THE GIRLS
EPISODE 1
[THE GIRLS THEME]
WEST McCRAY:
Welcome to Cold Creek, Colorado. Population: eight hun- dred.
Do a Google Image search and you’ll see its main street, the barely beating heart of that tiny world, and find every other building vacant or boarded up. Cold Creek’s luckiest—the gainfully employed—work at the local grocery store, the gas station and a few other
staple businesses along the
strip. The rest
have to look
a town or two over for opportunity for them- selves and for their
children; the closest schools are in Park- dale, forty minutes away. They take in students from three other towns.
Beyond its main street, Cold Creek arteries out into worn and chipped Monopoly houses that no longer have a place upon the board. From there lies a rural sort of wilderness. The
4 c o u r t n e y
s u m m e r s
highway out is interrupted by veins of dirt roads leading to nowhere as often as they lead to pockets of dilapidated houses or trailer parks
in even worse shape. In the summer- time, a food bus comes with free lunches for the kids until the school
year resumes, guaranteeing at least two subsidized meals a day.
There’s a quiet to it that’s startling if you’ve lived your whole life in the city, like I have. Cold Creek is surrounded
by a beau- tiful, uninterrupted expanse of land and sky that seem to go on forever.
Its sunsets are spectacular; electric golds and oranges, pinks
and purples, natural
beauty unspoiled by the insult of skyscrapers. The sheer amount of space is humbling, almost divine. It’s hard to imagine feeling trapped here.
But
most people here do.
COLD CREEK RESIDENT [FEMALE]:
You live in Cold Creek because you were born here and if you’re born here, you’re probably never getting out.
WEST McCRAY:
That’s not
entirely true. There have been some success sto- ries, college graduates who moved on and found well-paying jobs in distant cities, but they tend to be
the exception and not the rule. Cold Creek is home to a quality of life we’re raised to aspire beyond, if we’re born privileged enough to have the
choice.
Here, everyone’s working so
hard to care
for their families and keep their heads
above water that,
if they wasted time
on the petty dramas, scandals and personal
grudges that seem to define small
towns in our nation’s imagination, they would not
survive. That’s not to say there’s no drama, scandal, or
s a di e 5
grudge—just that those things are usually more than residents of Cold Creek can afford to care about.
Until it happened.
The husk of an abandoned, turn-of-the-century one-room schoolhouse sits three miles outside of town, taken by fire. The roof is caved in and what’s left
of the walls are charred. It sits next to an apple orchard that’s slowly being reclaimed by the nature that surrounds it: young overgrowth, new trees, wild- flowers.
There’s almost something romantic
about it, something that feels like respite from the rest of the world. It’s the perfect place to be alone with your thoughts. At least it was, before.
May Beth Foster—who
you’ll come to
know as this series goes on—took me there herself. I asked to see it. She’s a plump, white, sixty-eight-year-old woman with salt-and-pepper hair. She has a grandmotherly way about her, right
down to a voice that’s so invitingly familiar it warms you from the inside out. May Beth is manager of Sparkling River Estates trailer park, a lifelong resident of Cold Creek,
and when she talks, people listen. More often than not, they accept whatever she says as the truth.
MAY BETH FOSTER:
Just about . . . here.
This is where
they found the body.
911 DISPATCHER [PHONE]:
911 dispatch. What’s your emergency?
SADIE
Blog Tour Q&A
1. Did you experience more difficulty writing
one or the other, or did you like writing in one form more? How much of the
novel did you write in chronological order, and how much did you jump around?
I enjoyed both of them. Writing
Sadie’s perspective was very familiar to me because all of my books feature an
intensely close first person, female point-of-view. Writing West’s perspective,
the podcast format, proved a little more challenging. Not so much because of
the way it was written (scripts) but because each episode had to propel Sadie’s
narrative forward and give us a different way of looking at the things she went
through.
So far, I’ve only ever been able to
write in chronological order!
2. Was this how you always envisioned the book
or did it change as you wrote it?
Regina Spektor said something
really interesting about writing songs that I’ve always loved and related to as
an author. She said, “[A]s soon as you try and take a song from your mind into
piano and voice and into the real world, something gets lost and it’s like a
moment where, in that moment you forget how it was and it’s this new way. And
then when you make a record, even those ideas that you had, then those get all
turned and changed. So in the end, I think, it just becomes its own thing and
really I think a song could be recorded a million different ways and so what my
records are, it just happened like that, but it’s not like, this is how I
planned it from the very beginning because I have no idea, I can’t remember.”
I feel something similar when
writing—the heart of my idea remains intact, but the way it takes its ultimate form
is always a little different (or even a lot different) than I might have been
expecting, which makes it difficult to recall the starting point. But that’s
okay as long as the heart is still there and you’re satisfied with and believe
in what you’ve created.
