I took a deep, deep breath and held it in my core; kept it close behind my protruding, fleshless ribs. I swallowed it whole. I was home.

I liked the darkness, the dusty bay window, the view over the grey, muddy harbour and the towering cliffs beyond. How could I think of all that and dislike it, really, when in every nook and cranny I felt Peter’s eyes peering out, watching me?

The light was luminescence and gloom, like the sky at midnight speckled with stars. All she could smell was the ocean...

Everybody knows, nobody's talking - from LIE --debut novel coming September 1st from St. Martin's Press

Esperanza leaned around the side of the truck. As they rounded a curve, it appeared as if the mountains pulled away from each other, like a curtain opening on stage, revealing the San Joaquin Valley beyond. Flat and spacious, it spread out like a blanket of patchwork fields. Esperanza could see no end to the plots of yellow, brown, and shades of green. The road finally leveled out on the valley floor, and she gazed back at the mountains from where they'd come. They looked like monstrous lions' paws resting at the edge of ridge.

As a child, I read because books–violent and not, blasphemous and not, terrifying and not–were the most loving and trustworthy things in my life. I read widely, and loved plenty of the classics so, yes, I recognized the domestic terrors faced by Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters. But I became the kid chased by werewolves, vampires, and evil clowns in Stephen King’s books. I read books about monsters and monstrous things, often written with monstrous language, because they taught me how to battle the real monsters in my life.

And now I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don’t write to protect them. It’s far too late for that. I write to give them weapons–in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.