Smart Girl

Nobody Likes a Smart Girl

The college newsroom in downtown Portland is home to an eclectic group of students who wrote, filmed, edited and produced the news for a television show, a newspaper, and a website. And oh, the radio station, and the literary magazine. And not just the news, but sports and entertainment too. Blair Williams, the news editor, got tired just thinking of all the spinning plates that made up Eyewitness News. And she was responsible for keeping a lot of those plates spinning.

She loved it. For the first time she felt like she belonged, and she didn't have to hide her intelligence. People at EWN respected her. Her boyfriend, Will Bristol, said he admired it — and since he was her boss at EWN as well? That mattered. A lot.

Well he said he admired her intelligence until he got a concussion from being hit over the head with a protest sign, and things started leaking out. Disturbing things. Words that hurt. Behavior that scared her.

And EWN was under attack — again. Over 100 students were in danger. And Will, their editor-in-chief, was suddenly unreliable, leaving Blair effectively in charge. OK, she could deal, she had before, after all.

She was less certain she could deal with Will when they went home.

Foul language, some sex, a lot of politics. It's Portland, right?

Book 16 in the suspense series, Newsroom PDX — dystopian fiction from today's headlines.