Wednesday, August 02, 2017

#BookTour: Bad Girl Gone by Temple Mathews

 
Sixteen year-old Echo Stone awakens in a cold sweat in a dark room, having no idea where she is or how she got there. But she soon finds out she s in Middle House, an orphanage filled with mysteriously troubled kids.

There s just one problem: she s not an orphan. Her parents are very much alive.

She explains this to everyone, but no one will listen. After befriending a sympathetic (and handsome) boy, Echo is able to escape Middle House and rush home, only to discover it sealed off by crime scene tape and covered in the evidence of a terrible and violent crime. As Echo grapples with this world-shattering information, she spots her parents driving by and rushes to flag them down. Standing in the middle of street, waving her arms to get their attention, her parents car drives right through her.

She was right. Her parents are alive but she s not.

She s a ghost, just like all the other denizens of Middle House. Desperate to somehow get her life back and reconnect with her still-alive boyfriend, Echo embarks on a quest to solve her own murder. As the list of suspects grows, the quest evolves into a journey of self-discovery in which she learns she wasn t quite the girl she thought she was. In a twist of fate, she s presented with one last chance to reclaim her life and must make a decision which will either haunt her or bless her forever.







Temple Mathews is an author and screenwriter with several films to his credit, including Disney’s Return to NeverlandThe Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea, and Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas. He wrote Aloha Scooby Doo for Warner Bros. and Picture This for MGM. He is also the author of The New Kid trilogy.


Awakening 

When I tried to remember exactly how I came to be lying in
the cold black room, my mind couldn’t focus.
I could feel myself slowly climbing upward, clawing my
way out of the clutches of a nightmare. This was usually a
good feeling, because you knew you were just dreaming, and
the nightmare was over. Except this time it wasn’t. My hands
felt clammy. I gripped the sheets until I knew my knuckles
must be white. Help me, I thought. Somebody please help me.
I had no idea where I was, and for a terrifying second I
couldn’t even remember who I was. But then I remembered my
name. Echo. Echo Stone. My real name is Eileen. When I was
a toddler, I waddled around repeating everything my parents
said and they called me “Echo,” and it just stuck.
Awakening


Remembering my name and how I got it kick-started my
brain. I knew who I was. I remembered that I was sixteen years
old and lived in Kirkland, Washington, with my mom and dad.
It was all coming back to me. Mom was a dentist and Dad
taught middle school English. Good, I could remember parts
of my life. But I was still in a dark, cold room and had no idea
how I got there. I held back a scream, my chest tightening. Don’t
lose it, Echo, keep it together, I told myself. Calm down, think good
thoughts.

I pictured Andy, my boyfriend. Six feet tall, broad shoul-
ders, blue eyes, and long golden-brown hair. He loved to feed

me cookie bites and called me his rabbit. I called him Wolfie.
Sometimes he got the hiccups for no reason at all and usually
laughed them away. Thinking of Andy momentarily made me
feel warm inside, even though the room was freezing.
Where was I? I was shivering and yet also bathed in sweat,

my skin slick with it. I clutched for my trusty Saint Christo-
pher necklace. But it wasn’t there. Mom gave it to me to protect

me when I traveled. Would it protect me now? I would never
have lost it. The chain must have broken. And then I had an
ugly thought. What if someone had ripped it from my neck? I
shuddered. Where are you, Andy? I need you!
I opened my eyes as wide as I could. It was pitch black. My
pounding heart told me, This isn’t some nightmare—it’s real. I
hugged myself and breathed deeply, trying to calm my nerves.
My shoulders were tight. I rubbed the sheets beneath me. The
ones at home in my bed were soft. These were stiff and coarse.
I was somewhere completely and painfully foreign. In my head
I was talking to myself in a rapid voice, my fear voice: What is
this?—what is this?—what is this?












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