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@MargauxFroley
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Margaux Froley is a Southern California native and a boarding school grad. She spent the last few years working her way through the Hollywood ranks to become a television writer on CW's Privileged. She then moved to New York to become a development executive at MTV Networks. Escape Theory is her first novel.
ESCAPE THEORY:
Sixteen-year-old Devon Mackintosh has always felt like an outsider at Keaton, the prestigious California boarding school perched above the Pacific. As long as she’s not fitting in, Devon figures she might as well pad her application to Stanford’s psych program. So junior year, she decides to become a peer counselor, a de facto therapist for students in crisis. At first, it seems like it will be an easy fly-on-the-wall gig, but her expectations are turned upside down when Jason Hutchins (a.k.a. “Hutch”), one of the Keaton’s most popular students, commits suicide.
Devon dives into her new role providing support for Hutch’s friends, but she’s haunted by her own attachment to him. The two shared an extraordinary night during their first week freshman year; it was the only time at Keaton when she felt like someone else really understood her. As the secrets and confessions pile up in her sessions, Devon comes to a startling conclusion: Hutch couldn't have taken his own life. Bound by her oath of confidentiality—and tortured by her unrequited love—Devon embarks on a solitary mission to get to the bottom of Hutch's death, and the stakes are higher than she ever could have imagined.
Devon dives into her new role providing support for Hutch’s friends, but she’s haunted by her own attachment to him. The two shared an extraordinary night during their first week freshman year; it was the only time at Keaton when she felt like someone else really understood her. As the secrets and confessions pile up in her sessions, Devon comes to a startling conclusion: Hutch couldn't have taken his own life. Bound by her oath of confidentiality—and tortured by her unrequited love—Devon embarks on a solitary mission to get to the bottom of Hutch's death, and the stakes are higher than she ever could have imagined.
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GUEST POST: On the evolution of the cover.
From the initial conversations about the cover design for Escape Theory, I had some specific points of inspiration I wanted to pull from. This was an image I was really struck by, the incongruity of of text on top of the ocean, I found that there was something haunting about it.
Of course, those were just my vague ideas. One of the early ARC covers looked like this. My concern was that the pink combined with the couple made this feel like a supernatural romance. But already we were all in love with the font of the title and somehow using the Keaton School logo.
The final ARC cover took a darker approach, and ended up with the dark green background and the Keaton School logo at a watermark in the background.
THEN, a few months later, I was told that we were changing the cover up again. An early inspiration for my publishers was actually a book written by my editor, Dan Ehrenhaft, called Dirty Laundry. This was also a boarding school thriller, and we liked the girl in her plaid skirt here, but wanted to give it a darker tone.
So, this was the next pass:
And then we did some more tinkering to give more insight into our character on the cover, something to hint a little more at the psychological bent Escape Theory has....and this was our final landing spot!! I am very pleased with it, and really appreciative of Janine Argo, Meredith Barnes, Rachel Kowal (our cover model) and Dan Ehrenhaft at Soho Press/Soho Teen for allowing so much back and forth input from me.
Here is a picture of Rachel, our cover girl, posing with the cover poster at ALA 13 in Seattle:
And here’s me being dorky and excited about the cover art in Seattle. !!
