Remember the custom photo shoot we did for Mary A. Perez’s cover? And then we asked for your input on which image to use?
Well, the results are in and the cover designer took your input and made the winner of the poll into something wonderful (as usual!):
Cover design and photography by Ashlie Cook.
Release date: February 24, 2015! Pre-orders available on February 1.
Somewhere between stealing cold cuts from stray cats and watching a stranger leave my mother’s bed after breaking in through our bedroom window, I figured out that my family was dirt poor. Worse than my empty stomach, I was hungry for acceptance and love. I thought I found it when my baby sister was born and I became her “mommy”, taking care of her needs as best I could at the age of seven. Then I had to say goodbye over a small white casket. I found faith and stability living briefly with my grandparents, first-generation immigrants from Puerto Rico, but they thought Mama needed me and I lost my way again. She needed more than I could possibly give.
So, just out of Juvy Hall, I found someone else to take me away: my knight in shining armor. I became a teenage bride to a man twice my age – a man as deeply enslaved to booze as every “step-dad” I’d had as a child. I loved him anyway, even wearing the bruises he gave me, even when I tried to leave him, wanting to give our children a better life. Despite my fear and loneliness, I never imagined it would take a gunshot in the middle of the night to teach me courage. I was even more surprised when rediscovered faith paved the path to forgiveness after so many years of pain. And that is what my story is about: letting the terrible circumstances of my life shape me into something better, instead of destroying me. It is a story of coming of age, and coming into grace.”