Showing results by author "Brendan Halpin" in All Categories

it's 1972. A TV network under congressional pressure hires a group of young singer-songwriters to create educational cartoons. Holed up in a studio with unlimited pot, acid, and sex, the young artists and their self-serving mentor seem to have found an artistic utopia. But when jealousy and betrayal replace grammar and multiplication as the musicians’ focus, they struggle to pull their project together before it tears them apart.

In his first nine years as a teacher, Brendan Halpin goes from wide-eyed idealist to cynical, heartbroken idealist. Unique among teaching memoirs, Losing My Faculties is not the story of a heroic teacher who transforms the lives of his hardbitten students; rather, it's the inspirational and often unpretty truth about people who choose to get up ridiculously early day after day and year after year to go stand in front of teenagers.

Hilarious and heartbreaking, profane and profound, It Takes a Worried Man is the true story of a young husband and father whose life is changed forever by his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis. Following Brendan Halpin’s cranky, irreverent, and lustful thoughts through the diagnosis and treatment of his wife, Kirsten, It Takes a Worried Man is an unflinching and raw look at how cancer transforms a family. It’s also the funniest book about cancer you’ll ever read.

Francis has two childhood encounters that shape his life: one with God and the other with Dee Dee Ramone. When his life falls apart in adulthood, Francis, feeling betrayed by God, turns to his other spiritual mentor, emerging as that rarest of beings, a middle-aged punk rocker. A love letter to punk rock and the spiritual power of music, Long Way Back rocks through grief and tragedy toward a new beginning for Francis and an ending sure to make even the hardest of hardcore punks cry.

Mark and Philippa find themselves the subjects of hit breakup songs in different decades and different countries, suffering years of romantic disappointments as a result. Their lives take very different paths, but when their paths cross in adulthood, they may find their biggest humiliation leading to their deepest connection.

Authors Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin—both known for their popular young adult novels—team up to pen this dishy tale of a celebrity fauxmance. Teen stars Fielding Withers and Charlie Tracker share an onscreen romance as Jenna and Jonah on their hit television show. Even better for fans, Fielding and Charlie are together in real life as well—or at least that’s what everybody believes.

Teen TV celebrities Jenna and Jonah can't stand to be in the same room as each other. But to boost the TV ratings their agents make them a 'real life' couple. When the truth is uncovered by the paparazzi, Jenna and Jonah must disappear. It’s only when they're far from Hollywood that they realise there's more to each other than a winning smile.