To Die For is a harrowing look into the life of a narcissist who refuses to
take accountability for the damage she inflicts.
High school senior Dei Fields appears completely harmless, but she has a keen
instinct for manipulation. When she first sets eyes on hot star athlete Mika
St. John, she’s determined to have him … and Dei always gets what
she wants. There are only three obstacles: Mika’s friends, his family,
and his girlfriend. But Dei isn’t afraid to destroy relationships to
satisfy her fantasies.
In a matter of weeks, she love-bombs Mika into thinking he has found his
soulmate, but when Dei’s plans go awry, everything
changes—including her identity. Will Dei get what she wants this time?
Or will she finally get what she deserves?
Genre: Young Adult
Pages: 309
Amazon UK • Amazon US
The Villian You Love to Hate
By Audrey Steidl
What makes a villain someone that you love to hate? Like all characters on the page, a villain is only believable if they have moments of hesitation or even clarity about their own motives – when they realize that what they are planning might be wrong but choose to do it anyway.
It starts with the choices that they make and their worldview, which is centered entirely on their desires, their emotions, their goals.
Take money. Most people don’t do bad things strictly for the money or because some other bad guy tells them to take something that doesn’t belong to them. Nor do they scam someone just for the money – it’s much deeper than that.
For the villain, money is usually about significance or power -- or about how others will perceive them if they don’t have it. A villain isn’t motivated by security or by the need to put a roof over their head or bread on the table. They want more than what they need. And what they want is power.
Most villains want to control someone -- or everyone -- around them. At its extreme, their weapon of choice may be guns, sexual violence or a rope. Capturing someone is always about containment and control.
But sometimes their most effective weapon is manipulation and gaslighting: a lie told over and over again until it becomes the truth – at least in the mind of the villain and the victim.
In a seduction scenario, a villain may use charm, love-bombing, extravagant gifts, displays of jealousy, giving or withholding attention, or refusing to let the victim out of their sight. They will demand to know who their partner has been with, why they are late, where they are going…. These are all manipulative tools. And typically, they are the tools of the covert or malignant narcissist.
The most important thing to understand is that villains don’t see themselves as villains. In their own minds, they believe that they are smarter, more talented, and more deserving of being the one with the power, the money, the control….
Yet perversely, they can also think of themselves as the victim when thwarted of their desires. They might even enlist the reader’s sympathy in this role. But only for a time. Ultimately – however charming or talented they may seem or how much we may love to hate them -- we do want them to see them defeated!
Audrey Steidl is the award-winning author of the romantic thriller The Fallen.
Her passion for storytelling began at an early age when she wrote scripts and
performed them with her neighborhood friends in full costume and makeup. This
love blossomed into a career as an actress and as a producer for cable
television.
Now, when she’s not writing page-turners, Audrey is a
hotel travel executive, a pilates fiend, and a lover of travel and art. A
long-time San Diego resident, she shares her home with her husband Jamie and
their mischievous Pomeranian Loki. Her latest novel, To Die For, is inspired
by those who have the courage to walk away from narcissists and emotionally
abusive relationships.
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