Lost Girls by Merrie Destefano
Publication Date: January 3, 2017
Publisher:
Entangled Teen
Fight Club meets Black Swan—Rachel wakes up in a ditch to
find she doesn’t remember the last year of her life, and that
everything—including herself—is vastly different than she remembers.
Yesterday, Rachel went to sleep listening to Taylor Swift,
curled up in her grammy’s quilt, worrying about geometry. Today, she woke up in
a ditch, bloodied, bruised, and missing a year of her life.
She doesn’t recognize the person she’s become: she’s
popular. She wears nothing but black.
Black to cover the blood.
And she can fight.
Tell no one.
She’s not the only girl to go missing within the last
year…but she’s the only girl to come back. She desperately wants to unravel
what happened to her, to try and recover the rest of the Lost Girls.
But the more she discovers, the more her memories return.
And as much as her new life scares her, it calls to her. Seductively. The good
girl gone bad, sex, drugs, and raves, and something darker…something she still
craves—the rush of the fight, the thrill of the win—something she can’t resist,
that might still get her killed…
The only rule is: There are no rules.
Purchase Links:
Piper’s Reviews – Guest Post
Why did I want to become a writer?
By Merrie Destefano
I've been in love with stories for as
long as I can remember. When I was a young girl, my mom would take me to the
library and I'd check out as many books as I could. She thought this stack of
books would last me for two weeks, which was when they were due back.
Unfortunately, I'd read them all that same night. I think I drove my mom nuts!
So, it didn't take long before I realized that I could make up my own stories.
Maybe it was my 'fix' while I was waiting for more books to read.
Then, when I was in eighth grade, I had a
very unique English teacher. He was new, maybe in his second year. At first, he
thought I was cheating and turning in writing assignments that had been
plagiarized. He even kept me after class to confront me about it. But after we
talked, he confessed that it had taken him awhile to realize that I was really
turning in my own work. After that, he kept me separate from the rest of the
class. While everyone else studied grammar, I sat at a desk in a quiet corner.
All I did every day for the entire semester was write.
I'll never forget that teacher. Thanks,
Mr. Hoffman, for believing in me. It was a time when my world was a bit upside
down. My parents were divorced. I didn't quite fit in at my junior high—a place where very rich students got tossed
in with kids of blue-collar parents. It was my first experience of having to
deal with people my age who had such varied socio-economic backgrounds. I felt
awkward, small and insignificant. I think it was the first time in my life that
I wished I had the super power of invisibility.
But it was also when I learned that
stories—both those that I
read and those that I wrote—had the power to change the world. At least, they changed my world. I was able to escape my own
reality and create a new one. For me, that's the best super power of all. The
ability to create a new reality and write the ending the way you think it
should be.
CURRENTLY A FULL-TIME NOVELIST and magazine editor, Merrie
Destefano’s next novel, LOST GIRLS, releases on January 3, 2017. Her other
novels include AFTERLIFE and FEAST, both published by HarperCollins, and
FATHOM, which was self-published. The editor of Victorian Homes magazine, she
has also been the editor of American Farmhouse Style, Vintage Gardens, and
Zombies magazine, and was the founding editor of Cottages & Bungalows
magazine.
With 20 years experience in publishing, she worked for a
variety of publishing/broadcasting companies that include Focus on the Family,
The Word For Today, and PJS Publications (now Primedia). Besides editing and
writing, her background includes print buying, writing/producing radio promos,
directing photo shoots, developing new products, writing jacket copy for books,
creating sales media packets and organizing direct mail campaigns.
Born in the Midwest, she currently lives in Southern
California with her husband, two German shepherds, a Siamese cat and the
occasional wandering possum. Her favorite hobbies are reading speculative
fiction and watching old Star Trek episodes, and her incurable addiction is
writing. She loves to camp in the mountains, walk on the beach, watch old
movies, listen to alternative music—although rarely all at the same time.
Giveaway Information:
Blog Tour: All prizes listed
below will be given to one prize winner.
Prizes listed are for a US winner
only; if an International winner is chosen, the prize will be a $50 Amazon gift
card.
·
1 - Kindle Fire Tablet, black: 7" Display, Wi-Fi, 8 GB, 1.3
GHz quad-core processor, with the Alexa cloud-based voice service—just press
and ask.
·
1 - digital Kindle copy of LOST GIRLS
·
1 - Pack of 14 vintage-style Swan Lake postcards
·
1 - pr. Black Swan earrings, handmade by author
·
1 - "Always" temporary tattoo
