It’s 1973 and Greek-American teen Cleopatra’s life in New Jersey is falling apart. Her parents are fighting, her boyfriend Jason wants to break up, and she’s afraid to start college in a few days. What would she major in anyway, that is, if she doesn’t flunk out first? When Cleo catches her boyfriend and her best friend Sahara kissing, she ditches everything and moves to her family’s apartment in Greece to live with her high-achieving cousin, Katerina.
At a popular rock club in Athens, she meets charming Christos, who pulls her into an underground student movement against Greece’s fascist regime. Heck, she didn’t even know Greece was a dictatorship.
When Cleo makes a mistake that puts the people she loves in danger, she’s forced to confront her demons: her lack of self-confidence, panic attacks, poor boy choices, and a fear of failure that prevents her from even trying. As the student movement explodes and love and democracy hang in the balance, will Cleo find the courage to stand up to the dictators, heal the bonds she’s broken, find herself, and finally choose the right guy?
In GIRL ON THE WIRE, the humorous tone and coming-of-age angst of DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY meets the intrigue, spying and student resistance of Ruta Sepetys’s I MUST BETRAY YOU. GIRL ON THE WIRE is complete at 65,000 words.
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