About Girl Code

Four best friends struggle with decisions that affect their lives, their hearts, and their futures. As sisters, they embrace the Girl Code.

HOPE

Josephine "Joey" Lockhart escapes her past, herself and her home town of Pearl, Ohio to Florida after high school. Years later, she meets a man that refuses to let her hide behind her camera lens and encourages her out of her shell. Will he be the one to push her to feel for the first time?

LIVE

After seven years in drug hell, detoxing Juliette "Juls" Carrington returns to her hometown Pearl to attend her grandmother's burial. Once more rejected by her family, she has a swim in a pond nearby when a mysterious camper, an ex-drunk, coaxes her to come to his hut in the woods. Together they must fight their inner demons for a chance to love...and live.

FAITH

Selena Bodine escaped into the United States Air Force to leave behind a painful past and the one man who she refused to let herself love. Years later, an urgent call from her father brings her back to Pearl, Ohio and face to face with the man she still loves. But will the secret that Cullen is investigating her threaten their second chance?

PERSISTENCE

Laydi Michaels has been running away from her past and bad memories for years. Finding herself wasn’t an easy task, but she’s managed to finally get to a point to where she wants to be. Only to wake up married to her boss….who fired her the night before. Wrapped in a case that puts her life in danger, and dealing with a grave situation back home in Pearl, Laydi figures out she wasn’t close to finding herself, and now, she’s risked everything.

Excerpt

Juls wandered to the back of the bus. Once she found a seat and the engine roared to life, she looked for her diary. No time to waste. Two weeks ago, she went off methadone, going from thirty-five grams to cold turkey. It was crucial to keep her mind busy.

The bus hit the main road and picked up speed while she rummaged in the black duffel bag next to her. It contained all her belongings, those she'd managed to keep from petty thieves and cops at night, and those she'd refrained from trading for dope. A worn sleeping bag, a hoodie, spare underwear, a pair of wool socks, a bottle of water she'd filled in a public bathroom earlier... Yep, that was about it. And her diary. She fished it out, and, from a side pocket, a tiny glue stick.

For a moment, she caressed the notebook's beautiful flower wrap, so soft and shiny it felt like silk underneath her callused skin. A boost of warmth made her heart swell. She loved this wrap. When looking for food in a trash bin outside Walmart last year, she discovered the colorful piece of gift paper and knew it was the one. Maybe someone who'd just bought it had second thoughts, deemed it too tacky, whatever— people could be crazy like that—but this particular wrap gave her diary shelter, a home. Within that frame of beauty, she could hide her darkest thoughts and most daring dreams, and forever keep small things she collected through the journey of her life.

She opened the notebook and turned the pages. Calmness washed over her like a hit of something she tried not to think about. The urge to get high was omnipresent. Here, she found a food coupon a super cute guy in a tux handed her on a cold morning by the metro entrance. There, a cigarette paper roll a smoker dropped beneath a bench. On this page, gum wrap, and on the next, a few doodles she'd made while waiting on a doctor appointment. Adorning the second-to-last page, a pink rose petal, just beginning to fade, from a park she'd slept in two days ago.

The kind of evidence an investigator would look for at a crime scene to determine a suspect's doings and whereabouts. Except her diary told the tale of a twenty-four year-old homeless ex-druggie. She'd always kept a secret journal as a kid, but it was after her overdose that she thought important to collect daily proofs of her existence. They reminded her of the life she had to leave behind.

To her 'documentation', she solemnly added the bus ticket, moistened with sweat from the fifteen-minute-wait in her palm before the bus arrived. The paper had crumpled and probably wouldn't adhere to the glue. She would use tape then, and grabbed a small roll kept safely in the inner pocket of her black leather jacket.

After taping the ticket, she found a pen and wrote underneath, 'Ticket to home'. She looked out the window, but having taken this road once, when leaving at seventeen, she didn’t recognize the flat, never-ending farmland scenery.

Home…? Well, what she used to call home in her better days. The city of Pearl, Ohio—a nice and perfectly snobbish community where she grew up, before the call of 'the Concrete, the Steel, and the Needle' became too strong.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Authors

Writers In Crime

Writers in Crime Facebook

DC Stone:

DC Stone has over sixteen years of investigative experience, including working as a criminal investigator in the United States military anda private investigator. Currently, she works as an internal affairs investigator by day and a romantic suspense author by night. She has her Master’s degree in Criminal Justice and is dubbed, “The Investigative Whisper. “Commonly called upon to act as an expert witness, she also trains with local, state, and federal law enforcement officers. She provides numerous workshops that help authors gain insight into “digging” into a character’s mind to better understand motives, create suspense, and help maintain conflict.

When she isn’t trying to solve a new puzzle in the world offraud, she is engulfed with coffee, her laptop, and all those crazy characters in her head. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America, Hudson Valley Romance Writers, RomVets, RWA Kiss of Death, and the Liberty State Fiction Writers. She served as the 2014 Vice President and Conference Chair for NJRW. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, or her at www.authordcstone.com.

Connect: Website | Facebook Page | Facebook Profile | Twitter | Email

Cait Jarrod:

From writing ‘every girl’s dream heroes’ to ‘strong, down-to-earth heroines,’ Cait Jarrod twists ‘cliff hanging plots’ and ‘clever, unpredictable sub-plots’. She loves diving into a good book as much as she loves writing one. Mother of three gorgeous daughters, she’s married to her best friend, hangs out with a great group of women—the WWC, and loves a good glass of wine.

Lea Bronsen:

Lea Bronsen likes her reads fast, hot, and edgy, and strives to give her own stories the same intensity. After venturing into dirty inner-city crime drama with her debut novel Wild Hearted, she divides her writing time between psychological thriller, romantic suspense, and erotic contemporary romance.

Jessica Jayne:

Jessica is a born and raised small town Ohio girl, who moved to the Sunshine State after graduating from college. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in English because she could not imagine doing anything else but reading and writing.

In the journey of life, she obtained her law degree (and bar license) and also became a wife and a mother of three children. So, life is always an adventure.

She loves to read and write... obviously! She’s a huge sports fan, especially college football and The Ohio State Buckeyes! Go Steelers! Go Rays! Go Lightning! She LOVES to travel... LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to

travel. She loves to drink coffee in the morning and tea at night! She loves a good glass of wine, especially if it comes from a bottle made by the FOOLS wine club… yep, she’s a founding member of that crazy group! She loves

hanging out with her family and friends! Music makes her happy. She’s a mix between country girl and city chic. She’s a sucker for a cowboy hat!

a Rafflecopter giveaway