Trust me on this, the opening chapter of Julie Frayn’s Suicide City is dangerous. Don’t plan on doing anything once you pick up the book and start 
reading, because I’ve found it impossible to put down. In fact, I intentionally let my kindle run out of power and am not charging it for the purpose of actually getting some work done. I’m going to suggest you haul ass over to Smashwords.com and snag a copy of this book that is so incredibly awesome, it’s in round two of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award.
Book description: Sixteen-year-old August Bailey yearns for more than pig slop and cow shit. She fantasizes about an apartment in the city, not a tiny house on an Iowa farm. She dreams of new clothes and falling in love with a worthy boy. Not hand-me-downs from the second hand store in Hubble Falls, population two-and-a-half, or having her jock boyfriend grope her and push her for sex. During another fight about makeup and boys, August’s controlling mother slaps her. And August hops the next bus out of town.
She arrives in Charlesworth to discover that reality and fantasy don’t mix. After a night of gunfire and propositions from old, disgusting men, she is determined to find the ‘real city,’ the ‘real people’ of her dreams. To prove to her mother, and herself, that she is the adult she claims to be.
When her money runs out, she is ‘saved’ by seventeen-year-old Reese, a kind boy with electric eyes and a gentleman’s heart. Reese lives on the streets. Though clean for months, he battles heroin addiction and the compulsion to cut himself. Each day is a struggle to make the right choice.
August falls in love with Reese, and knows her love can save him. She breaks down his emotional walls and he tells her his secrets – of abuse and the truth about his mother’s death. As Reese’s feelings for August grow, so does the realization that keeping her could ruin her life too.
Suicide City is an edgy young adult novel. Told from the points of view of August, Reese, and August’s mother, the story takes an honest look at some hard realities including teen homelessness, drug use, child abuse and prostitution. But at its heart, it is the story of first love – and the consequences of every choice made.
From nine to five, Julie Frayn is a mild mannered accountant. But the rest of the time, her writer alter-ego comes to life. When she isn’t counting beans or making things up in her head, she is mother to the two most perfect adults on the planet. She isn’t biased, just observant. When they were younger, they were perfect muses for silly poetry about smashed peas and birds with gastroenteritis.
Catch up with Julie Frayn:
on her Blog: http://juliebird.ca
on FaceBook: http://facebook.com/juliebirdfrayn
on Twitter: http://twitter.com/juliefrayn
on Linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/juliefrayn
Snag Suicide City at Smashwords.com: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/285561
Wait, why are you still reading? I told you to shuck buns over to smashwords…. GO GO GO!
~Amber Jerome~Norrgard
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