When Wednesday Books and I began to finesse the messaging that would frame the promotion of my new novel, The Project, “COURTNEY SUMMERS WILL DESTROY YOU” seemed like the most obvious choice. For over a decade, I’ve built a brand around my utter delight in emotionally traumatizing my readers with hard-hitting books about young women…
Born in Belleville, Ontario, Courtney Summers currently resides in a small Canadian town not far from there. When she was 18 years old, she wrote her first novel, Cracked Up to Be, which was published in 2008. Best known for her unapologetic, difficult female protagonists, Summers was named one of Flare Magazine‘s 60 under 30. Her latest, Sadie,…
Sadie by Courtney Summers is a propulsive and harrowing novel about the depth of a sister’s love, with an ending you won’t be able to stop talking about. Take a Visual Tour of Sadie with GIFnotes! A missing girl on a journey of revenge and a Serial―like podcast following the clues she’s left behind. Sadie hasn’t had an easy…
“I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.” That’s the opening line of Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places (a favorite read of mine), and I think about it often when considering the next gritty and unpleasant story I want to write. I’m guided by that meanness, fascinated by the world’s capacity to be cruel,…
At the heart of true crime narratives are its victims, voices (often) lost to brutal acts of violence. Their lives are hopefully painted in the recollections of their friends, family, acquaintances, and colleagues while we, the audience, circle their bodies in search of truth and justice. If we’re lucky, we uncover both in what remains.…
