Publisher: Reedale Karma Press
Seven popular high school cheerleaders. Seven distinctive lives. Seven little secrets. And the truth that haunts them all.
The Janes have everything: beauty, brains, a secure future. So why did co-captain Natalie Greene trade her perfect life for eternal sleep? Her teammates hold pieces of the puzzle, but putting the parts together means revealing defects and vulnerabilities.
And when you’re a Jane, you’re flawless.
An afternoon of mourning turns into a day of disclosures. A day that challenges the teammates to discover the true meaning of friendship.
WINNER OF THE YOUNG ADULT NOVEL CATEGORY IN THE 2018 NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS
I suck in a breath. “Hello?”
“Gigi, it’s me.”
It’s not Daddy calling to make things square after all. Instead, Danni McCarthy’s voice is an arrow slicing through my heart.
My throat’s got an invisible python squeezing it. I swallow hard. No one’s ever heard me cry over weeds in my garden before, and I’m keeping it that way.
“It’s still morning. Some people sleep in, you know.” I cradle the phone under my chin. My hands are scaly as lizard knees, so I reach for the jar of hand cream sitting on my nightstand.
“Did you hear what happened?” she asks all high-pitched and nasally, like she’s gonna sob.
“What?”
“About Natalie?” Her voice cracks.
I drop the jar into my lap. Grab the receiver with both hands, heart flopping like a fish on dry land. “No. What?”
“Oh my God, Gigi. She’s dead.” Danni sniffles. “Some hunters found her in the woods early this morning.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Feel them grow coal hot beneath the lids. Keeping my voice steady, I ask, “How’d she do it?”
“Do it? What do you mean?”
“How’d she kill herself?”
There’s a pause, and then Danni blurts, “How do you know she killed herself?”
I’m like a burglar caught in a cop car’s headlights. No way I can explain myself without casting a guilty shadow. Every Jane on the cheerleading squad thinks she knows the others right down to their blood type. We should. For one thing, we spend most days swapping sweat and sharing the same stale gymnasium air. For another, Stony Grove is a small town. 4,500 people, including a bunch buried in the cemetery. You’d think we’d know each other well enough to read minds. But that’s not how the Janes work. Every one of them has a secret they don’t wanna let out of its cage. Even me.
About the Author
K.L. Gore lives in a small New York State town with her two amazing children and two semi-annoying cats. When she’s not writing books, she’s baking cookies. So once a year she eats homemade cookies. Although K.L. wrote her first unpublished novel at thirteen, she only began considering writing as a profession when her play, Something Blue, was performed on the college stage to an enthusiastic audience. Since then, she has spent years studying the craft of writing while penning several more novels. Her short stories have appeared in Beginnings and Cicada. She has taught creative writing through Greece Community Education and facilitates a monthly writer’s workshop at her local Barnes and Noble bookstore. You can find her on Twitter: @K_L_Gore and on her K.L. Gore Facebook page or read her posts and sign up for her newsletter on her website: www.klgore.com.
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