It's been so long since I've been okay... . It was the day that it was really driven home like a stake through the heart that things had changed and you would be leaving... My love is as eternal as I am.

High school is hard for most people and for Chloe Miller, this is no exception. She is forced to learn the perils of her choices the hard way and the result leads her to building a steel wall around herself that is impossible to crack. Eventually, her mother loses her job and Chloe is then forced to move in with her cousin and their family. This means a new school and on the first day she arrives with a dynamite mission in mind. A mission to reclaim everything that she had once lost at the hands of others. She quickly finds herself fighting a past that she struggles to forget and creating a future that she can live with. It becomes a constant battle for her, centered around peer pressure, character stereo types, cliques and consequences. Couple that with the plight of falling in love and she finds herself playing a starring role in the game of life where everyone is playing for keeps. Will she win... or will she lose? Excerpt: Sauntering forwards, she slid onto his lap with all the grace of a prima ballerina and wrapped her long arms around his neck. Leaning in to his ear, she blew out a little puff of hot air so that it fanned lightly over all the right places. She felt a sense of utter satisfaction when he shuddered. Now that Chloe was certain that she had his attention, she whispered in his ear. “You may have been the best bucko, but guess what…..I’m going to be better.” She lifted up so that she could look him in the face and smiled confidently back at him. His previous cocky demeanor had seemed to have lost some of its earlier steam, “Who are you?” he asked so low that only Chloe could hear him. His forehead was creased as he searched her face, watching her as if she was some type of strange puzzle that needed to be solved. Chloe lifted her hand patted his cheek. The boy didn’t have a clue. “I, my friend, am your biggest adversary. So what do you say Mr. Player, won’t you play with me?”

I felt him behind me, dangerously close. His hands clenched the granite counter on either sides of me. I could feel his cold breath on my bare shoulder, causing my heart rate to accelerate so fast that each heartbeat blurred into the next. I was unbearably still, despite my spiked breaths, when I sensed his mouth right by my ear. Closing my eyes, I focused on regaining the breath he had stolen from me. That's when he whispered huskily, the words ricocheting in my head long after he was gone, "I hate you." ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• The world of Atlantis is gone, vanished. No, everyone believes it has disappeared. The truth is far from it. In the first book of The Vanishing Act Trilogy, you meet Arella and Damen, the first two of the four destined to save their hidden world.