While it’s become a cultural phenomenon—strangers being reunited as family members thanks to DNA databases connecting them—there haven’t been any YA novels about this.

Debut author Dante Medema explores the emotional fallout after a teenage girl discovers she is the product of an affair through a series of poems, text messages, and emails with her debut novel The Truth Project.

Seventeen-year-old Cordelia Koenig intended to breeze through her senior year. For her final project Cordelia planned to copy her older sister using the same trace-your-roots genealogy idea .All she needs to do is mail in her DNA sample, write about her ancestry results, and get that easy A.

But when Cordelia’s DNA results reveal that her father is not the person she grew up with, her entire world shatters. Now she isn’t sure of anything—not the mother who lied, not the man she calls Dad, or the girl staring back at her in the mirror.

If your life began with a lie, how can you ever be sure of what's true?

Pittsburgh's own Kelsey Ford, who has been instrumental in the creation of Bookish in the 'Burgh (Pittsburgh premier YA book festival), will be interviewing Dante.

Please RSVP here.

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