Excerpt!
My instinct is to run, but I don’t know how far my sore limbs will carry me.
Apathy is my last line of defense.
I reach for a baggy sweatshirt and leggings. This has become my uniform when I go away, not for any fashion statement but its functionality—it can be easily taken off before my body is searched by a nurse’s gloved hands. The pressure from the fabric causes me to hiss in pain. I carefully step each leg in to cover the tender scrapes and deep purple bruises along my pale white shins and thighs. The bruises are a reminder that I’ve messed up again.
I drag my worn leather suitcase that’s on its last leg away from our cottage and into the trunk of Olga’s station wagon. She doesn’t say a word as we head out of our driveway and onto the tree-dense highway. The branches are grayer than normal, though it could be my mood filtering the world in a cloud of indifference.
Olga rolls every window down even though it’s a brisk fifty-two degrees. Long drives make her sweat. I think she would never leave our small town if it were up to her, but I remain her forcing agent.
My eyes wander from the pastures filled with cows and horses to Olga and her wild blowing hair that is unusually more silver than black for someone in their thirties.
“So, what’s this ward like?” I ask, trying to break the tense silence.
“Don’t call it that. That’s not what it’s called. This is a treatment center.”
She turns up her classical piano playlist, the one she plays to calm her nerves, then hands me a folded piece of stock paper filled with smiling faces of young adults—those who, like me, are not teenagers anymore but not quite what I would consider adults either. Much like our mental state, we’re something in between.
The brochure states this center isn’t government funded. By the looks of it, it seems far out of the budget of Olga’s ballet studio salary and my unemployed status, but it claims as part of their philosophy that they take on special cases free of charge. Just my luck, they happened to have room for a last-minute drop-in.
After the stunt I pulled last night, I’m sure Olga would be willing to pay any price.
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Giveaway!
Twenty-one-year-old Natalia battles a rare parasomnia sleep disorder that propels her to act violently, experience night terrors, and put herself in dangerous situations—all while she’s unconscious.
After waking up covered in unexplained bruises, she lands herself back in a mental facility. Making friends has never been easy, but at Awana, she quickly bonds with her fun-loving roommate Lindsay and falls for Gabriel, a handsome yet severely depressed resident she secretly meets at night.
As Natalia wrestles with the harsh side effects of her medication, her reality unravels, exposing disturbing truths about those she trusts most. Though romantic relationships are strictly forbidden at Awana, Gabriel becomes her lifeline amidst the chaos. To be with him, Natalia must risk everything—including her sanity, and she learns some choices carry devastating consequences.
Filled with shocking twists, Same Place, Same Stars, is a psychological drama that unpacks the many layers of what happens when dark secrets refuse to be ignored.
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Author bio:
Katey Taylor is a writer and a published poet whose poems have appeared in DarkWinter Lit, Brave Voices, and Fauxmoir magazine. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and has attended writing conferences such as West Coast Writers Conference and Philadelphia’s Writers Workshop. Katey has been interviewed by the Just Us Girls Blog, and has served as a SWAAY magazine contributor where her personal essay “When First Loves Becomes First Abuse” was selected as an editor’s weekly pick. She has published two novels: Inebriated and Neon Nights, which have both hit Amazon bestsellers lists. Both of Katey’s books received 5-star staff editor reviews from YA Book Central, and one was chosen as their “featured’ indie novel. Katey was selected as a featured YA author for Young Entertainment Magazine’s Twitter takeover. Katey is a master of eloquently writing about big issue topics like depression, trauma, and mental illness.
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