washington. "Dear Zoe" is a remarkable study of grief, adolescence, and healing with a pitch-perfect narrator who is at once sharp and naAve, world- worried and self-centered, funny and heartbreakingly honest. Tess begins her letter to Zoe as a means of figuring out her own life, her place in the world, but the result is a novel of rare power and grace that tells us much about ours. BACKCOVER: aLike "The Lovely Bones," "Dear Zoe"] is a piercing look at how family recovers from a devastating loss. Everything about this moving, powerful debut rings true.a a"Booklist" (starred review) aBeard peels away the layers of his protagonistas anguish simply and sensitively. . . and creates real, multidimensional and affecting characters.a a"The Washington Post" aThe whole novel . . . rings with truth.a a"The Buffalo News"