Release date: April 18th
2015Publisher: Merit Press
Synopsis via Goodreads:
Sixteen-year-old Alice
suppresses her need for rebellion after a petition to start a
farmer’s market receives more snickers than signatures. That is
until Whitney Lapin, a girl who speaks in cryptic riddles and spends
her free time turning abandoned warehouses into beautiful gardens,
leads her on a rabbit trail into the underground–aka secret
society–of Wonderland High. Curiouser and curiouser.
Even though Whitney’s group
of teenage environmental vigilantes operates on the wrong side of the
law, Alice has never felt more free to be herself. Soon she stomps on
her good girl image by completing a series of environmental pranks to
impress them: flooding the school and disguising a pig as a baby in
order to smuggle it out of a testing facility. But the group refuses
to help with the farmer’s market or reveal their hidden agenda. She
wants to trust them, and she especially wants to trust (or maybe
kiss) Chester Katz, a boy with a killer smile, a penchant for
disappearing, and a secret that will really turn Alice‘s world
backwards. When one group member tries to frame Alice for all the
pranks, she must figure out their secret before she ends up in front
of a jury that’s screaming, “Off with her head!”
~EXCERPT~
The plan had seemed utterly
attractive while lying in bed. Foolproof, even. Take the keys. Go
inside. Find the information to link someone to the crime. Sole the
case. What I hadn't factored into everything was guts, which happened
to be something I lacked.
I paced in front of Town Hall, my
heart pounding as if it was ready to escape my chest and ditch me
completely. I paused in front of the rows of white rosebushes lining
the entrance and took a deep breath.
You're not breaking and entering, I
liked to myself. You have a key.
I counted to three and yanked the
keys out of my pocket, but my hands were too clammy. The keys leapt
out of my fingers and hit the ground with a metallic
clink.
I should go home and forget about
Kingston's stupid-as-hell plan. I tried to move, but my feet wouldn't
budge, weighed down by cemented desire. As scared as I was, I wanted
to do this. I fumbled for my phone. 3:10 blinked back at me on the
LED screen. If I had Chess's phone number, I would call him.
Accomplices equaled encouragement.
But it wouldn't have mattered; Chess
had refuted Kingston's idea. So had Whitney. If I called her, she'd
try to talk me out of this. I knew what a bad idea it was. I'd broken
up with my sense of reason when I first followed Whitney through the
woods. Might as well descend even farther down the path of wrong and
stupid. I let out a crazy laugh that echoed in the silent
darkness.
Morality bites.
Before I could stop myself, I
flipped through my cell phone until I found Kingston's number. It was
absurd that Whitney had made me add my least favorite person's number
when I still didn't have my own boyfriend's. Tonight, though, it came
in handy.
"What?" he said when he
picked up. He didn't sound tired, more like…prepared.
"Hey, it's Alice. I have a
weird question."
"Wow. Didn't strike me as the
booty-call type."
My nerves erupted out of my mouth in
a laugh that sounded almost flirty. I covered it up with a cough. He
was calling me crazy, and this was the first time he made sense. "I'm
outside Town Hall."
"Keys?"
"Yeah." The word came out
all choked.
"Be right there."
"As soon as I hung up, the
gravity of what I'd done hit my stomach like a cartoon anvil. I'd
just committed to committing a felony. With my enemy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachel Shane studied Creative
Writing at Syracuse University and now works in digital publishing at
in New York City. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, young
daughter, and a basement full of books. ALICE IN WONDERLAND HIGH is
her first novel.
Gracias! ^^
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