Book excerpt: A bold debut novel that combines a coming-of-age story with the gritty lives and desolate beauty of Vermont's Northeast KingdomJessup Burke, a lonely, naive sixteen-year-old, has grown up fatherless in an indifferent, hardscrabble logging town. Out of high school a year early, he now bikes the back roads and roams the woods, fishing and daydreaming of his sweetheart. When he encounters Reg Cumber, a marijuana grower fresh out of prison, and Reg's younger, married sister, Jessup is lured into a world of danger and violence.With sure and supple prose, Rickstad draws readers into the hot, still air of a summer backwoods to witness Jessup's abrupt awakening into adulthood. A bold, unflinching novel about fate, self-knowledge, and family secrets, Reap is charged with Rickstad's keen sense of place and character and is alive with his vividly conjured natural world.