#SaturdaySpotlight is on @MeganWhitsonLee & #SuburbanDangers

Good Morning and Welcome to the first Saturday Spotlight in August!

Whew, it's been a crazy (in a fun way) couple of months, but now I'm back home and getting into my normal routine. 

Today's guest has shared treasures and thoughts with us before, so now we'll get a closer look at Megan Whitson Lee's book, Suburban Dangers.....

Sixteen-year-old Kaki Jones lives a normal life in suburbia. She makes good grades, runs on the cross-country team, and helps care for her younger brothers and sisters. Her younger brother, Brandon is the troubled child. He parties, fights at school, keeps photos of girls on his cell phone, and runs into trouble with the police.

But Kaki harbors a secret. After meeting cool girl Sydney Diaz, Kaki’s life is forever changed.  Now, she’s a sophomore by day and a commodity sold at the hands of gang members by night. Living a double life and controlled by threats of violence against her family, Kaki sees no chance of escape.

When parents look the other way and strangers offer more affection than a father, God’s deliverance is the only answer.

Excerpt: At home that night while Kaki checked her social media sites, she was surprised to see that Sydney had followed her. @HotSydGirl was Sydney’s handle, but Kaki immediately recognized Sydney’s picture—a close-up shot of her posing for the camera with puckered lips. Later, Sydney’s picture and name popped up on another one of Kaki’s accounts. Sydney Diaz has just followed you.

Kaki was excited. She’d figured Sydney would think she was a total loser after their conversation on the track. “Maybe I’m just one of the only people she knows at school,” she said out loud as she clicked to confirm. She scanned Sydney’s page for her statuses, pictures, and people she knew. Sydney had over 2,000 followers on one account and over a thousand on her other accounts. 

Inferiority crept over Kaki. She only had around 160 followers, and most of those were family members, distant cousins, and a few friends. Her other social networking accounts were just as pathetic, and she wondered how it felt to be someone like Sydney Diaz—obviously popular, especially with the guys. Most of the posts to her page were messages from them:

hey syd. where u been girl?

heard you moved schools. 

Ill still c u this weekend rite? got some peeps for u to meet.

There were a lot of posted selfies from guys and a few girls dressed up in short-short skirts, high-high heels, and tight-tight tops. Sydney definitely moved in different social circles.

Pictures on Kaki’s page were of friends making faces in the camera, a few family photos, and a lot of shared dorky sayings: Only you can make it happen and Just because someone doesn’t like you doesn’t mean you’re not likeable. 

Kaki felt too intimated to even send Sydney a private message. And she resolved not to be clingy at school either. The quickest way to drive a cool girl away from you was to be too needy.

Suburban Dangers can be found at Amazon in Print and for Kindle and at Pelican Book Group.

Megan Whitson Lee is a wife, a mom of two greyhounds, an editor for Pelican Book Group, and a high school English teacher. Her novel, Captives, won the 2016 Director's Choice Award and was a finalist for a Selah Award in the women's contemporary fiction category at Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference.

Megan writes women's contemporary and historical fiction featuring characters standing at the crossroads of major life decisions, crises of faith, and moral dilemmas. Her novels depict real-life problems, address universal spiritual and moral struggles, and offer messages of hope, recovery, and redemption through God’s saving grace.

Find out more about Megan by visiting herWebsite and connecting with her on Facebook, Twitter (@MeganWhitsonLee),Instagram and Pinterest.

Hope you enjoyed today's guest post and that you'll join me each week for Tuesday Treasures, Thursday Thoughts and Saturday Spotlight!

Until next time, take care and God Bless.

PamT