Carry Me Home
by Jessica Therrien
Publication date: September 26th 2017
Published by: Acorn Publishing
Genres: Contemporary, Thriller, Young Adult
BLURB
CARRY ME HOME is a fictional
novel inspired by the true story of a teenage girl’s involvement in several
Mexican gangs in San Jose and Los Angeles. The members of her crew call her,
Guera, Spanish for “white girl” and it doesn’t take long for her to get lost in
their world of guns and drugs.
* * *
Lucy and Ruth are country girls
from a broken home. When they move to the city with their mother, leaving
behind their family ranch and dead-beat father, Lucy unravels.
They run to their grandparents’
place, a trailer park mobile home in the barrio of San Jose. Lucy’s barrio
friends have changed since her last visit. They’ve joined a gang called VC.
They teach her to fight, to shank, to beat a person unconscious and play with
guns. When things get too heavy, and lives are at stake, the three girls head
for LA seeking a better life.
But trouble always follows Lucy.
She befriends the wrong people, members of another gang, and every bad choice
she makes drags the family into her dangerous world.
Told from three points of view, the
story follows Lucy down the rabbit hole, along with her mother and sister as
they sacrifice dreams and happiness, friendships and futures. Love is waiting
for all of them in LA, but pursuing a life without Lucy could mean losing her
forever.
Ultimately it’s their bond with
each other that holds them together, in a true test of love, loss and survival.
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—
EXCERPT:
“You
ready for this, Guera?” he asks.
It’s
a test, Guera. Only thing I can say is you’re allowed to fight back. Take ‘em
out with everything you got.
I’d
heard of people being jumped into a gang before, maybe it was Rosa who told me
about it. As the girls start to descend from their spots around the room,
slowly closing in like encircling wolves, I know what’s about to happen.
The
realization takes hold in my chest, a quick plunge of the heart into an icy
lake of fear. I back away slowly out of instinct, ready to run, but there’s
nowhere to go. The sound of their skittering feet is the first thing I hear
before they come at me. Me against all of them. Me against Rose Tattoo and
Cigarette Twins. Me against the jealous novias. Ten sets of eyes glinting with
the thrill of a fight. I flinch and turn my back to avoid the fists, but they’re
all around me. One of them catches me by the shoulders, holding me in place as
the other girls hit the back of my skull. My head flies forward, chin to chest.
At
first I don’t know whether to swing or cover. I reach up to protect myself, but
there are too many points of contact. The rush of adrenaline is intense. It
blocks the pain, but there is a fiery need in me to get away. I try and kick or
punch, feeling one or two connect, but the girls are everywhere. An elbow slams
against my temple. My head splits and my ears ring. I go down.
Every
infinite minute of being the enemy feels like it’ll never end.
Someone’s
shoe stomps my thigh. Others strike my ribs. I heave and gag until I can’t
breathe. But that kind of terror turns me into a resilient kind of crazy. The
kind of rabid-mad that is born of desperation. I scrape and flail until I’m on
my feet, pulling hair and swinging my fists, making contact with whatever I
can. I don’t realize I’m screaming until Toño calls them to a stop.
It
ceases the moment the girls hear his voice, and I’m left there shaking and
crazed, my breath dragging in and out of my lungs in a feverish effort to
return to its normal rhythm. I pant and cry, as softly as I can, but it’s hard
to deny my body the relief of all-out sobbing. My head hurts. My brain smashes
against my skull with the pulse of too much pressure. I taste blood in my
mouth, though no one has touched my face. Now that it’s over, the pain of it
all rushes to the surface and makes me want to vomit. I feel like I could die.
Why
am I here? Why am I doing this?
“She’s
in,” Toño says, and the cheers of the group shock my senses and make me tense
up.
They
all rush me, and at first I’m terrified it’s about to start again, but instead
they hug me and pat me on the shoulder all at once. Each hand on my back or
squeeze around the shoulders rocks me with pain, but they’re so happy. Their
laughter and cheering is contagious, it flows into me, filling me with a
strange sense of pride and belonging. I can’t help my smile when I see their
encouraging faces. I even start to laugh.
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“A riveting page-turner… Jessica Therrien
broke my heart into a million pieces — and then put it back together again.
This book will haunt and uplift readers long after they turn the last page.”
-KAT ROSS, best-selling author of The
Midnight Sea
Author Info
Jessica Therrien is the author of
the young adult series Children of the Gods. Book one in the series,
Oppression, became a Barnes & Noble best-seller shortly after its release.
Her trilogy has been translated and sold through major publishers around the
world, such as Editions AdA (Canada), EditionsMilan (France), and SharpPoint
Press (China).
Aside from her Children of the
Gods series, Jessica is the author of a kid’s picture book called, The
Loneliest Whale. Her award-winning stories can also be found in a published
anthology of flash fiction.
Jessica currently lives in Irvine
with her husband and two young sons. She is working on an a YA suspense
thriller series and a middle grade fantasy series.
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