Saylor Grayson makes herself sick. Literally.
She ate her first needle when she was seven. Now, at nineteen, she’s been kicked out of college for poisoning herself with laxatives. The shrinks call it Munchausen Syndrome. All Saylor knows is that when she’s ill, her normally distant mother pays attention and the doctors and nurses make her feel special.
Then she meets Drew Dean, the leader of a local support group for those with terminal diseases. When he mistakes her for a new member, Saylor knows she should correct him. But she can’t bring herself to, not after she’s welcomed into a new circle of friends. Friends who, like Drew, all have illnesses ready to claim their independence or their lives
For the first time, Saylor finds out what it feels like to be in love, to have friends who genuinely care about her. But secrets have a way of revealing themselves. What will happen when Saylor’s is out?
Saylor is a beautiful young woman but with a crippling illness, she makes herself ill. She thrives on the attention that emergency hospital visits bring, with medical staff caring for her, and her emotionally distant mother finally interacting with the daughter she so desperately ignores.
Saylor has Munchausen Syndrome and has suffered at her own hands since she was only seven years of age, when her grandmother left without looking back. Saylor despises her mother. She's cold, distant and spends her time refurbishing doll houses for no apparent reason. Her father is an attorney, and lives out of a suitcase. Neither parent provides Saylor with love, affection or stability. So she takes her illness one step further. After her psychologist suggested volunteering, Saylor finds herself working at the hospital. Her goal? To provide herself with more ammunition to further her illness, but providing refreshments to the support groups isn't part of the plan. A means to an end, right?
Saylor meets Drew, the handsome young leader of a support group for young adults with terminal or degenerative diseases. So when he mistakenly thinks she's a new member, her vast knowledge of diseases only fuels her lies. As Drew's disease progresses, Saylor's admiration of his independence and determination morphs into an unrealistic love. A love based on a lie, on her sickening illness, and the sweet and gentle boy that is slowly losing himself to disease.
Can he still love the girl who self harms for attention and lived a lie to experience acceptance, friendship and love? Drew might just change her life.
Secret For A Song is disturbing, it's honest, emotional and beautifully sad, but it's inspiring. Saylor is one of the most disturbed characters in young adult fiction, but your heart will ache with what her life has become. Her father is absent, her mother is emotionally absent, vindictive and her only reliable caregiver was removed from her life. She has no example of a loving or trusting relationship, no friends and the only warmth in her life is that of medical staff, after self harming.
Drew is a beautiful soul. He's slowly being cut down in the prime if his life, by a disease in which he will lose complete motor functions, all before he turns thirty years of age.
Secret For A Song will take you on a journey about death, loathing, love, friendship and healing. Although the ending may leave some readers feeling empty, it's poignant and reflective, it's ugly tears emotional.
A huge fan of spooky stuff and shoes, I enjoy alternately hitting up the outlet malls and historic graveyards in Charleston, SC where I live and imbibe coffee. My husband and two small children seem not to mind when I hastily scribble novel lines on stray limbs in the absence of notepads.
Since no writer’s biography is complete without mention of her menagerie of animals, you should know I have one dog that doubles as a footstool, a second that functions as a vacuum cleaner, and a cat that ensures I never forget that my hands are, first and foremost, for pouring cat food.
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Secret For A Song
Written S.K Falls
Expected Publication: June 2013