My Story BEFORE The Story ~ THEA FENTON ~ FADE TO WHITE

My Name is Thea Fenton and I am your average 16-year-old suburban teenager. I shouldn’t have a story to tell. From the outside, I look like most other girls. Average height, average weight, average number of pimples. Crazy mess of hair. Zero social status.

Up until this past fall, my life was mediocre at best. It actually kind of sucked. My grams died this past summer and without her presence in our home, our fragile family structure began to teeter and sway with each new mini-crisis. My parents fought constantly about finances and my dad’s ever-present grief. My brother stopped playing referee and instead put on the golden boy façade to ensure regular tuition infusions for university. I had friends, but my two besties had much more interesting things happening in their lives compared to my perpetual anxiety, which quite frankly, I was sick of talking about before I even started therapy. It was easier to deal with it on my own then to bother anyone else with it. So, I would run, or pretend to be someone else. And if that didn’t work, I would pull strands of hair from my head, until I could overpower the pain.

But then everything changed.

I thought it started with the story in the newspaper. The headline about a girl from my school who fell off a cliff. I was no stranger to panic attacks but reading that article sent me into a new state of fear that felt so surreal. It was more than just my body’s reaction to anxiety. Each experience left my world in blinding white light and an overpowering rush of noise.

That first time, I thought I was dying. But there was a voice from within the chaos of my mind. In that moment, something, or someone was fighting for me. I wasn’t getting better on my own, but the only person who could calm my fears was gone. Grams was my foundation. She was the only one who knew how to slow the beating in my chest, or quiet the arguments from outside and within.

Sometimes I let my memory linger on that last night we spent together. She said to me that I had a spirit in me. That pain could help me find it. I thought she meant physical pain. But hurting myself wasn’t solving anything. And I knew she wanted me to move past the pain. Not to live in it.

Then Khi appeared as though Grams knew the state of my heart and put in a special request for help. From the minute I met Khi, I felt at home. He saw through the outward veneer I tried to coat on each day. He saw the pain, but he didn’t stop there. He looked right through to the pain, to something deeper within me. He saw what my Grams knew was there all along - a small spark of light fighting to emerge.

I thought it started with the story in the newspaper, but there was a greater story planted in my heart long before the death of my classmate. That story already had an ending. My grams spent her last moments pouring out as much of that truth that she could. It was through her pain and death that I realized a greater story. One with an ending that would ignite my spark and allow it to spread to the one person I never thought I could love. I wanted to be part of the same story that gave Grams purpose within her pain. She passed through the pain. That is where my story really began.

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My Story Title:   Fade To White

My Story Genre:  Contemporary Inspirational YA

My Story Releases:   May 30, 2020

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The Author of My Story:    Tara Ross

Tara K. Ross lives with her husband, two daughters and rescued fur-baby in a field of cookie-cutter homes near Toronto, Canada. She works as a school speech-language pathologist and mentors with local youth programs. When Tara is not writing or reading all things young adult fiction, you can find her rock climbing the Ontario escarpment, planning her family's next jungle trek or podcasting at The Hope Prose Podcast.

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Get Connected:

• You can follow Tara’s blog and writing journey at www.tarakross.com
• Instagram @tara.k.ross

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WHERE can the book be purchased?

• Fade to White is available for preorder through the Illuminate YA/Lighthouse Publications Website: https://shoplpc.com/fade-to-white/
• You can preorder through Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fade-White-Tara-K-Ross-ebook/dp/B085HKBG4P/ref=sr_1_1?crid=K9KEA661L73&keywords=fade+to+white+tara+k+ross&qid=1584668666&sprefix=fade+to+white%2Caps%2C284&sr=8-1

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Tara K. Ross will be honored to gift a winner an ebook copy of
FADE TO WHITE

Be sure to leave a comment with an email address where you can be reached should you win.

DRAWING TO BE HELD WEDNESDAY EVENING ~ May 13, 2019.