newrelease

Finally! My new book, Brothers, Boyfriends & Other
Criminal Minds will be coming out in June 2007 from
Delacorte/ Random House.

The story takes place in, take a guess, yes, Brooklyn! Only
this time it's 1977, and the neighborhood is Dyker Heights,
home of the Italian Mafia. My narrator, fourteen-year-old,
April Lundquist, is having problems with her own love life, but
to top things off, her sixteen-year-old brother Matt is dating
the daughter of the infamous mobster - Bobby "The Bull"
Bocceli.

Read an excerpt below:

                                                           Chapter One

    Three murderers live on my block – two on opposite corners like a pair of bookends, and one
right across the street from my house. Not the crazed, ax-wielding kind you might see in horror
flicks, but genteel killers who go about business in Armani suits and Gucci shoes, their victims
disappearing without a trace. This probably sounds creepy, and you might even wonder if I'm
afraid for my life, but up until now I’ve always felt safe. That’s because these men are members of
La Cosa Nostra, This Thing of Ours. Most people call them Mafia.

    When I was eight years old my family moved a whopping two-and-a-half miles from our
apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to a modest house in the pristine section of Dyker Heights,
home of the Colombo and Bonanno crime families. While my dad had reservations about rubbing
shoulders with the locals, he was drawn to the quiet neighborhood, and my mother, who had a
thing about dirt, was thrilled to have her own garden where she grew tulips and tomatoes.

    What I liked most was that I’d finally gotten my own room, complete with purple shag carpeting
and a plastic Barbie vanity set. Outside there were lots of kids to play with, and I never thought
much about the men who drove around in fancy Cadillacs, flashing gold chains and chest hair.
They were just part of the scenery. And if I ever had the good fortune of being invited to one of
their kid’s birthday parties, there was sure to be pony rides, magicians, live bands, and
homemade gelato.

    But as I got older, I realized that Mafia presence had other benefits. Because they kept out
petty criminals, you didn’t have to worry about getting mugged or having your stereo stolen or
your ten-speed bike jacked from your garage. However, along with these perks, there were
certain rules you had to follow. Such as, never say the word “Mafia” (according to them, the
organization does not exist), never ask a rich kid what his father does for a living, and if you’re a
non-Sicilian teenage boy, never ever date a connected guy’s daughter.

    So when I discovered that Matt, my sixteen-year-old, blond-haired, blue-eyed, moron-of-a-
brother was in love with Bettina Bocceli, daughter of Colombo’s capo, I knew there was going to be
trouble. Matt may have been the tormentor of my life, but I didn’t exactly want to find him on the
bottom of the East River wearing a pair of cement shoes.