Product Description

“Save the cheerleader, save the world” are the defining words of Heroes, the phenomenal series that has transformed television drama. They are also the cryptic marching orders for the show’s cross section of ordinary individuals united by an extraordinary bond. Each possesses a superhuman ability, and together they must prevent the course of history from taking a terrifying turn. Now, in this original novel based on the TV phenomenon, in a thrilling story that will captivate even those who haven’t seen the show, one of these unexpected saviors steps center stage on a deeply personal quest that will test the limits of his gift, the depth of his love, and the ultimate strength of his will.

Hiro Nakamura possesses the remarkable power to control time. And like his uniquely blessed comrades, he’s on a mission for the good of humankind. But another challenge awaits him: saving the love of his life from an unspeakable death. Charlene “Charlie” Andrews is the big-hearted, small-town beauty whose sunny smile and sweet soul knocked the shy Hiro head over heels. But when Charlie’s young life is snuffed out by a grisly serial killer, their budding romance is brutally cut short.

Or is it? Thanks to his astounding newfound skill, Hiro has the means to do what no tragedy-stricken lover in history ever could–turn back time. And no matter how raw his abilities, or how many twists of circumstance conspire to foil him, he vows to deliver Charlie from the evil poised to claim her. He will be her hero.

But what possible consequences might changing the past visit upon the future? How could saving one cherished life affect millions of others? And what ultimate choice will Hiro make when the power of fate rests in his hands?


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #105101 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-26
• Released on: 2008-08-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345503237
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Aury Wallington has written for the television shows Sex and the City and Veronica Mars. She is the author of the novel Pop!, which was named one of the New York Public Library’s “Books for the Teen Age.” Aury lives in Los Angeles with her dog, Tuesday.

www.aurywallington.com


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1

Hiro Nakamura was in love.

Full-on, balls-out, head-over-heels in love.

Charlie was perfect. Smart, funny, gorgeous—God, was she gorgeous, with that red hair and those small soft hands and that smile . . .

He had waited his entire life to have a girl smile at him like that. And it had finally happened, lightning had finally struck. Six thousand miles from home, at a tiny greasy spoon smack in the middle of Texas, he’d finally met the girl of his dreams.

Charlie. Mmmmm.

Hiro peacocked in front of the men’s room mirror, bringing sexy back. He felt like slaying a dragon or saving a village or pounding his chest with mighty fists—something masculine and rugged and virile, to announce to the world that Hiro Nakamura was in love with Charlie . . . um . . .

Charlie Something-or-other.

Huh. He didn’t know her last name.

Hiro’s shoulders slumped for a second, then he shook it off.

Well, so what? Who cared what her last name was? If he played his cards right, she might just end up as Charlie Nakamura!

He gave his reflection a goofy smile.

Okay, maybe he was going overboard. Maybe love was too strong a word for what he felt, given that he’d known her for less than an hour, and they spoke different languages, and she was probably only talking to him at all because he’d happened to sit down in her section in the diner.

All right, then, he’d admit it: maybe he wasn’t actually in love with Charlie.

But he was definitely smitten. No one could argue with that.

2

No wonder everyone in America is so fat!”

Hiro surreptitiously glanced around the diner, checking out the other customers to see if Ando was talking about anyone in particular.

A group of chattering women in tennis whites took up three tables in the back; a sketchy-looking trucker with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, shielding his face, nursed a solitary cup of coffee at a table by the door; a pair of businessmen were anchored down the counter; and two men in police department uniforms lingered over the newspaper a couple of tables away.

The younger of the two, whose bushy sideburns threatened to take over his face, scowled down at the crossword puzzle, erasing an answer so vigorously that he tore a hole in the paper. But the older—and fatter— cop looked up, meeting Hiro’s gaze with a friendly nod.

Hiro smiled back, trying not to look alarmed at the way the sheriff’s chair creaked ominously anytime he shifted his considerable bulk. Then he returned his attention to Ando, who was scowling down at the laminated menu in consternation.

