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Title
Masquerade
Author
Melissa
De La Cruz
Age Range
Teenagers
/ Teens
Brief Description
So my new
series THE ASHLEYS is about four girls who go to the most exclusive
all-girls school in San Francisco. Three of the girls in the story are
all named Ashley, they're the prettiest and most popular girls in
school. Lauren is the fourth girl--who's out to join the Ashleys only so
she can de-Ashley them for good. Will Lauren succeed in her quest to
make the seventh grade a better place to be? Or will she succumb to
Ashleyfication herself?
Find out in the first book of the series: THE ASHLEYS: There's A New
Name in School. Coming out in bookstores January 8, 2008! Which is not
that far from now, really.
Cover Artwork
Extract from Book.
THE NOT-SO-NEW GIRL
Lauren Page smoothed down the folds of her short plaid skirt and crossed
her legs so that she could admire the shiny new black-and-white Chanel
spectator oxfords on her feet a little better. They looked so cute with
her thick cashmere socks scrunched down just above the ankle, she
thought to herself. She’d been wearing the same green plaid uniform to
Miss Gamble’s all her life, but she was in the upper form now—seventh
grade, which meant saying goodbye to her boring old Buster Browns and
hello to the first boy-girl dance with the hotties from Gregory Hall
that was only three weeks away. And as far as she was concerned, upper
form meant a whole new Lauren.
She leaned back on the plush, baby-soft leather seat in her dad’s
sparkling new Bentley Continental and pressed a button that flipped a
mirror on the console in front of her.
Sometimes, she couldn’t believe it herself. The girl who smiled back
from the mirror looked nothing like the old Lauren. This one had
pin-straight chestnut brown hair that fell softly on her shoulders and
shone with reddish and caramel gold highlights, a killer Mystic
spray-tan, and cheekbones so sharp they rivaled Hilary Duff’s. Lauren
felt a little like Hillary herself, when the Duffster lost all that baby
fat and started looking so hot that people whispered she’d had major
plastic surgery.
Last year she was a financial-aid pity case, fretting over whether
anyone at school would notice that her blue cashmere sweater had been
bought secondhand at the school’s charity shop, which sold used uniforms
for half-price, but this year her sweater was a nine-hundred dollar one
with a fancy Italian label. Lauren had been worried about getting it
stained, until her dad, who used to pay bills from the co-op grocery
with change from the kitchen jar whenever his graduate teaching
assistant stipend ran out—had told her that she never had to worry about
anything ever again. At least not where pricey designer clothes were
concerned. Well then. Bring on the twelve-ply Mongolian cashmere.
Lauren grabbed a tall, frosty Voss water bottle from the mini-fridge
hidden in the side compartment to calm her nerves.
A head-to-toe Emma Roberts-like makeover was one thing, but there were
still the Ashleys to contend with. Lauren could see them now, giving her
the daily head-to-toe fashion evaluation and shaking their heads in mock
disgust. Even if there was a school uniform and all students were
supposed to look the same to eliminate “status consciousness”, the
Ashleys always looked like they stepped out of a J. Crew catalog while
Lauren looked like she’d stumbled out of an old Facts of Life episode.
They never let her forget it, either.
Lauren clenched her jaw. What if they saw through her six-hundred dollar
haircut and button-nose job and decided she was just the same old dork
she always had been?
What if they looked at her and saw the same Lauren from last year?
She would not allow that to happen. She dug her Black Satin manicure
into the Mercedes’ thick upholstery, leaving ugly grooves in the Italian
leather. Uh-oh. That was going to cost a fortune to fix. Then she
remembered with relief that a fortune was exactly what she had right
now. And like Angelina Jolie, she was going to use her money to do
something good for a change.
First, she was going to join the Ashleys. And then she was going to
destroy them. She wanted to change the world one day, and she was going
to start by making the seventh grade a better place to be.
Lauren spied The Ashleys in their usual before-school hangout by the
stone bench in front of the playground, the three of them holding
matching venti decaf soy lattes and looking beyond bored. They looked so
sweet and innocent—not at all like the soul-destroying creatures they
really were. She inhaled and said a little prayer to whatever gods
watched over made-over twelve year olds with secret intentions.
Today was the first day of the rest of her new life.
