Erin Campbell is lucky – she’s popular, she’s been accepted at Berkeley, she’s got the perfect boyfriend, a great car, parents with plenty of money, and a future that’s going to be even better than her dreams. Lucky, right? But then one Tuesday afternoon, Erin’s luck runs out. She’s in her car, driving on a deserted country road, and she reads a text from her boyfriend. Just one. It’s only a few words, no big deal. What could happen in ten seconds, anyway? But she doesn’t see the boy on the blue bicycle. Not until it’s too late. Not until he’s lying in the road, broken and bleeding, and she’s standing there staring down at him, her cell phone in her hand. Things get worse when another girl -- Macy Wilkes, an outsider at Erin's school -- is charged with the crime. Macy is black, she doesn't live in Erin's upscale neighborhood, and it would be so easy for Erin to just let Macy take the rap. Or would it? This is a novel about what it means to do the right thing in a world that isn’t always fair. Confessing could cost Erin everything – college, her boyfriend, her parents’ respect . . . even her freedom. But not confessing could cost her even more. Erin Campbell lost herself on a Tuesday afternoon; finding herself again will mean looking at who she really is. Warts and all. And there’s nothing harder than that.
Seventeen-year-old Regina Devereaux is humming a song in the kitchen when her life falls apart. A platter crashes to the floor, her mom’s eyes go cold, and after that everything seems wrong. Regina’s best friends, Megan and Colby, think she’s imagining things. At first, anyway. But then they start uncovering secrets, mysterious clues about Leigh and David Devereaux and something that happened in 1995. An accident. A murder, maybe. Or something worse. One thing is clear – Leigh and David Devereaux have been lying to their daughter for seventeen years. But someone may have the answers Regina seeks. Outsider Laura Forrester was seventeen once, too – back in 1986, when she met David Devereaux at Indiana University. They were best friends, with a shared dream of moving to New York and seeing their names on the covers of best sellers. But then David met gorgeous Leigh Cook, and he traded in his dreams for marriage and a fancy job. And Laura was on the outside once again. Beautiful Lies is the story of two women – 17-year-old Regina (who stumbles across secrets her parents wish would stay buried) and 44-year-old Laura (who made decisions back in 1995 that have come back to haunt her). How far will we go for things we want? Too far. Truth may be subjective, but so are lies. And is it ever possible to have all the facts?
Seventeen-year-old Kay has never seen the sky. She has lived her entire life in a “self-contained living environment” called Module 17. She has no clue what cars are, or mountains, or birds, or trees stretching out as far as the eye can see. She has never been to school, never solved an algebra problem, and she can’t read – she doesn’t even know what reading is! And she has absolutely no idea that there is such a thing as the “opposite sex.” Seventeen-year-old Katherine Marcellus, who prefers to be called Kate, has lived her entire life in California, the daughter of a computer magnate and his high society wife. Kate is months away from graduating from high school, but Mrs. Marcellus isn’t pleased with her sullen, disagreeable daughter, who wears the wrong clothes, eats too many candy bars, and hangs around with a low-class boy driving an unsuitable car. When Mrs. Marcellus insists on activating the “substitution clause” in her contract with Replications, Inc., Kay and Kate find themselves taken from everything they’ve ever known and thrown into worlds neither knew existed. Kay must learn the truth about the place she has always called Home, and Kate must face the reality of her mother’s ultimate betrayal.
Seventeen-year-old Bryn has spent the last ten years protecting her thirteen-year-old sister, Tess. They were just children when a mysterious sickness killed their parents, along with the majority of human life on Earth. Now they are living in The Republic, a settlement of over 3,000 people in what was once Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But Bryn knows it can't be forever. She was fifteen when she agreed to go along with the settlement's unusual rules . . . it was a sacrifice she was willing to make for Tess. But she has always known that the day would come when Tess would be expected to make that same sacrifice. And that's something Bryn can never allow. Now with Tess's fourteenth birthday just a few months away, Bryn learns that powerful people in The Republic may not let them leave. When sixteen-year-old Megan is locked up for refusing to join the colony, Bryn realizes that time is running out. She enlists the help of nineteen-year-old Cole, a colony newcomer who has his own concerns about the way things are being done in The Republic. Cole and his friend Al are willing to risk everything to help Bryn, Tess, and Megan escape. But can they make it on their own? And is the world they find beyond The Republic a better place, or just another trap from which they'll have to escape?