Kayla Alpert

A Gothic story of four siblings who, after the death of their father, are torn from a peaceful life and subjected to abuse resulting from a dark, family secret. Abandoned by their mother and forced to endure unimaginable treatment living in the attic of their grandparents' mansion, the children form their own family unit. But as the oldest boy and girl come of age, they are entrapped by their family's sordid past as they try to survive and escape...

Rebecca Bloomwood is a young woman struggling with her debilitating obsession with shopping and the sudden collapse of her income source. She unintentionally lands a job writing for a Manhattan financial magazine after a drunken letter-mailing mix-up. Ironically, now Rebecca is writing about the very consumer caution of which she herself has not abided. Rebecca's innovative comparisons and unconventional metaphors for economics grants her critical...