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Overview
Pay to get in,
Pray to get out.
Johnny Silver is the world's soon-to-be biggest rock star, but on the eve of his debut concert in Los Angeles, he mysteriously disappears, causing global pandemonium. His friend Taj tries to discover the truth about his disappearance, which leads her to TAP.com and its shadowy founder, Sutton Werner, who throws the wildest parties in Bel-Air.
TAP started out innocently enough, as a website that dishes the dirt on the kids of Sunset Boulevard and beyond. But it has become something more. Membership is a privilege with responsibilities and consequences.
At Sutton's parties, anything goes, especially in the legendary backroom rituals nicknamed The Angels Practice. Rumors abound of a special drink handed out at the parties that tap into otherworldly sensations.
One night Taj meets Nick, a Westside preppie who doesn't buy into the TAP mayhem, especially since his kid sister never came home from attending one of its blow-out bashes. Slowly the two of them are drawn to TAP and to each other. But Taj just might know more than she's letting on....
Are you ready for the darker side of Tinsel-town's brightest lights?
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
De la Cruz (the Au Pairs series) invents a dark world against an L.A. backdrop in this novel, giving readers plenty to puzzle over and ponder. A fictional social networking Web site called TAP.com lies at the center of this story about a missing rock star, the girl who loved him, and rich boy Nick, who is learning to see beneath the surface. Johnny Silver, Taj's boyfriend and "the kind of star that spoke for a generation," literally vanishes from the stage, and he is not alone. Nick's sister goes missing, and soon, so does his best friend. Through Taj's and Nick's alternating perspectives, readers not only watch the mismatched pair fall for each other, they learn TAP's secrets, from the "otherworldly" punch served at the site's sponsored parties, to the strange ritual that happens in the parties' secret rooms. ("TAP—The Angels' Practice... the website was only the beginning. It was also a movement, a phenomenon, and a drug," says Taj.) Nick suspects the Web site is connected to the disappearances. Memorable secondary characters people the novel, such as Taj's drag queen uncle, Mama Fay, and Sutton, Johnny's teen manager with "the smile of the devil." But the story wraps up before readers get enough of them. Teens may have trouble tracking all the pieces of the mystery, but will compulsively turn the pages—and be haunted by the story's provocative themes, such as the underbelly of social networking sites, and why "sixty percent of America's teenagers believe they will become famous." Ages 14-up. (Mar.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationTeen Vogue
"Nothing is more glam than a summer in the Hamptons."
Seventeen
"A guilty-pleasure beach read....What could be better than taking a nanny job that's guaranteed to be a VIP pass to celebrity parties and cute guys?"
www.teenreads.com
"Fans of the Gossip Girl series will love this novel."
Publishers Weekly
"A beach read without a doubt."
Wow! Magazine
"...a hip and light-hearted page turner."
Bookloons Review
"...jump on board with the hottest book of the summer."
Romantic Times
"This is Sex and the City lite, where everyone is a little more fabulous, flirtatious, snobby, and deceitful than we are -- and it's quite all right with us."
Booklist
"Once readers get started, they'll find this hard to put down."