Getting Justice, a YA novel

At Senior Sunrise, five friends—Claire, Aashna, Marco, Bronte and Jude—discover their common hatred for Justice Thorne, an over-achieving alpha-female who just graduated from Crow Valley High School. Three months later, on the night before band camp, the marching band’s drum major is forced off a cliff in her car. Ramona survives, but barely.

It’s common knowledge that Ramona had been hooking up with Justice’s ex-boyfriend. Also, Justice’s car has suspicious damage. For the friends, this is the final straw. Meeting in sheep tunnels that go under the freeway, they make a solemn pact to get revenge on Justice.

Almost immediately, the group realizes that revenge would require them to do bad things … and they’re not bad people. Bronte and Jude break up, and Aashna and Jude begin seeing each other. Everyone’s cooling on the idea of revenge until Aashna’s car’s tires are slashed late one night. Then Claire’s bedroom is vandalized, with red paint splashed all over. Marco, who has harbored a not-so-secret crush on Bronte for years, tries to ask her out but she turns him down hard.

Though they can’t prove it, Claire and Marco begin to suspect that it’s actually Bronte who’s behind the damage to Aashna’s car and Claire’s room. They find out that Justice has been dealing with mental illness, but that she’s been improving with treatment. After Aashna and Jude are nearly forced off a mountain road—in an attack eerily similar to the one on Ramona—they all get a text asking them to meet Justice in the sheep tunnels where their conspiracy began.

It’s in the sheep tunnels that Claire, Aashna, Marco and Jude discover the truth about the attacks and their friendships.

GETTING JUSTICE is a contemporary young adult novel, complete at 90,000 words.

 

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