It’s the first day of March, so today is the first day I can officially say it: My new YA novel, 17 & GONE, comes out this month! (March 21 in the US, and March 26 in Canada!)
The opening lines:
Girls go missing every day. They slip out bedroom windows and into strange cars. They leave good-bye notes or they don’t get a chance to tell anyone. They cross borders. They hitch rides, squeezing themselves into overcrowded backseats, sitting on willing laps. They curl up and crouch down, or they shove their bodies out of sunroofs and give off victory shouts. Girls make plans to go, but they also vanish without meaning to, and sometimes people confuse one for the other. Some girls go kicking and screaming and clawing out the eyes of whoever won’t let them stay. And then there are the girls who never reach where they’re going. Who disappear. Their ends are endless, their stories unknown. These girls are lost, and I’m the only one who’s seen them.
Praise for 17 & Gone:
“Elegant, riveting, powerful, and poignant, this suspenseful, supernatural tale slips under the skin, inking out a haunting tapestry of menace and madness.” —Libba Bray, author of The Diviners and A Great and Terrible Beauty
“Suma breaks reality and twists it back together in a devastating and beautiful new form.” —Kiersten White, author of Paranormalcy and Mind Games
“Suma follows Imaginary Girls with another reality-blurring, psychologically complex mystery… . Through Lauren’s unraveling journey, readers learn firsthand what it’s like to question one’s own sanity.” —Publishers Weekly
★ ”This is ingeniously crafted … [An] intimate, compelling exploration of a troubled young woman’s life.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review
“A truly original novel, different from anything else on the shelves… . Suma blends the real with the fantastic so seamlessly that readers will question everything.” —Romantic Times Book Review