New Book in Development: COUNTERFEIT SON
Elaine Marie Alphin’s Edgar Allan Poe Award Winner for Best Young Adult Mystery
The award winning young adult novel tells this haunting thriller from the perspective of fourteen-year-old Cameron Miller – who is pretending to be someone he isn’t. When Cameron’s father was killed resisting arrest, Cameron decided to pass himself off as Neil Lacey, one of the boys Pop had abducted. It was the only way Cameron could think of to distance himself from what Pop had done, to him, and to the other boys. It was the only escape he could imagine from his nightmarish existence.
Cameron thought it would be easy at first – playing the rich kid, sailing his own boat, as he’d always dreamed. But he hadn’t counted on Pop’s old accomplice, Cougar, getting out of prison. When Cougar tracks Cameron down, he presents an ultimatum: share the wealth or be exposed. But Cameron has grown to love the Lacey family – Neil’s mother who hugs and his father who listens instead of hits, even Neil’s prickly, suspicious sister and his spunky little brother.
Cameron wishes he could be part of Neil’s family for real, but he decides that he must give up his new identity or his desperate search for a new life will destroy the family he has grown to love.