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The Girl She Used to Be (cover)

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When Melody Grace McCartney was six years old, she and her parents witnessed an act of violence so brutal that it changed their lives forever. The federal government lured them into the Witness Protection Program with the promise of safety, and they went gratefully. But the program took Melody's name, her home, her innocence, and, ultimately, her family. She's been May Adams, Karen Smith, Anne Johnson, and countless others--everyone but the one person she longs to be: herself. So when the feds spirit her off to begin yet another new life in another town, she's stunned when a man confronts her and calls her by her real name. Jonathan Bovaro, the mafioso sent to hunt her down, knows her, the real her, and it's a dangerous thrill that Melody can't resist. He's insistent that she's just a pawn in the government's war against the Bovaro family. But can she trust her life and her identity to this vicious stranger whose acts of violence are legendary?

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NEWS: January 19, 2010: THE GIRL SHE USED TO BE has been nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author.  Winners will be announced in New York on April 29, 2010!

NEWS: May 11, 2009: The movie rights for THE GIRL SHE USED TO BE have been sold to Mark Johnson’s Gran Via Productions (THE NOTEBOOK, MY SISTER’S KEEPER) and Julie Lynn’s Mockingbird Pictures (THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB, MOTHER AND CHILD), by Sean Daily at Hotchkiss and Associates, on behalf of Pamela Harty at The Knight Agency.

“Cristofano’s mad love scenario sizzles like garlic in hot olive oil.”   <read entire review>

 --Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“This is a compulsively readable, skillfully constructed first novel with well-drawn characters and a plot that twists and turns to what seems the best possible conclusion, marking Cristofano as a writer to watch.”   <read entire review>

 --Booklist

“What a riveting and remarkable first novel! You can’t help but root for this most unusual and lovable narrator. I didn’t want the book to end.”

 --Lolly Winston, New York Times bestselling author of GOOD GRIEF and HAPPINESS SOLD SEPARATELY

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