Fiction
"I'm always happy to read as-yet-unpublished debuts, but it's really rare that I stay up until three a.m. reading one, turning pages so fast it's a wonder I didn't get whiplash. Not only is Lauren's book gorgeously written (I was underlining phrases), but it's also a super-smart psychological study about the lives of women--one rich, one strugglingly poor--about aging parents, the tragedy of so-called justice, marriage and its discontents, and a nail-biting literary thriller, with an ending I honest to God never saw coming. Truly special and totally unforgettatble."
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- Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling author of Pictures of You, Is This Tomorrow and Cruel Beautiful World
Novels & Stories
Play Me Backwards
It's 1990. For more than a decade, hysterical communities have prosecuted and shut down daycares for using young children in Satanic Rituals.
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When four-year-old Kaitlyn Price disappears without a trace, Melanie Taylor doesn't think to blame the Bishop Family Daycare where her own four-year-old daughter, Nessa, attends, and her 15-year-old daughter, Paige, works part-time. But when Nessa wakes up screaming Kaitlyn's name and covered in unexplained bruises, Melanie begins to suspect the unthinkable. And Paige knows more than she's telling.
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Desperate to protect her daughter, Melanie becomes the catalyst for a hysteria that threatens to destroy everything she loves. How far will she go to protect her daughters, and what will she do if forced to chose between them?
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Read the first page here:
https://gutsygreatnovelist.com/page-one-prize-winners-2022/