Final Draft

The third novel from Riley Redgate, the beloved author of Seven Ways We Lie, Final Draft is “an intensely focused portrait of a girl who, through first love and first loss, begins to find the story she wants to tell” (Booklist).

Laila Piedra doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and definitely doesn’t sneak into the 21-and-over clubs on the Lower East Side. The only sort of risk Laila enjoys is the peril she writes for the characters in her stories.

But just before her graduation, Laila’s creative writing teacher and number one fan is replaced by Nadiya Nazarenko, a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist who sees nothing at all special about Laila’s writing. A growing obsession with gaining Nazarenko’s approval leads to a series of unexpected adventures. With her sanity and happiness on the line, Laila must figure out if enduring the unendurable really is the only way to greatness.

Riley Redgate’s first two novels, Noteworthy and Seven Ways We Lie, earned critical acclaim. She currently lives and writes in Chicago.