Duncan - Dont Look Behind You

There are a lot of smart authors, and a lot of authors who write reasonably well. Lois Duncan is smart, writes darn good books and is one of the most entertaining authors in America .

Walter Dean Myers, Printz awardwinning author of Monster and Dope Sick

She knows what you did last summer. She knows how to find that secret evil in her characters hearts, evil that she turns into throat-clutching suspense in book after book. Does anyone write scarier books than Lois Duncan? I dont think so.

R. L. Stine, author of the Goosebumps and Fear Street series

I couldnt be more pleased that Lois Duncans books will now reach a new generation of readers.

Judy Blume, author of Forever and Tiger Eyes

Lois Duncan has always been one of my biggest inspirations. I gobbled up her novels, reading them again and again and scaring myself over and over. Shes a master of suspense, so prepare to be dazzled and spooked!

Sara Shepard, author of the Pretty Little Liars series

Lois Duncans books kept me up many a late night reading under the covers with a flashlight!

Wendy Mass, author of A Mango-Shaped Space, Leap Day and Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall

Lois Duncan is the patron saint of all things awesome .

Jenny Han, author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series

Duncan is one of the smartest, funniest and most terrifying writers arounda writer that a generation of girls LOVED to tatters, while learning to never read her books without another friend to scream with handy.

Lizzie Skurnick, author of Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading

Haunting and suspenseful Duncans writing captures everything fun about reading!

Suzanne Young, author of The Naughty List series and A Need So Beautiful

In middle school and high school, I loved Lois Duncans novels. I still do. I particularly remember Killing Mr. Griffin , which took my breath away. I couldnt quite believe a writer could do that. I feel extremely grateful to Lois Duncan for taking unprecedented risks, challenging preconceptions and changing the young adult field forever.

Erica S. Perl, author of Vintage Veronica

Killing Mr. Griffin taught me a lot about writing. Thrilling stuff. It was one of the most requested and enjoyed books I taught with my students. I think its influenced most of my writing since.

Gail Giles, author of Right Behind You and Dark Song

If ever a writers work should be brought before each new generation of young readers, it is that of Lois Duncan.The grace with which she has led her lifea life that included a tragedy that would have brought most of us to our kneesis reflected in her writing, particularly in I Know What You Did Last Summer. Her stories, like Lois herself, are ageless.

Chris Crutcher, author of Angry Management, Deadline and Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

Lois Duncans thrillers have a timeless quality about them. They are good stories, very well told, that also happen to illuminate both the heroic and dark parts of growing up.

Marc Talbert, author of Dead Birds Singing, A Sunburned Prayer and Heart of a Jaguar

I could not move.

I was incapable of screaming.

All I could do was stand there, frozen with shock, as the reincarnation of my worst childhood nightmare stared back at me.

For Jim and Mary Lavin, Betsy, Jamie and Michael, and, of course, Clare

The world as we knew it ended for us on a Tuesday afternoon in May. There were four of us in the family, if you didnt count Lorelei. Our last name was Corrigan. My father worked for an airline called Southern Skyways, and my mother was an author of childrens books. My little brotherBramGeorge Bramwell, Jr.was a third grader at Crestwood Elementary School. His claim to fame was that he had one blue eye and one brown one. My name was April, and I was a junior at Springside Academy. My claim to fame was that I was a killer tennis player.

Except for the size of the family, none of that is true anymore. We lived in Norwood, Virginia, not very far south of Washington, D.C. Spring is a magical time of year in Virginia; I awoke to a morning filled with sunshine and birdsong. I lay there in bed for a while, too comfortable to make the effort to get up, enjoying the gentle warmth of the sun on my eyelids and the faint, sweet scents drifting up from the backyard garden.

If I close my eyes today, I can still smell those flowers. They were hyacinths, I think.

After a time, the clock on the table next to my bed gave a threatening click, and I reached over blindly to punch the switch to keep the alarm from going off. Then I opened my eyes to the beauty of the day. Sunlight poured in through the open window, and the crystal prism Steve had given me for my seventeenth birthday two weeks earlier to symbolize a year that will be filled with rainbows twisted and spun on the end of its thread, creating a multicolored kaleidoscope on the wall across from it.

Mine was an unusual room for someone in high school. My best friend, Sherry Blaugrand, whose bedroom walls were covered with posters of rock stars, liked to refer to it as Princess Aprils Chamber. The furniture in the chamber was composed of antiques handed down by my grandmother, Lorelei, when she sold her house. The four-poster bed and the matching chest of drawers were cherry wood, and an oval mirror in an ornate gold frame hung over the dresser. In one corner there was a rocking chair with hand-carved arms and a blue velvet cushion, and opposite that stood a camphorwood chest that my grandparents had brought back from a trip to Asia.

But the room was not just a reflection of Lorelei. There was a bookcase crammed with my favorite books and a stereo with an iPod dock next to the bed. A shelf beneath the window was lined with tennis trophies, and on the dresser Steve Chandlers face grinned mischievously out at me from a borderless picture frame.

There was something about that grin that was contagious. I blinked sleep from my eyes and smiled back at the boy in the photograph. Then I let my gaze flick past him to the door of the closet. Prom was only four days away, and in that closet hung my first full-length gown.

Sitting up, I swung my legs over the side and got out of bed. As I passed in front of the window on my way to the bathroom, a breeze slipped in to ruffle the curtains, and the prism hanging from the curtain rod twirled gaily, spattering my cotton pajamas with rainbows.

I brushed my teeth, got dressed, and spent several minutes twisting my long blond hair into a French braid. Then I got panicked about time and hurried downstairs. My mom and brother were already seated at the table in the kitchen, and our fat golden cocker, Porky, was positioned beneath it. Bram was busily burying his cereal under a layer of sugar, and Mom was too engrossed in the morning paper to notice. In front of her sat a coffee mug with i do the job write printed on it. It was filled to the brim with thick, black liquid that looked like the residue from a tar pit.

Anything new on the trial? I asked by way of greeting.

If there is, its not in the paper, said Mom.

I wish theyd get things settled so Dad could come home, I said. Youd think at least theyd let him commute on weekends.

I got a glass from the cupboard and a carton from the refrigerator and poured myself some orange juice.