About this item

A debut novel of family, fame, and religion that tells the emotionally stirring, wildly captivating story of the seventeen-year-old daughter of an evangelical preacher, star of the family's hit reality show, and the secret pregnancy that threatens to blow their entire world apart.Esther Ann Hicks--Essie--is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality television phenomenon. She's grown up in the spotlight, both idolized and despised for her family's fire-and-brimstone brand of faith. When Essie's mother, Celia, discovers that Essie is pregnant, she arranges an emergency meeting with the show's producers: Do they sneak Essie out of the country for an abortion? Do they pass the child off as Celia's? Or do they try to arrange a marriage--and a ratings-blockbuster wedding? Meanwhile, Essie is quietly pairing herself up with Roarke Richards, a senior at her school with a secret of his own to protect. As the newly formed couple attempt to sell their fabricated love story to the media--through exclusive interviews with an infamously conservative reporter named Liberty Bell--Essie finds she has questions of her own: What was the real reason for her older sister leaving home? Who can she trust with the truth about her family? And how much is she willing to sacrifice to win her own freedom?



About the Author

Meghan MacLean Weir

MEGHAN MACLEAN WEIR was raised in the rectory of her father's church in Southbridge, Massachusetts, and later moved with her family to Buffalo, New York. Her memoir Between Expectations: Lessons from a Pediatric Residency chronicles her years in training at Boston Medical Center and Boston Children's Hospital. She continues to live and work as a physician in the Boston area. THE BOOK OF ESSIE is her first novel.The author holds degrees in Molecular Biology and Medical Anthropology from Princeton and Oxford Universities, respectively, as well as an MD from the Stony Brook School of Medicine. She has participated in research and training programs in South Africa, Liberia, and Sri Lanka that have been funded in part by the Stony Brook School of Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Her essays have appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine as well as hospital publications at both her former and current institutions and excerpts of her writing have been used in the Humanism in Medicine curriculum for interns at the Boston Combined Residency Program.



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