3. What was the most surprising thing you
learned in creating your characters? Which of your characters do you most
identify with, and why?
When I first started
Sadie, I was extremely skeptical of
West—he had to prove himself to readers over the course of his narrative and
given the nature of his job, I was curious to see where writing him would take
me. I really loved the way his arc unfolded. I wasn’t necessarily surprised by
it, but more gratified by it than I realized I would be.
I identify with
little pieces of all of my characters, but I like to keep those to myself
because I don’t want risk readers thinking about me while they read. I like my
role as an author to be invisible.
4. What gave you the idea for SADIE?
One of the things that inspired Sadie was the way we consume violence
against women and girls as a form of entertainment. When we do that, we reduce
its victims to objects, which suggests a level of disposability—that a girl’s
pain is only valuable to us if we’re being entertained by it. But it’s not her
responsibility to entertain us. What is our responsibility to us? I really
wanted to explore that and the way we dismiss missing girls and what the cost
of that ultimately is.
5. Do you have a favorite scene, quote, or
moment from Sadie?
My favorite moment is a spoiler,
but my favorite quote is this: “I wish this was a love story.”
6. If you could tell your younger writing
self-anything, what would it be?
I used to have an answer for this kind
of question but the older I get, that’s changed. I wouldn’t tell her anything.
Her experience as a writer unfolded the way it was supposed to and I like how
it’s turning out.
*THE GIRLS Podcast now available*
* A 2018 BookExpo America
YA Editor’s Buzz Book Pick*
*Most Anticipated by BookRiot, Goodreads, B&N Teen Blog & Buzzfeed *
“A riveting tour de
force.”
—Kirkus, STARRED Review
"Summers’ novel is
filled with her trademark biting commentary on sexual assault and the
mistreatment of girls and women at the hands of predatory men...her hunt for
Mattie’s killer is captivating, and Summers excels at slowly unspooling both
Sadie’s and West’s investigations at a measured, tantalizing pace."
—Booklist, STARRED Review
“A
taut, suspenseful book about abuse and power that feels personal, as if Summers,
like May Beth and West, can’t take one more dead or abused girl.”
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review
"The
fresh, nuanced, and fast-moving narrative will appeal to a range of YA and new
adult readers, and serves as a larger examination on the way society interacts
with true crime...It's impossible to not be drawn into this haunting thriller
of a book. A heartrending must-have."
—School Library Journal, STARRED Review
“An electrifying thriller, taut as a bowstring. A coming-of-age
tale, both gritty and sensitive. A poignant drama of love and loss. This -- all
this -- is SADIE: a novel for readers of any age, and a character as indelible as
a scar. Flat-out dazzling." —AJ Finn,
#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the
Window
SADIE
By Courtney
Summers
Courtney Summers is already known for her well written and dark
young adult novels, earning rave starred trade reviews on every book. With a
fierce and independent female lead, SADIE (September 4, 2018; Wednesday
Books) continues in this vein told in part as a podcast, similar to Serial,
about a missing girl determined to avenge her sister’s death. A propulsive and
harrowing read that will keep you riveted until the last page, Courtney Summers
has written the breakout book of her career.
Sadie hasn't had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she's
been raising her sister Mattie in an
isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their
heads above water.
But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world
crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to
bring her sister's killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager
clues to find him.
When West McCray—a radio personality working on a segment
about small, forgotten towns in America—overhears Sadie's story at a local gas
station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own
podcast as he tracks Sadie's journey, trying to figure out what happened,
hoping to find her before it's too late.
As the pages turn, your heart will be in your throat the
whole way. SADIE is darkly delicious
and addictive, the perfect fall read. As a major Editor's Buzz Book Pick at
BEA, Summers’ thriller will be the book to read this season, and in a creative
twist, the first YA thriller podcast. THE GIRLS released the first episode on
August 1st bringing SADIE to
life in a new way by picking up the script content from the book and using the
under-explored content area in the podcast area of teen listeners. Combining a
haunting novel and additional material through the podcast, Summers has changed
the way readers experienced books.
About the Author
COURTNEY SUMMERS lives and writes in Canada. She is
the author of What Goes Around, This is Not a Test, Fall for Anything, Some Girls
Are, Cracked Up to Be, Please Remain Calm, and All the Rage
More about THE GIRLS podcast:
THE GIRLS: Find Sadie is the first-ever YA thriller podcast. The Serial-like show
is based off the novel Sadie by Courtney Summers. In a brilliant move, Summers
scripted periodic chapters of the novel like a podcast script, hosted by
fictional radio personality West McCray. The six-part podcast series brings
these chapters to life with a 30+ person cast, music, and sound effects and was
a collaboration between Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Podcasts, and Wednesday
Books. Episode 1 launches on August 1st, and the show will air seven weekly
episodes available on all the major podcast platforms. The final episode will
feature a bonus interview with Courtney Summers and her editor Sara Goodman.
