| Written by Sarah Parrish, Dover, Massachusetts |
Meet Sarah Parrish
Sarah is a senior at Dover-Sherborn High School where she is captain of the Alpine Ski Team and the Track and Field Team. She is also a member of her school’s Peer Helping Club and Community Service club. Throughout the summer, Sarah works as a counselor at a local summer camp and also as a server at the Chatham Filling station. With a passion for leadership and athletics, she enjoys ski instructing at Burke Mountain and coaching field hockey for Dover-Sherborn Youth Field Hockey. She also enjoys her participation in the Senior High Youth Group at Pilgrim Church where she volunteers around her community. In her freetime, she enjoys boating, skiing, running and traveling.
Throughout Gripped Part 4: Smoke & Mirrors by Stacy Padula, we not only learn the harmful effects of drug addiction, but also how characters are able to recover. Ex football star, Taylor Dunkin begins to pick up his life after his drug addiction sparked from taking prescribed painkillers after a major injury. We also see the way that his brothers get tangled into his web of drama with his addiction and his girlfriend, Julie. The readers are left to hope that Taylor does the right things and stays sober, instead of going back into the rabbit hole.
Furthermore, the readers also see the harmful effects of drugs on Cathy and Jason’s relationship. It is a very repetitive cycle of Jason and Cathy staying sober and staying in their relationship. However, after Cathy being grounded, Jason began using more drugs and now has a lot of repairing to do. First, with Cathy and then to his friend that mistakenly took Jason’s drugs. We also see how parents interfere with their lives and how the teenagers continually disobey their parents. This book is a tangled web of relationship problems and drama and certainly keeps its readers on their toes.
Synopsis
Now being adapted for TV by Emmy-winning producer Mark Blutman!
After spending her first month of high school grounded, Cathy Kagelli is finally allowed to socialize and uncover what her boyfriend, Jason Davids, has been up to without her. When Cathy realizes Jason has been experimenting with a variety of drugs, she devises a plan to save him from himself… but she just may lose herself in the process.
Meanwhile Taylor Dunkin finds himself playing a game with even higher stakes because his life, his reputation, and the safety of everyone he loves are all on the line. Taylor’s two younger brothers, Jordan and Marc, have been at odds for years, but they are brought together to decipher the mysterious clues Taylor is leaving regarding his whereabouts. As secrets are revealed, the Dunkin boys’ relationships will be changed forever. In Taylor’s weakest moment, he made a deal with the devil, and now there is a reckoning. But who will pay the price?
Books by Stacy A. Padula 
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