ETCHED ON ME

This book sounds like a good one.  Atria is doing a giveaway of a finished copy of this book. It is up to me how the copy is run.  Just leave a comment here or on my face book and I will pick a winner on Friday.  Then I will give the information to Atria.

On the surface, sixteen-year-old Lesley Holloway is just another bright new student at Hawthorn Hill, a posh all-girls’ prep school north of London. Little do her classmates know that she recently ran away from home, where her father had spent years sexually abusing her. Nor does anyone know that she’s secretly cutting herself as a coping mechanism...until the day she goes too far and ends up in the hospital. 

Lesley spends the next two years in and out of psychiatric facilities, where she overcomes her traumatic memories and finds the support of a surrogate family. Eventually completing university and earning her degree, she is a social services success story—until she becomes unexpectedly pregnant in her early twenties. Despite the overwhelming odds she has overcome, the same team that saved her as an adolescent will now question whether Lesley is fit to be a mother. And so she embarks upon her biggest battle yet: the fight for her unborn daughter.

Dear Reader,

ETCHED ON ME was inspired by a shocking true story that made headlines in the UK.  It’s an edgy coming of age tale in which an irrepressible young woman embarks on a suspense-filled fight for custody of her baby daughter.  Writing this novel took me on a heart-wrenching and redemptive literary journey, and I hope it will do the same for you when you read it.

Sincerely,
Jenn Crowell

On the surface, sixteen year-old Lesley Holloway is just another bright new student at Hawthorn Hill, a posh all-girls prep school north of London.  Little do her classmates know that she recently ran away from home, where her father had spent years sexually abusing her.  Nor does anyone know that she’s secretly cutting herself as a coping mechanism…until the day she goes too far and ends up in the hospital.

Lesley spends the next two years in and out of psychiatric facilities, where she overcomes her traumatic memories and finds the support of a surrogate family.  Eventually completing university and earning her degree, she is a social services success story–until she becomes unexpectedly pregnant in her early twenties.  Despite the overwhelming odds she has overcome, the same team that saved her as an adolescent will now question whether Lesley is fit to be a mother.  And so she embarks upon her biggest battle yet: the fight for her unborn daughter.

“With its deft plotting, rich characterization and often hilariously poignant dialogue, Crowell’s latest is a gem.”

— Kirkus Reviews

“Readers will cheer for Lesley’s progress in this against-all-odds, sometimes grueling, suspenseful, and character-rich tale of individuation. Bringing to mind Susanna Kaysen’s memoir Girl, Interrupted or Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides, Crowell’s novel darkly fascinates.”

— Library Journal

“At turns heartbreaking and difficult to read, this is a raw, unflinching look at mental illness and one girl’s one-step-forward, two-steps-back attempts to claw herself out from under. It’s a sobering, yet empowering reminder: in order to create a meaningful life, sometimes it will take all the fight you have.”

— Booklist

“Etched on Me is one of the first authentic, searing portraits of a young woman’s all-out fight for her sanity since I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. There is not one false note in this stark, frightening, and tender story. You will not forget Lesley, or her trials and triumph.”

— Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean

“Etched on Me reinvents the “coming-of-age” novel by making the body of a young woman the center of the drama… As she beats back the abuse from her past and the self-destruction driving her, she discovers there is something alive in her bigger than her rage and hurt. What she has to fight for next will break your heart–just as it should–because what we tell females about themselves is a story that can indeed make or break them. Jenn Crowell will open your eyes with this tale of how the body and heart of a girl can, on her own terms, become that of a woman.”

Jenn Crowell is the critically acclaimed author of the novels Necessary Madnessand Letting the Body Lead.  She holds an MFA in creative writing and lives near Portland, Oregon, with her husband and daughter.