“All there is to eat is waffles and french fries,” Ando complained.

Hiro leaned back in the comfortable padded booth and grinned. “You like french fries.”

“I’ve gained four kilos from french fries!”

Hiro opened his mouth to respond, then thought better of it. Half a dozen replies sprang to mind, each one more hilarious than the last, but he knew that his friend wouldn’t find any of them funny, at least not until he’d had some coffee.

So Hiro simply shrugged and picked up his own menu, happy just to be out of the car.

Hiro and Ando had been on the road since dawn, steadily ticking off the miles on the endless monotonous ribbon of I-20 East from El Paso. Ando was lucky enough to be doing the driving, but for Hiro, it was the most boring morning of his life.

There had been nothing interesting to look at, scenery-wise—just scrubby brown earth, divided by barbed-wire fences that seemed utterly pointless to him—what were they trying to fence in? There was nothing there!

At one point they’d passed a squashed armadillo by the side of the road, and after that Hiro hadn’t been able to look out the window at all. Yet there was nothing else to do—he’d read all the manga he’d brought along a million times already. His 9th Wonders! was in tatters, he’d memorized every word of Tengu Ninfuuden Shinobu, and he’d flipped through Robogirl so often that the pages were all coming loose.

He’d tried to buy the latest issues when they’d stopped for gas the day before in Las Cruces, but the woman running the little newsstand had no idea what he was talking about, even with Ando translating for him. She kept trying to press a copy of something called Fish & Stream on him, which as far as Hiro was concerned was worse than having no reading material at all. She was so insistent that he’d finally shelled out the $3.95 and taken it, just to get her off his back, but the second he was out of her eyesight he tossed it into a trash bin.

And even though Ando had turned out to be a far better traveling companion than Hiro had expected—really, a better friend than he ever would have dreamed—he was grouchy in the mornings and never wanted to talk until the caffeine from his coffee had fully kicked in.

He didn’t want to listen to Hiro talk, either, and had even snapped at him to stop humming, “because it’s interfering with my driving.”

Hiro wasn’t sure how his practically inaudible humming could affect Ando’s ability to steer the car—in a perfectly straight line, no less— but whatever. He wasn’t going to fight about it. So he agreeably folded his lips inside, then stared silently up at the cloudless, unremittingly blue sky. It had been that way for hours and hours, until finally, on the outskirts of a small town, they’d spotted the faded red sign of the Burnt Toast Diner.

Ando flicked on the turn signal and pulled into the parking lot.

Hallelujah.

Hiro bolted out of the car before it had even come to a full stop.

“Breakfast!” he crowed, and hurried to the diner’s front door, stopping to hold it open for Ando.

Hiro loved diners. He loved the food, loved the retro chrome-and- vinyl décor, loved the little individual jukeboxes sitting on each table. He always flipped through the playlist, even though he had yet to recognize a single song. What he loved best, though, were the menus, which frequently had pictures of the food printed next to their descriptions, so you knew exactly what you were going to get.

It was just like Tokyo, where every noodle joint in Shinjuku had plastic models of each dish displayed in the window. It made ordering a lot easier, and it was one of the few things he’d encountered so far on this trip that made Hiro feel at home.

It was especially helpful in a place like this, where the dishes were given colorful, incomprehensible names and descriptions. Hiro wavered back and forth between the Oil Rigger breakfast sandwich—scrambled eggs, cheese, and Canadian bacon, pressed between two waffles, dipped in batter, and deep-fried to golden gooey perfection—and the Strike It Rich special, with pork-and-apple sausage patties piled on a fresh homemade biscuit and smothered in country gravy.

He was so absorbed in the menu—did he feel more like the fried square thing or the white creamy thing?—that he didn’t even notice the waitress bustling up to their table until she spoke.

“Anything looking good, guys?”

Hiro glanced up and froze, thunderstruck.

Standing in front of him was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

Eyes like a baby koala’s, strawberry-blond hair that swooped fetchingly down her shoulders, a body you could toast marshmallows over. She looked—holy moly, she looked just like Robogirl, the main character in Hiro’s all-time number one favorite manga, brought to life.

