To escape the media attention generated by her sister's murder, a grieving seventeen-year-old Australian girl moves away and meets a vibrant new friend who harbors a dangerous secret.
Bantam Books
July 2010
On Sale: July 6, 2010
Featuring: Katherine Patterson; Alice
272 pages ISBN: 0553808052 EAN: 9780553808056 Hardcover Add to Wish List
An international sensation that The Wall Street Journal called a βpublishing phenomenon,β this layered, poignant, and chilling novel of psychological suspense is the yearβs most stunning American fiction debut. From its wrenching opening to its shocking climax, Beautiful Malice unfolds a haunting story in which people, motives, and circumstances are never what they seem.
Who is Katherine Patterson? It is a question she hopes no one can answer. To erase her past, Katherine has moved to a new city, enrolled in a new school, and even changed her name. Sheβs done the next best thing to disappearing altogether. Now, wary and alone, she seeks nothing more than anonymity. What she finds instead is the last thing she expected: a friend.
Even more unlikely, Katherineβs new friend is the most popular and magnetic girl in school. Extroverted, gorgeous, flirtatious, and unpredictable, she is everything that Katherine is not and doesnβt want to be: the center of attention. Yet Aliceβs enthusiasm is infectious, her candor sometimes unsettling, and Katherine, in spite of her guarded caution, finds herself drawn into Aliceβs private circle.
But Alice has secrets, tooβdarker than anyone can begin to imagine. And when she lets her guard down at last, Katherine discovers the darkest of them all. For there will be no escaping the past for Katherine Pattersonβonly a descent into a trap far more sinister . . . and infinitely more seductive.
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