New York Times bestselling author CJ Lyons makes her YA debut with a fast-paced thriller sure to keep readers guessing to the very last page
The only thing fifteen-year-old Scarlet Killian has ever wanted is a chance at a normal life. Diagnosed with a rare and untreatable heart condition, she has never taken the school bus. Or giggled with friends during lunch. Or spied on a crush out of the corner of her eye. So when her parents offer her three days to prove she can survive high school, Scarlet knows her time is now... or never. Scarlet can feel her heart beating out of control with every slammed locker and every sideways glance in the hallway. But this high school is far from normal. And finding out the truth might just kill Scarlet before her heart does.
Q
& A with CJ Lyons
For Scarlet Killian, every day is a game of Russian roulette—she has a 1
in 5 chance of dying…
New York Times bestselling author CJ Lyons makes her YA debut with
a fast-paced thriller sure to keep readers guessing to the very last page.
Fifteen-year-old
Scarlet Killian has one chance for a normal life. Only problem? It just might
kill her. Diagnosed with a rare and
untreatable heart condition, Scarlet has never taken the school bus. Or giggled
with friends during lunch. Or spied on a crush out of the corner of her eye.
Scarlet has come to terms with the fact that despite the best efforts of her
doctors and parents, she's going to die. Literally of a broken heart. So when her parents offer her a week to prove
she can survive high school, Scarlet knows her time is now... or never.
Scarlet
can feel her heart beating out of control with every slammed locker and every
sideways glance in the hallway. But for the first time in her life she makes
real friends. She also makes new discoveries about the truth behind her
illness... a truth that might just kill her before her heart does.
Q:Is
Long QT a real disease?
CJ: Yes. As a pediatrician I diagnosed my niece with Long QT
Syndrome when she was born. Her heart specialists believe she's the youngest
person in the world diagnosed with Long QT. She's had to take medicine every
day of her life and can't ever skip a day. So far that's added up to over ten
thousand pills taken.
You know
that feeling you get when you've run as hard and fast as you can and you stop
but your heart keeps galloping along? And you wonder for a second if maybe it's
not going to stop, but will keep galloping out of control? But then of course
it settles back down. For people with Long QT, their heart doesn't change gears
well, going from regular to galloping and back again. So they have to avoid
anything that would make their heart race.
No sports
or aerobic exercise. No horror films. No roller coaster rides. No jumping into
cold water on a hot summer's day.
But that doesn't
have to stop someone with Long QT like my niece from having a great life. Today
she is a brilliant, active fourteen-year-old who gets straight A's, enjoys
riding horses, archery, reading, breeding Rottweilers, and who wants to grow up
to be either a fashion designer or President of the United States. Her main
fashion accessory is her portable defibrillator, Phil, who goes with her
everywhere, including camping, to the beach, and recently to her first Broadway
show.
BROKEN is dedicated to her fearless approach to life where
outwitting Death is simply part of her daily routine.
Q:
What was it like working in an ER? Is it like on TV?
CJ: Definitely nothing like Grey's Anatomy, but the first few seasons of ER get it right. Working in the ER is basically about learning how
to control (and live with) chaos, the art of listening, and how to quickly
decide what's the most important thing you need to tackle next.
I worked
three jobs to put myself through medical school and one of them was waitressing
at a very busy family restaurant. Honestly, that was the best preparation I
ever could have had for life in the ER.
Q:
Why did you leave medicine to write books?
CJ: I've been a storyteller all my life—a fact that used to
get me placed in time-out a lot as a kid. But writing stories has always been
my way of making sense of the chaos that goes on in the world around us. I wrote
my first novel in college and wrote two more science fiction novels in medical
school.
Then, while
I was an intern at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, one of my close friends
was murdered. Dealing with that grief and trauma while still working seventy
hours a week and trying to save lives—I wasn't prepared for that. So I turned
to my writing and that's when I wrote my first thriller. I never thought about
actually making a career of it until years later when friends who were
published authors encouraged me to enter a national writing contest and I was a
finalist. This led to several publishing contracts and I realized that as much
as I loved being a doctor, here was a chance for a second dream come true:
being a full time writer.
It was a
huge leap of faith leaving my job (and my patients—I missed them, a lot!) but
I've always believed that if you're going to dream, you should dream big, so I
went for it. Since then I've published twenty books, hit #2 on the New York
Times bestseller list, won awards for my writing, and most importantly, have
had the chance to impact millions of people through my novels. Talk about a
dream come true!
Q: What's
your best advice for someone who wants to be a writer?
CJ: Never surrender, never give up. Writing is hard work, it
takes years to master the craft, so you need to stick with it. And read, read,
read…pay attention to what makes the books you like work as well as why the
books you don't like fail. You never stop learning in this job, but that's also
what makes it so much fun.
About CJ Lyons
A New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of sixteen novels, former pediatric ER
doctor CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge
thrillers with heart. CJ has been called a "master within the genre"
(Pittsburgh Magazine), and her work
has been praised as "breathtakingly fast-paced" and
"riveting" (Publishers Weekly)
with "characters with beating hearts and three dimensions" (Newsday). The author of thrillers such
as the Lucy Guardino FBI series, she
has sold over 1 million books in the last year.
When not
writing, she can be found walking the beaches near her South Carolina Lowcountry
home in Columbia, SC, listening to the voices in her head and plotting new and
devious ways to create mayhem for her characters. To learn more about her
Thrillers with Heart go to www.CJLyons.net.
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