Shane had convinced her: that he was kind, that their fates were entwined, that he wasn’t like those creeps her mom breakfasted with on weekends. Liv couldn’t save her mother, but she could save herself. That she was now running for two was a wild card she’d figure out later.

Carolyn R. Russell is the author of The Films of Joel and Ethan Coen, published by McFarland & Company in 2001. Her humorous YA mystery, Same As It Never Was, was released in 2018 by Big Table. Carolyn’s new YA dystopian thriller, In the Fullness of Time, was published by Vine Leaves Press in March of 2020, and her essays and short stories have appeared in a variety of publications. She holds an M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University, and has taught on the college, high school, and middle school levels. Carolyn lives north of Boston with her husband and two children.