Scarlet’s life is pretty average. Overly protective mom. Great friends. Cute boy she’s interested in. And a father she’s never known–until she does.

When the FBI shows up at Scarlet’s door, she is shocked to learn her father is notorious serial killer Jeffrey Robert Lake. And now he’s dying and will only give the names and locations of his remaining victims to one person, the daughter he hasn’t seen since she was a baby.

Scarlet’s mother has tried to protect her from Lake’s horrifying legacy, but there’s no way they can escape the media firestorm that erupts when they come out of hiding. Or the people who blame Scarlet for her father’s choices. When trying to do the right thing puts her life in
danger, Scarlet is faced with a choice–go back into hiding or make the world see her as more than a monster’s daughter.

The next gut-punching, compulsively readable Kate McLaughlin novel, about a girl who finds strength in not being aloneWhen eighteen-year-old Dylan wakes up, she’s in an apartment she doesn’t recognize. The other people there seem to know her, but she doesn’t know them—not even the pretty, chiseled boy who tells her his name is Connor. A voice inside her head keeps saying that everything is okay, but Dylan can’t help freaking out. Especially when she borrows Connor’s phone to call home and realizes she’s been missing for three days.Dylan has lost time before, but never like this.Soon after, Dylan is diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and must grapple with the many people currently crammed inside her head, as well as a secret from her past so terrible she’s blocked out that it’s put them there. Her only distraction is a budding new relationship with Connor. But as she gets closer to finding out the truth, Dylan wonders: Will it heal her or fracture her further?Kate McLaughlin’s Pieces of Me is raw, intimate, and surprisingly hopeful.

“Raw, unflinching, and authentic, Kate McLaughlin’s thoughtful What Unbreakable Looks Like carefully crafts a story exposing the vulnerability of underage trafficked girls and what it takes to begin the process of healing from sexual trauma.”-Christa Desir, author, advocate, and founding member of The Voices and Faces Project

Lex was taken-trafficked-and now she’s Poppy. Kept in a hotel with other girls, her old life is a distant memory. But when the girls are rescued, she doesn’t quite know how to be Lex again.

After she moves in with her aunt and uncle, for the first time in a long time, she knows what it is to feel truly safe. Except, she doesn’t trust it. Doesn’t trust her new home. Doesn’t trust her new friend. Doesn’t trust her new life. Instead she trusts what she shouldn’t because that’s what feels right. She doesn’t deserve good things.

But when she is sexually assaulted by her so-called boyfriend and his friends, Lex is forced to reckon with what happened to her and that just because she is used to it, doesn’t mean it is okay. She’s thrust into the limelight and realizes she has the power to help others. But first she’ll have to confront the monsters of her past with the help of her family, friends, and a new love.

Kate McLaughlin’s What Unbreakable Looks Like is a gritty, ultimately hopeful novel about human trafficking through the lens of a girl who has escaped the life and learned to trust, not only others, but in herself.

A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books