Sliding On The Edge

Scarred. Scared. Alone. Can sixteen-year-old Shawna Stone overcome her inner suffering and transcend the past?

Shawna has spent the first sixteen years of her life in Las Vegas and learned to handle anything from a Las Vegas hustle to skipping out on the rent. Damaged inside and out, she's survived with a tough, hardened attitude. When her mother abandons her, with only a bus ticket and the name and number of stranger to call, this troubled , desperate teen finds herself on a California horse ranch with Kay Stone, the steely, youngish grandmother she's never known.

Kay overwhelms Shawna with rules and daily barn chores, and Shawna baffles Kay with her foul-mouthed anger and shrugging indifference to everything--except the maltreated horse on the ranch next door. But it's worse than even Kay suspects: Shawna's driven to cut herself by Monster, that strange voice inside her head. Kay struggles to keep the ranch going and fears that unless she helps this girl, she could lose her last living family member.

As this unlikely pair struggles to co-exist, will they overcome their suffering and transcend the past? Blurbs from authors:

“Sliding on the Edge is the compelling, courageous chronicle of one girl—destined to be a no one—who fights back against her secret grief and pain and finds her life.”

Judy Gregerson, author of Bad Girls Club

“C. Lee McKenzie’s extraordinarily moving novel accomplishes a rare feat: It manages to be a coming -of-age story for both its troubled teen protagonist and the grandmother who takes her in. But Sliding on the Edge’s beating heart is Shawna Stone: a girl you can’t help rooting for, even when she doesn’t see much point in rooting for herself. Readers won’t likely forget her.”

Dan Ehrenhaft, author of The Afterlife and Tell It to Naomi