November 8, 2010
Based on a news article written for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Mournian's exquisitely written and impossibly sad fiction debut charts America's latest version of the Underground Railroad. When 15-year-old Ahmed inadvertently outs himself to his parents, they take him to a residential treatment center in the Nevada desert, Serenity Ridge, where he's tortured, molested, and put through a "straight" rehabilitation program. After 11 months, Ahmed manages to escape to a safe house for runaway gay teens in San Francisco, where he meets a slew of other kids like himself, all with their own stories to tell, most just as traumatizing as his own or worse. But life inside the safe house is never entirely safe, as Ahmed, now known as Ben, learns to his sorrow just as he begins to let his guard down. Regardless of their sexual orientation, readers will wait with bated breath to the end, almost suffocating on the palpable sense of fear and claustrophobia that permeates this heartbreaking story.
August 6, 2018
Zanetti’s first Requisition Force romantic thriller explodes with action, spice, and humor. Pippa Smith is in hiding, borderline agoraphobic, forever looking over her shoulder, and ducking away from security cameras after escaping life in a cult just before her 18th birthday. Isaac, the cult’s leader, is still searching for her seven years later. Malcolm West, her new next door neighbor in Cottage Grove, is a former undercover detective with PTSD from an op gone badly. Little do they know, their meeting is orchestrated by Angus Force, a former FBI profiler and head of a brand new branch of the Homeland Defense Department. Neither Pippa nor Malcolm is ready or willing to trust yet, but they find themselves pulled deeper into the lives they’re running from when the HDD assigns Malcolm to protect Pippa while getting information from her that can
be used to target the cult. Beautifully developed characters pair well with an enticingly suspenseful story to create just enough tension to capture readers without being overwhelming. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Liza Dawson Assoc.