And Hiro worshipped Robogirl. Since he was twelve years old he’d devoured every issue about the sexy female robot with weapons for hands and sadness in her heart. And now here she was, standing right in front of him.

But instead of having lethally sharp stilettos or spiked clubs at the end of her arms, this girl had two coffeepots clutched in her hands, one of which had an orange spout. She held them up invitingly.

“Yes, please!” Ando begged, righting the upside-down cups that were preset on saucers on the table, and quickly pushing his in her direction.

The waitress poured, then turned her smile onto Hiro. “Would you like some coffee?”

Hiro just stared at her, a foolish grin planted on his face. Even if he knew the English words he needed to answer her, he didn’t think he could speak.

She lifted a shoulder in a little half shrug and reached across the table to pour him a cup anyway. As she bent toward him, Hiro saw that she had a name tag pinned to the left pocket of her pink blouse.

charlie.

He studied the name, deciphering the unfamiliar combination of letters, attempting—why didn’t I pay more attention in English class— to sound it out, when—ouch!—Ando kicked him under the table.

Hiro scowled at him, indignant. “What did you do that for?”

Ando answered in a low voice, in Japanese. “Stop leering at her!”

What? “I wasn’t,” Hiro protested, but then a second glance at Charlie made him realize that, yeah, he kinda had been.

Oops. But he stole another glance anyway, noticing the necklace Charlie was wearing, a filigreed heart-shaped silver locket nestled in the hollow of her pale, slender throat.

“Tell her I like her necklace.”

“I will not.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a completely transparent excuse for having been ogling her.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Hey, I don’t blame you. But I’m not going to help you hit on some poor defenseless girl—”

“Ando!”

Charlie, who was looking back and forth b...

Customer Reviews

Didn't answer any questions
I am a huge Heroes fan, and I've been dying to know the details of the Hiro/Charlie story. Even though it was only a tiny part of the series, I really loved the character and wanted to know what could possibly have happened to cause Hiro to not save Charlie. Did all the jumping forward and backward in time mess up the time line? Did saving Charlie lead to some worse result later on? Would we have a Sylar/Hiro confrontation? Unfortunately, the novel gives us nothing, and that nothing occurs in the last few moments of the book. We don't even get to see what happens in the final timeline where Hiro and Ando walk into the diner that Hiro has been working at for all those missing months. Instead, all we get is page after page of a Hiro that bares little resemblance that the Hiro we've come to love. I did find some of the Hiro/Charlie romance charming, and the book did have a nods to the fans. But ultimately, it reads more like a short fanfic expanded to book length instead of a story that could have actually been part of the show.

Not the Hiro we know and love
A case of trying to hard coupled with mediocre writing, this book really didn't do it for me. The author even somehow managed to turn the single most lovable character in Heroes into an annoying, emotional, even whiny unlikable loser. I get that Hiro isn't perfect and that he's kinda been a disappointment to his father and all, but jeez...how many times did they have to get into his utter lack of ever even managing to kiss a girl? Or, the need to bash us over the head with his extremely exaggerated emotional swings? (Since when is Hiro manic?)

I just didn't enjoy it. I don't generally read books based on existing properties, but I thought it'd be a light, fun read. I mean, how could it go wrong? Hiro is just so gosh darn likable on the show. But this book didn't read like him at all. Clearly, the author didn't understand the character and that came through as you felt, reading the book, you didn't either.

Likeable Story
If you like, or love the tv show Heroes you will probably enjoy this book...as to how much you will like it may depend on your tastes. The story basically fills in the romance between Hero and Charlie, with no great surprises. On the positive side it is a quick read, on the other it is mostly a romantic tale. I cannot help but think this was a story arc that the writers thought about developing through a season of the show, but decided to go another way and figured they would put it out in book form. That being said...without other story lines to take us away from this, the story of "Saving Charlie" ends up to be a nice one, but with no real surprises or excitment...more of a romance than anything else.