She's beautiful, smart, envied, and loved, but there is an entire world of pain, grief, loss, and depression boiling underneath all the perfection her peers adore. But the moment she chooses to make her reality transparent, that's when she starts to lose it all. That's when the head cheerleader loses her crown and becomes the object of her peers' ridicule.
It is 1992, and Erica Cohen has lost both her loving parents in a fatal drunk-driving accident, and right after their deaths, she stumbles upon a family secret that threatens to destroy everything she knew about who she was and who she wants to be. With her entire world crumbling around her, she decides it's time to stop pretending. It's time to show the world her real face.
But the truth can be ugly when the people around you aren't ready to face it. She doesn't care, though. No matter what the cost might be, Erica realizes it's time to face the brutal truth of her life whether her friends accept her or not. So, she transforms into a completely different person on the first day of her senior year of high school, and it sends her life into complete chaos.
Bullied by her best friend and shunned by her football-star boyfriend, she realizes what real love isn't. Rejected by the rest of the school, she fights hard to find a small group of mutants who will accept her.
This is where the bads seeds grow.
I am a freelance editor and author living in Oklahoma City. Primarily a women's fiction and young adult author, I advocate for trauma, mental illness, and abuse.
Throughout my novel, I use Erica's journals as a way for her to work through her identity crisis, her suicidal thoughts, and all the unmentionable things happening. Each chapter has one, but if you purchase the book ... there's a bonus one hidden in plain sight. (P.S.—They are all included together at the back of the book.)
Book Excerpt
Where the Bad Seeds Grow
Okay? I’m going to be more than okay. Feeling nice and relaxed in my ISS bubble, I was happy not to have to deal with the pressure of being a normal student again. It was absolutely possible I hadn’t seen the worst of their torture yet, but there was something looming, something dangerous, that I hadn’t quite faced yet. Remember that secret I alluded to earlier? Yeah, that thing. Well, it was screaming to be paid attention to, even though I wasn’t quite ready for the world to know what it was.
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