All Families Have Secrets. Some Kill For Them.
Book-smart, broke and toting a self-deprecating sense of humor, Esther Holland is nobody’s idea of a seasoned seductress. She’s more comfortable with a worn-out paperback than a cocktail dress, and her only experience with high-stakes intrigue comes from late-night movies.
When the enigmatic Caron recruits her into the Family—a secret sorority where smart, beautiful women master the art of deception—she is christened “Star” and dropped into a fairytale of glamour and luxury. But once a high-stakes assignment goes horribly wrong, the velvet curtain is torn away, plunging Star into the Family’s dark secrets and striking midnight on her new life.
Armed with only a notebook and a knack for noticing what she shouldn’t, Star begins her own unique style of investigation and learns that in the Family, the most devastating truths don’t exist between the lines—they’re hidden in the margins.
A slow-burn mystery of loyalty and deception, The Family is a story about what happens when the right girl starts asking the wrong questions.
Excerpt
Prologue
The stupid purple pen was dying again. Esther shook it harder this time, and the ink sputtered back to life. It came from the cheap plastic set her sister had given her last year on her fourteenth birthday. None of the pens had ever worked that well, but she loved them anyway.Amber light from her bedside lamp bathed the room in a golden warmth. Fantasy paperbacks lay scattered across the floor, spines cracked and pages softened, while a pink Bluetooth speaker sat next to her on the bed, playing a lo-fi indie song.
She paused and stared at the ink-smudged paper. She’d written the same sentence and crossed it out three times: How do you tell someone you miss them if you’ll never see them again?
A faint tink at the window caught her ear. Soft at first, like rain, but then sharper, more insistent. She set her notebook on the pillow, jumped down, and stepped to the sill.
Outside, barely enough moonlight fell over the rusted fire escape for her to make out the hooded figure crouching there. A face peered at her from the shadows.
Her heart thumped.
The figure waved.
Esther didn’t care if her mom heard. She threw the window up so hard it rattled, then crawled halfway over the ledge before Amelia could say, “Careful, you dork.” She landed in a tangle, knees banging against metal and hair whipping in her eyes. But none of that mattered because Amelia was back. In the flesh, and her arms wrapped around Esther like the strongest safety harness in the world.
“Missed you too, Sprout.” Her voice was rough and more alive than the memory Esther replayed every night in her dreams. She squeezed tighter.
“You said you’d call.” Esther pressed her face against Amelia’s chest. “I waited. Every night.”
When Amelia pulled away, she seemed older, more tired, her skin looser where laugh lines used to be. A new tattoo—a sharp, bold diamond with flares—curled from her wrist toward her thumb.
“I’m sorry. Things got…busy,” she said, not even trying to sound convincing. “But I’m here now.”
A moment passed as traffic and conversations drifted up from the street. But on the second-floor fire escape, under the night sky, the rest of the city faded away until only they remained.
Amelia reached into her hoodie and pulled out a Mounds bar, Esther’s favorite. “Don’t say I never bring you anything.”
Esther took it, ripped it open, and popped half into her mouth. Bliss.
They sat, balancing their feet on the slats—Amelia’s ratty sneakers and Esther’s bare toes side by side. Amelia’s hand rested absently on Esther’s hair, twining a strand and letting it go.
“What are you doing here?” Esther asked between chews, her coconut breath and exuberance filling the space between them as Amelia smirked.
“I’m leaving early tomorrow, and I’ll be gone for a while. So, I figured we could hang out. Like before.”
Esther’s belly squirmed. “Where are you going?”
Amelia smiled, revealing the chip in her left incisor, the one she’d gotten from chasing Mrs. Tedesci’s cat down 179th Street. She’d taken the corner too tight, lost her balance, and bounced her face off the sidewalk. She couldn’t eat anything but pudding and applesauce for three days.
“You know. New places, big adventures.” But her eyes said: Don’t ask—not yet.
“Is Mom pissed at you?”
“She’s always pissed at me.” Amelia shrugged. “But you need to be there for her, okay, Sprout?”
Esther nodded.
She draped an arm over Esther’s shoulder and held her close. They didn’t need to say anything more.
The glow of the streetlight caught the fresh ink of Amelia’s tattoo and made it shine. Esther reached out gently to touch it.
“Did it hurt?”
“Like a son of a bitch, yeah,” Amelia chuckled. “But I love it.”
Esther ran her finger over the lines.
“It looks like a—”
“Star!” a voice calls out—female, crisp, commanding.
The sound snaps me from the daydream. No longer barefoot. No longer on the fire escape. Was that really five years ago?
Candles flicker around me like a creepy ritual scene from the old movies Amelia and I would stay up late to watch. She’d poke me during the scary parts and roar with laughter when I freaked out. I’d slap her and pretend to be mad, but I’d give anything to be lying there in my pajamas with her right now.
Instead, I’m standing up here, in front of all these people with this shimmering black dress drooping so low on my shoulders, they could hang me right in the closet when this is all over. A blister from these heels keeps screaming, as if I had a say in it. Your feet are so thin. These may be a little loose. Yeah, no kidding.
The last time I’d worn heels was for the ninth-grade dance, after Tyler Reynolds asked and I’d said “Okay” without understanding the expectations my answer carried. Come to think of it, I had a blister then too.
“Stand proud, Sister, and receive your name.” She sounds so dramatic, like a community theater production of Hamlet. Though perhaps The Taming of the Shrew would be more appropriate in this instance.
The woman takes a black pendant necklace off the table and holds it up. Just like she did with Amy—Athena now, I guess. Is that how this works?
My lips are so dry. The deep red lipstick looks pretty, but it’s like a melted crayon coating my mouth. I keep licking them, which probably makes me look like a nervous Jack Russell terrier.
Leaning my head forward like the other girls did, I let her slide the chain over my hair. Please don’t mess it up. Three hours in a salon chair for this. The stylist took one glance at my matted, split-end mop and wished she’d taken the day off.
To her credit, she turned it into salon-perfect layers falling past my shoulders—blonde with amber highlights. I never imagined having a haircut which cost more than the electric bill we “forgot” to pay every other month, but now that it’s mine, I have to admit it’s great.
The woman lays the pendant beneath my collarbone and smiles. It’s so cold. The smile I return is half-formed, but with lips on the verge of cracking, it’s the best I can offer. Hushed voices swirl all around, adding to my anxiety.
“From this moment on, you are Star.”
My body remains motionless. A feeling of change is supposed to come over me, right? I’m getting nothing other than: I don’t belong here.
Her tone softens, becoming almost warm. “Welcome to the Family.”