About The Book
Title:
Author: Laura
Giebfried
Genre:
Psychological Thriller
Nothing
ever happened at Bickerby. Located on an island off the coast of Maine, its
prestige, remoteness, and near-inaccessibility in the winter months were the
reasons that Enim Lund’s father sent him there in the first place. With only a
year left of school until graduation, Enim’s only focus is to keep his grades
high enough to scrape by and keep his unforgiving involvement in his mother’s
critical accident secreted away. But when a body washes up on the school’s
shore and a teacher vanishes without explanation, the thought of a quiet,
uneventful year becomes unlikely – especially given that his best friend has
planted himself in the middle of the crime. Worse than the thought of a killer
loose on the island with them, though, is that the unfolding events are
dredging up horrors in Enim’s past that, if uncovered, will result in his own
misdeeds being found out.
As
Enim is pulled further and further into crimes that he both has and hasn't
committed, he finds that his mind is slowly unraveling and his grip on reality
is faltering, and unwanted comparisons are being drawn between his mother's
withering health and his own. Soon, discovering who the killer is becomes his
only concern. Yet before long, it becomes clear that there's an even more
difficult task at hand than who's responsible for the horrid crimes: getting
anyone to believe him.
Book Excerpt:
She died on a Friday, right in time to ruin the holiday plans for the students who had hoped to take the ferry to the mainland for the long weekend. The boys stood on the shore even still, watching as the police pulled the water-logged body from the ocean with mixtures of excitement and anticipation on their faces. Several more students joined the crowd once word got out, but by the time she had been zipped out of sight into a plastic-bag, Barker had gotten wind of the situation and sent someone down to chase them away. I watched them idly from the window of the residence building, the phone in my hand slipping down to my shoulder as I did so, until Karl’s sharp tone alerted me back to the conversation.
“It’s the third one this year, Enim,” he said. “You can’t keep failing exams, especially in the year before college. What would people think?”
“Right,” I said absently, still squinting to see the students whispering feverishly about what they had seen. “What would they think.”
“I know this comes down to Jack’s influence – there’s no other explanation. I rather thought that you would have reevaluated your friendship with him by now, especially given the trouble that he got you into last year.”
“True.”
“You were very nearly expelled,” Karl went on without acknowledging the flatness in my tone. “Anyone else would have been. You’re lucky that Mr. Barker was compassionate enough to let you stay on –”
“I’m lucky that my father paid Barker off, you mean.”
I wrapped the phone cord around my fingers as I gave the blunt response, reveling in the sound of static as Karl struggled to respond. He would undoubtedly run his hands through his hair before smoothing it down again as he thought of a way to counter my claim, but even the image of him so frazzled in his neatly pressed suit and straight tie couldn’t lighten the mood brought on by his phone call.
“I – he – that’s not true, Enim. He didn’t pay the headmaster off.”
“He bought the lacrosse team another stadium,” I said. “They’re very pleased about it.”
“That was a completely separate event. He donated the money so that you could have a better lacrosse team.”
“I don’t play lacrosse. I don’t even go to the games. The only reason he wanted Bickerby to have a better sporting field was so that I could stay in school.”
“That’s not true, Enim. If anything, he did it in the hopes that you might start playing a sport – we all agree that it would be good for you.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, grateful that he couldn’t see my expression. Despite the fact that he was a lawyer, he had never been a very good liar: Barker had only consented not to expel me in return for a signed check.
Author Bio
Laura
Giebfried was born in Bangor, Maine in June of 1992. She is the youngest child
of Joseph and Rosemary Giebfried, who moved to Maine from New York in order to
raise their family. Giebfried currently lives in Bangor and attends the
University of Maine where she is earning her degree in psychology.
