The Change

By Daphne Bristoe

Every teenager goes through an awkward phase, but for Josephine, surviving puberty means more than fending off the occasional breakout. As a series of mysterious deaths transfixes her Arizona town, Jo worries that she, too, might be in danger. Every one of the dead appears to have spontaneously combusted—burned from the inside out. Jo, meanwhile, keeps waking up in the middle of the night feeling like a fire is blazing within her, a sensation she can soothe only by running for miles in the darkness—and without even breaking a sweat. At school, Jo’s alarmed—and pleased—to discover she can suddenly outpace the school track team, and when a fight erupts in English class, Jo instantly overpowers boys much bigger than she is.

To complicate matters, she feels like she can’t tell anyone what’s going on with her—not her workaholic parents, not Mark, the neighbor she’s been love with forever, and definitely not her two best friends, Julian and Aiden. Ever since Aiden started wanting to be more than friends, things have gotten pretty weird. But when death hits close to home, Jo learns the hard way that she’s less alone than she thinks and that what’s happening in her town is anything but spontaneous.

Now it’s up to Jo to uncover the source of her change—a transformation that has made her powerful, strong…and dangerous. Is it just a matter or growing pains, or is something more sinister at work? The first book in debut author Daphne Bristow’s new series, a pulse-quickening story of friendship, betrayal, and identity, is just what fans of Ally Condie, Veronica Roth, Scott Westerfield, and the X-Men have been waiting for.

You can purchase the book online from Smashwords in multiple eBook formats at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/177667.

eBook formatting by Shelley Glasow Schadowsky.