New Titles & Coming Soon

Ecstasy – by A C Flanagan

published internationally with Ransom Publishing

Set in Sydney, Australia, the story centres around school friends Mai-Ling and Carrie. Both girls attend an exclusive private school but their backgrounds are very different. While Carrie enjoys the lifestyle her successful father affords her, Mai-Ling and her mother arrived as illegal immigrants from Vietnam and have worked hard to establish themselves in a new country.

The story opens in a hospital emergency ward where Mai-Ling has been admitted with a suspected ecstasy overdose. From their occasional dabbling in drugs at parties, neither girl thought a night of innocent fun would turn into a life and death situation.

As she sits in the waiting room, Carrie must face explaining to Mai-Ling’s mother how her sweet and dutiful daughter has come to be fighting for her life. Carrie’s account of her friendship with Mai-Ling exposes the pressures of being a teenager with parents from another culture. It explores the conflict Mai-Ling has in reconciling her mother’s expectations of her with those of her friends.

Mai-Ling’s mother shares some of her own experiences with Carrie and as she discloses the family’s secrets Carrie begins to realise how little she really knew of Mai-Ling’s life.

Carrie’s account of her friendship with Mai-Ling describes in hard-hitting detail the transition of a quiet and reserved straight-A student into a teenage party girl.

But Mai-Ling is not the only one with secrets. As her friend’s condition worsens, Carrie’s guilt torments her into revealing what really did happen that evening – a confession that will change her life forever.

Ecstasy examines the issues teenagers from different traditional backgrounds face when trying to integrate their home lives with school lives. It takes us past the sensationalising of social drug-taking through to the human side of the lives of those left behind.

Ecstasy is a story about the human heart, the human spirit and the decisions which shape the human experience.

The Cutting Edge Series

Cutting Edge is a new ‘quick read’ fiction series that cuts a bit closer to the tough side of life and is written for young adults who find conventional fiction irrelevant to them or too hard to read. It is an honest and hard-hitting approach to subject matter that many teens will identify with, covering contemporary teenage issues including self-harm, incest, suicide, drug use and gay sexuality.

Ecstasy will be released as part of Ransom’s 2009 edition of The Cutting Edge Series.

To pre-order, email orders@ransom.co.uk