Gray Lines

IS IT SEX? OR IS IT ASSAULT?

Consent is ambiguous when a sexual encounter between two teenagers, Micah and Penelope, escalates. Their mothers, Zoe and Amelia, who are neighbors and best friends, are pitted against each other as they seek to protect their children from the social and legal consequences of that night. As the case steamrolls toward trial, lifelong friendships and family bonds are tested as everyone struggles to reconcile the past with their search for the truth.

Early Praise

Dondlinger drops her readers into a palpably, terrifyingly real world from the first paragraphs. She weaves a complex pattern of perspectives and assumptions, daring the reader to assume they've sorted the tangled knot of guilt and innocence. But there are no simple solutions to the cat's-cradle web of this he-said-she-said. Unnerving and provocative to the last, I couldn't put Gray Lines down.-Angela Bier, author of The Accidental Archivist

Absorbing and gripping until the final page, Gray Lines examines the complexities of human relationships - parents, children, siblings, and best friends - and skillfully explores the love, the pain and the insecurities of families as well as the ongoing struggle to ever fully know even those we care about the most. With beautifully drawn characters, this is one emotionally satisfying read.-Alice Benson, author of Her Life is Showing and A Year in Her Life

Dondlinger's Gray Lines pushes us firmly onto the testiest path and sends us into the shadows where we're not sure who is right and who is wrong. The parents? The boy? The girl? Prepare to find yourself immersed in the push and pull between the characters and situations.؅-Kathie Giorgio, author of All Told and If You Tame Me

His eyelashes tickled her cheeks as he brushed her with kisses. His elbows pressed against the curves of her shoulders, a glove, squeezing her in. Fingers splayed in her wet, tangled hair. Pulling back an inch or so, he took her in. His brown eyes were a polygraph of red. "I love you-" His voice sounded gritty, parched, aching, his breath labored. "-Penelope Mae Swanson."

Before she could process his words-Did he say he loved her -he fused their bodies together. A hot, searing pain plunged through the depths of her core, as if someone lit a firecracker. It fizzled inside before exploding, sending shock waves down every nerve pathway.

Too late, she understood. She was having sex. SEX! With Micah. In her bed. Right. This. Minute.

She lay paralyzed as he moved above her, a shadow of himself. How did this happen? How did she let this happen? How did they go from kissing and touching to this? So quickly?

How could she stop him?