Crossed Lines

Maryanne Mayweather is seventeen, and she has been expelled from twelve boarding schools. She treats the labels psychopath, borderline, and crazy as something to be proud of. Her latest expulsion leaves her at the home of her impulsive aunt Elaine and Elaine's husband, James, where one more incident could have her placed in state care.

James Thorne was once a successful writer, but he has no interest in looking after his wife's niece, and his own marriage is coming apart. Maryanne sets out to defame him and ruin him, and the two of them soon learn that the power of words exceeds anything they had imagined. Their connection takes a direction neither of them anticipated, and the repercussions are both immediate and wide-ranging.