The Other New Girl
Lb Gschwandtner
(Author)
Description
During her first week at coed Quaker prep Foxhall School, sassy Susannah Greenwood, one of two girls who've entered as sophomores, gets pulled into the cool girls' clique. While the school is instructing her in the moral and ethical tenets of the Quaker faith, the cool girls allow her to enter their world beyond the rule book--but in trying to find a balance between idealistic faith and the reality of a competitive system, Susannah runs afoul of the school's most authoritarian dean and befriends the only other new sophomore, a brainy, socially inept outcast. Then her new friend runs away after being shamed by the dean, and Susannah finds herself caught between the two forces of loyalty and authority: Should she cooperate with the unforgiving, and now vulnerable, dean, who, with her job on the line, is pleading for information from her about her runaway friend? Or should she keep the secret she's sworn to protect?
Product Details
Price
$16.95
$15.76
Publisher
She Writes Press
Publish Date
September 26, 2017
Pages
328
Dimensions
5.5 X 0.9 X 8.4 inches | 0.9 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781631523069
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
LB Gschwandtner is the author of four adult novels, one middle-grade novel, and one collection of quirky short stories. She has attended numerous fiction writing workshops�the Iowa Writers Workshop and others�and studied with Wally Lamb, Lary Bloom, and Suzanne Levine in Praiano, Italy and Fred Leebron and Bob Bausch in the US. She has won writing awards Writers Digest and Lorian Hemingway fiction competitions and been published in literary digests and magazines. She lives on a tidal creek in Virginia with her husband of forty-five years, with whom she cofounded the multimedia company Selling Power Inc. LB has been the editor of Selling Power magazine for more than thirty years. She and her husband have three adult daughters and two grandchildren.
Reviews
2017 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Religion 2017-2018 Reader Views Literary Awards Finalist in Novel 2017 Today Show winter book selection
"Overall, this is a deftly constructed coming-of-age story with well-drawn characters and the narrative momentum of a thriller. Gschwandtner (Carla's Secret, 2013, etc.) is a gifted storyteller who ably balances the past and present throughout the novel and never puts a foot wrong.A potent exploration of youth, innocence, and the abuse of authority."
--Kirkus Reviews
"'We swim in the soup we've made, ' the protagonist of LB Gschwandtner's compulsively readable novel, The Other New Girl, observes. The ingredients of this dark and disturbing coming-of-age novel include adolescent cruelty, religious hypocrisy, and the sadder-but-wiser perspective of the adult who dares to look back. Gschwandtner asks the question 'Do we ever really get over high school?' Like me, other readers may ponder that question for themselves as they race through this harrowing and heartbreaking tale of the after-effects of power misused. I was riveted."
--Wally Lamb, author of six New York Times best-selling novels, including I'll Take You There, We Are Water, Wishin' and Hopin', The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, and She's Come Undone, and was twice selected for Oprah's Book Club
"The Other New Girl is much more than a suspense-fueled coming-of-age novel. L. B. Gschwandtner employs mystery and metaphor to excavate relationships within a unique community. The truths she ultimately exposes--unadulterated by environment, era, or age--prove to be universal...The Other New Girl is a suspenseful, absorbing, literary exploration of life, death, and the stuff that happens in between." -- Foreword/Clarion Reviews
"A coming-of-age story, woven with the pace of a thriller. The protagonist is wonderfully relatable, her wise but somewhat salty outlook appeals to the outsider in us all. The prose is fresh while we reminisce with the characters; we learn from them as they reveal their navigation of adolescent rites of passage, Quaker philosophy, bullying, and young love. A nuanced and satisfying read."
--Eileen Dougharty, story performer and writer
"LB Gschwandtner has created a complex tale of loyalty and betrayal, of youthful alliances and conflicts, and the incredible tension between doing the right thing, and protecting one's sense of self. Susannah Greenwood is not the newer girl; Moll Grimes is. And their relationship, the way this story builds in a setting fraught with the moral and strict demands of both their peers, the stringent Dean, Miss Bleaker, and their own hearts, makes for a fine, moving story."
