Laura Wiess Books In Order

Such a Pretty Girl

They promised Meredith nine years of safety, but only gave her three.

Her father was supposed to be locked up until Meredith turned eighteen. She thought she had time to grow up, get out, and start a new life. But Meredith is only fifteen, and today her father is coming home from prison.

Today her time has run out.

Leftovers

A devastating novel of desperation and revenge from one of today’s most compelling new voices in fiction. In this follow up to her heartbreaking debut, Such a Pretty Girl, Laura Wiess once again spins a shattering tale of the tragedies that befall young women who are considered society’s Leftovers. Blair and Ardith are best friends who have committed an unforgivable act in the name of love and justice. But in order to understand what could drive two young women to such extreme measures, first you’ll have to understand why. You’ll have to listen as they describe parents who are alternately absent and smothering, classmates who mock and shun anyone different, and young men who are allowed to hurt and dominate without consequence. You will have to learn what it’s like to be a teenage girl who locks her bedroom door at night, who has been written off by the adults around her as damaged goods. A girl who has no one to trust except the one person she’s forbidden to see. You’ll have to understand what it’s really like to be forgotten and abandoned in America today. Are you ready?

How it Ends

Laura Wiess, the acclaimed author who once brought us ‘a girl to walk alongside Harper Lee’s Scout and J. D. Salinger’s Phoebe’ Luanne Rice, brings us another memorable young woman, this one at the center of an extraordinary novel of how love ends, how it begins, and what it’s worth to protect it…

All Hanna’s wanted since sophomore year is Seth. She’s gone out with other guys, even gained a rep for being a flirt, all the while hoping cool, guitar playing Seth will choose her. Then she gets him but their relationship is hurtful, stormy and critical, not at all what Hanna thinks a perfect love should be. Bewildered by Seth’s treatment of her and in need of understanding, Hanna decides to fulfill her school’s community service requirement by spending time with Helen, her terminally ill neighbor, who she’s turned to for comfort and wisdom throughout her life. But illness has changed Helen into someone Hanna hardly knows, and her home is not the refuge it once was. Feeling more alone than ever, Hanna gets drawn into an audiobook the older woman is listening to, a fierce, unsettling love story of passion, sacrifice, and devotion. Hanna’s fascinated by the idea that such all encompassing love can truly exist, and without her even realizing it, the story begins to change her.

Until the day when the story becomes all too real…
and Hanna’s world is spun off its axis by its shattering, irrevocable conclusion.

Ordinary Beauty

A young woman struggles to escape the shadow of her mother’s addiction and neglect in this story from the author of Such a Pretty Girl.