Lygia Day Peñaflor is the author of Creep: A Love Story, All of This Is True, and Unscripted Joss Byrd. She also teaches young Hollywood stars on television and movie sets. Her students have included cast members of Gossip Girl, Boardwalk Empire, Spielberg’s West Side Story, and others. She lives on Long Island, NY, where she rides horses and flies from a trapeze. Follow her on Instagram @lygiaday and learn more about her work on her website.
This twisted, tragic love story follows Holy Family High School’s cutest couple — as told through the eyes of the classmate who’s stalking them.
Laney Villanueva and Nico Fiore are the perfect couple: beautiful, popular, talented, and hopelessly in love. Everyone looks up to them at Holy Family High School.
But Rafi doesn’t just admire them. She watches them. She’s drawn to them.
Intent on becoming their closest friend, Rafi weaves her way into their lives. She starts small: taking photos of the senior class for the yearbook, joining Laney’s club, and babysitting Nico’s little sister. And it works—soon they invite her to parties, take her on joyrides, and ask her for favors. Rafi’s actions quickly turn invasive, delving deeper and deeper until she’s consumed by their most intimate secrets.
When tragedy strikes the young lovers, Rafi’s obsession spirals, and she will do anything to keep the perfect couple together.
Anything . . .
“[A] fast-paced psychological thriller” — Kirkus Reviews
“Rafi’s matter-of-fact narration efficiently encapsulates her self-deception, boundless obsession, and increasingly delusional stalking, making for a compulsive read.” — Publishers Weekly
“Both heart-pounding and troubling, this story is hard to put down and hard to shake.” — Booklist
“Quick-paced and suspenseful.” — School Library Journal
“An interesting, thought-provoking character case study à la The Talented Mr. Ripley…This is a book that will haunt [readers] for some time.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
Maida Malby 