about the book
At only three years old, Ariel Benson was the sole witness to her mother’s stabbing, a crime believed to have been committed by her father. Abandoned at a local Walmart a short time later, she has been bouncing around the foster care system her whole life.
Now an emancipated seventeen-year-old, Ariel goes by the name Olivia Reinhart, and works a dead-end job in Portland, Oregon. Her mundane existence is interrupted when police officers from her hometown of Medford find the remains of her father. He was buried in the same woods where her mother died. The local police believe they must have died at the same time.
Keeping her identity a secret, Olivia returns to Medford to attend her father’s funeral. She stays in town, hoping to piece together her fragmented memories of that horrible day. Even though the police now believe the killer was someone else, Olivia launches her own unofficial investigation to discover what really happened.
about the author
Author April Henry grew up in Medford, Oregon and now lives in Portland. Sound familiar? Both locations made their way into the life of Olivia Reinhart, her character in The Girl I Used to Be. She based the story off of a 30-year-old case she read about of a young girl and her parents who walked into the woods to search for a Christmas tree and didn’t return. Their young daughter was later found at a local retail store.
Clearly, April snags ideas for her stories wherever she can, but her work does not stop with the idea. She methodically researches the details of her novels and even goes so far as to participate in self-defense and gun-shooting courses. For example, she knows how to escape from duct tape, zip ties, rope, and hand cuffs.
She believes she took an interest in writing crime and suspense novels after a scary incident when she was 24 years old. She was alone in her apartment when a man forced his way inside through a window. She was able to escape, but believes the man intended to harm her. Today she would know how to fight back if anyone did attack her. She has a purple belt in Kung Fu, an orange belt in Kajukenbo and a two-stripe white belt in Brazilian Jiujitzu.
She claims the scariest incident of her life, though, was on February 1, 2008, when she quit her day job as a corporate writer to be a full-time author. April wrote her first “published” piece at twelve years old. She sent a letter and story she had written to Ronald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The story was about a six-foot-tall frog who loved peanut butter. Ronald loved the story so much he read it to his daughter and passed it along to his editor. The editor later contacted April to get permission to publish the story. Today, she has written over 20 novels for both adults and young adults.
Source:
Author website
Author spotlight: Children’s Literature
Author interview: Author Turf
Author interview: Crimespree
Author interview: Disability in Kidlit
Author interview: Milwaukee Public Radio
Book trailer
Also by April Henry:
Count All Her Bones. Henry Holt & Company (BYR). May 2017.
Blood Will Tell (Point Last Seen, Book 2). Henry Holt & Company. 2015.
The Body in the Woods (Point Last Seen, Book 1). Henry Holt & Company. 2014.
The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die. Henry Holt & Company. 2013.
The Night She Disappeared. Henry Holt & Company (BYR). 2012.
Girl, Stolen. Henry Holt & Company (BYR). 2010.
Shock Point. Putnam Publishing. 2006.
read more!
The Body in the Woods (Point Last Seen, Book 1) by April Henry
Three Oregon high school teens help local police search the local woods for an autistic man who has gone missing. Instead, they find the body of a girl who is their age. One of the teens, smart-yet-socially-awkward Ruby, is convinced it’s the work of a serial killer.
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