--Robert Bausch, author of Far as The Eye Can See and The Legend of Jesse Smoke
"This is the work of a master storyteller who introduces the reader to well-drawn characters, and brings the narrator's moral dilemma to a stunning climax."
--Lary Bloom, non-fiction writer, writing teacher, and co-founder of Writing at the Mark Twain House
"Unlike many books that tease with the promise of what's to come, LB gives it to us up front. Her story takes place in a co-ed Quaker boarding school where students are often left to flounder before coming up for a gulp of the narrator's rarified air. The girls' dean, Miss Bleaker, knows all and sees all--or does she?"
--Suzanne Levine, poet, author of Haberdasher's Daughter and Eric Hoffer Award finalist "An impressively crafted novel that reveals author L. B. Gschwandtner's genuine flair for creating memorable characters and a consistently engaging story." --Midwest Book Review
"Overall, this is a deftly constructed coming-of-age story with well-drawn characters and the narrative momentum of a thriller. Gschwandtner (Carla's Secret, 2013, etc.) is a gifted storyteller who ably balances the past and present throughout the novel and never puts a foot wrong.A potent exploration of youth, innocence, and the abuse of authority."
--Kirkus Reviews
"'We swim in the soup we've made, ' the protagonist of LB Gschwandtner's compulsively readable novel, The Other New Girl, observes. The ingredients of this dark and disturbing coming-of-age novel include adolescent cruelty, religious hypocrisy, and the sadder-but-wiser perspective of the adult who dares to look back. Gschwandtner asks the question 'Do we ever really get over high school?' Like me, other readers may ponder that question for themselves as they race through this harrowing and heartbreaking tale of the after-effects of power misused. I was riveted."
--Wally Lamb, author of six New York Times best-selling novels, including I'll Take You There, We Are Water, Wishin' and Hopin', The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, and She's Come Undone, and was twice selected for Oprah's Book Club
"The Other New Girl is much more than a suspense-fueled coming-of-age novel. L. B. Gschwandtner employs mystery and metaphor to excavate relationships within a unique community. The truths she ultimately exposes--unadulterated by environment, era, or age--prove to be universal...The Other New Girl is a suspenseful, absorbing, literary exploration of life, death, and the stuff that happens in between." -- Foreword/Clarion Reviews
"A coming-of-age story, woven with the pace of a thriller. The protagonist is wonderfully relatable, her wise but somewhat salty outlook appeals to the outsider in us all. The prose is fresh while we reminisce with the characters; we learn from them as they reveal their navigation of adolescent rites of passage, Quaker philosophy, bullying, and young love. A nuanced and satisfying read."
--Eileen Dougharty, story performer and writer
"LB Gschwandtner has created a complex tale of loyalty and betrayal, of youthful alliances and conflicts, and the incredible tension between doing the right thing, and protecting one's sense of self. Susannah Greenwood is not the newer girl; Moll Grimes is. And their relationship, the way this story builds in a setting fraught with the moral and strict demands of both their peers, the stringent Dean, Miss Bleaker, and their own hearts, makes for a fine, moving story."
--Robert Bausch, author of Far as The Eye Can See and The Legend of Jesse Smoke
"This is the work of a master storyteller who introduces the reader to well-drawn characters, and brings the narrator's moral dilemma to a stunning climax."
--Lary Bloom, non-fiction writer, writing teacher, and co-founder of Writing at the Mark Twain House
"Unlike many books that tease with the promise of what's to come, LB gives it to us up front. Her story takes place in a co-ed Quaker boarding school where students are often left to flounder before coming up for a gulp of the narrator's rarified air. The girls' dean, Miss Bleaker, knows all and sees all--or does she?"
--Suzanne Levine, poet, author of Haberdasher's Daughter and Eric Hoffer Award finalist "An impressively crafted novel that reveals author L. B. Gschwandtner's genuine flair for creating memorable characters and a consistently engaging story." --Midwest Book Review
