Towering

down.
    Then, one day, my husband was watching the History channel, and instead of wars, they started talking about Greek mythology, specifically, the story of Danaë, mother of Perseus. Like Rapunzel, Danaë was kept in a tower. But there, it was because of a prophecy that she would bear a son who would kill her father. She had to be stopped from bearing that fateful child. However, as anyone who has read mythology knows, you can’t stop a prophecy, so Zeus came to her in a shower of gold and impregnated her. (My husband says that ancient Greek girls who got pregnant must have told their parents, “Really, Dad, it wasn’t Konstantine! Zeus came to me in a shower of gold!”) I had read this story in high school, but now, it seemed like the History channel was talking to me. Several months later, I was driving to New York City with my kids to see the musical Shrek (another princess in a tower story), and my daughter, Katherine, was reading her required summer reading book aloud. It was Edith Hamilton’s mythology, and it was the story of Perseus and Danaë. I knew I was meant to write this book. This does show how long these stories have been with us—Danaë was likely the original Rapunzel. Or, perhaps, there was a Rapunzel even before that.
    For more information on fairy tales, visit www.surlalunefairytales.com. It has all the classic stories and even merchandise.

Acknowledgments
    Thanks to my editor, Antonia Markiet, also, Rachel Abrams, Phoebe Yeh, and my agent, George Nicholson.
    Thanks to Debbie Fischer and Joyce Sweeney, for reading an earlier version of this and telling me it wasn’t that bad (even though it was).
    Special thanks to Heather Rivera, for allowing me to do belay training with the moms in her Girl Scout troop and writer, Elisa Carbone, for giving me rock climbing advice, so that snobby rock climbers like her (her words) wouldn’t talk trash about my book.

Also by Alex Flinn
    BEASTLY
    A KISS IN TIME
    CLOAKED
    BEWITCHING
    BREATHING UNDERWATER
    DIVA
    FADE TO BLACK
    NOTHING TO LOSE
    BREAKING POINT

Credits
    Cover art © 2013 by Howard Huang and Adam Brown
    Cover design by Sasha Illingworth

Copyright
    HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
    T OWERING . Copyright © 2013 by Alex Flinn. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
    www.epicreads.com
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    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Flinn, Alex.
    Towering / Alex Flinn. — First edition.
    pages       cm
    Summary: “A contemporary retelling of Rapunzel told from the alternating perspectives of three teens whose fates unknowingly bind them together to destroy a greater evil”— Provided by publisher.
    ISBN 978-0-06-202417-6 (hardback)
    ISBN 978-0-06-202418-3 (lib. bdg.)
    ISBN 978-0-06-227632-2 (international ed.)
    EPub Edition April 2013 ISBN 9780062209214
    [1. Fairy tales. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Blessing and cursing—Fiction. 4. Missing persons—Fiction. 5. Drug abuse—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ8.F5778Tow 2013
2012051742
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
 
AC
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    13 14 15 16 17    LP/RRDH    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    FIRST EDITION

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