Lela Santos

The book's main character is Lela Santos, a teenage girl living in Rhode Island. Abandoned by her mentally ill mother at age four, Lela has bounced around foster homes all her life. Her worst experience was at the hands of a foster father named Rick, who raped her routinely. After one attack, Lela tried to hang herself, but when Rick revived her and attempted to brutalize her again, she fought back and beat him badly, resulting in a year in a juvenile detention center. Now her life has turned around with the help of her kind, loving foster mother Diane and her best friend Nadia Vetter. Still, Lela retains her street smarts and the fears leftover from Rick's abuse, and she is haunted by vivid dreams of a frightening part of hell reserved for those who commit suicide.

Lela is slow to trust. However, once she cares...