SADIE
By
Courtney Summers
Published by Wednesday Books
**On Sale September 4, 2018**
Hardcover | $17.99
ISBN: 9781250105714| Ebook ISBN: 9781250105721
More
early praise for SADIE:
"SADIE is an
electrifying, high-stakes road trip—a gripping thriller with a true—crime podcast
edge. Clear your schedule. You're not going anywhere until you've reached the
end."
—Stephanie Perkins, New York Times bestselling
author of There's Someone Inside Your House and Anna and
the French Kiss
"A haunting,
gut-wrenching, and relentlessly compelling read. SADIE grabs you and won't let
you go until you've borne witness." —Veronica Roth, #1 New York Times bestselling
author of Carve the Mark and The Divergent series
"Summers has pulled no punches when
it comes to diving into the darker side of teen lives.” – Bustle
“We love a good podcast
mystery, so we are here for this fall 2018 release from Wednesday Books.” –
RT Book Reviews
Praise for Courtney
Summers:
“Unflinching and
powerful.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred
Review on All The Rage
“Through its
resolution is neither tidy nor simple, Romy’s powerful story creates a space
for change.”
—Publishers
Weekly, Starred Review on All The Rage
“Not all loose ends
are tied up by the end, and the book is more powerful for it.”
—School Library Journal,
Starred Review on All The Rage
“ALL THE RAGE is
a powerful portrait of rape culture. It illustrates the insidious nature of
victim blaming and communities that insulate their golden boys, as well as the
many emotions that survivors cycle through. This story doesn’t hold back, at
all, taking you directly into the maelstrom of being a teenage girl.”
—Rookie
Magazine on All The Rage
“Courtney
Summers' 'All the Rage' Will Make You Feel All The Rage, And That's Exactly Why
You Must Read It”
—Bustle
on All The Rage
“Summers takes
victim-shaming to task in this timely story, and the cruelties not only of
Romy’s classmates but also the adults she should be able to trust come
heartbreakingly to the fore. Romy’s internal monologue is breathy and filled with
bitter indignation.”
—Booklist on All
The Rage
“Rape culture, class
prejudice, and bullying are all handled sensitively and powerfully in this
novel. Readers will definitely be compelled to find out whether
Romy breaks free from her demons or implodes from the pressure.” —Voya
Magazine on All The Rage
“Romy’s anguish
dominates her narration, and the details of her experience—the victim-blaming
by her classmates, both boys and girls, and her keeping it all secret from her
mother—are acutely observed… In fact, injustice and privilege are the major
themes of the novel, and those are topics that ensure this book will elicit
lively classroom discussion.”
— The Bulletin of
the Center for Children's Books on All The Rage
“One of the most powerful, heartbreaking and
emotionally charged stories about rape, interracial relationships and
friendship. Courtney Summers intricately weaves mystery, lies and
heartbreak throughout this powerful novel. Reminiscent of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak,
All the Rage grabs hold and won’t
let go. Romy’s story is violent in nature and language, but there is no other
way to convey the hurt, anger and heartwrenching emotional and psychological
issues that she faces. This is a beautiful story that speaks to all women.”
—BookPage
on All The Rage
"[A]n
unforgettable and powerful vision of the end of the world, up close and
personal."
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review on This Is Not a Test
"It's The
Breakfast Club, George Romero style."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review on This
Is Not a Test
"Summers' latest
hits every plot point to perfection... This is one supremely talented
writer."
—RT Book Reviews, 4 ½ Stars (Top
Pick) on This Is Not a Test
"Zombie fans
will eat this up, brains, hearts and all."
—Booklist on This Is Not a Test
"[A] riveting
and powerful novel."
—School Library Journal on This Is Not a
Test
"Unusual and
absorbing."
—Kirkus reviews on This Is Not a
Test
"One of the
sharpest and hardest-hitting of Canada's writers about high school life."
—The Toronto Star on Fall for
Anything
"An unusual,
bold effort that deserves attention."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review on Fall
for Anything
"Mysterious,
romantic, and excruciating in its suspense... hauntingly written and
compulsively readable."
—Booklist, starred review on Fall for
Anything
"This is a
fearless and wonderfully executed young adult novel."
—RT Book Reviews, 4 ½ Stars on Fall
for Anything
"Searing... a
riveting journey."
—Shelf Awareness on Fall for Anything
