The Girl I Wanted to Be: A Novel

As a lowly freshman named for "The King," Presley Moran walks high school corridors paved with the stuff of family legend. Her cousin Barry, a senior heartthrob and brainy varsity letterman, insists that looking good on paper is the key to success. But Presley's young aunt Betsi, a former homecoming queen, has her own ideas about good looks and how to use them.

"Can you keep a secret?" Betsi asks Presley, who, at age fourteen, is eager for entr�e into the adult world of beauty, attraction, and romance. But as Presley is about to discover, some secrets should never be revealed. Will the illicit thrill of being a trusted confidante, privy to the details of muddled entanglements and incompatible desires, be worth the consequences of guilt by association?

Propelled by the crash of falling idols, The Girl I Wanted to Be is a timeless and true portrait of passion, loss, and hard-won wisdom.