Privilege [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Kate Brian (Author), Justine Eyre (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 16, 2009 | Series: Privilege

Most girls would die for a life of privilege; some would even kill for it.Ariana Osgood ruled exclusive Easton Academy-until she was arrested for murdering Thomas Pearson. She's spent the past two years at the Brenda T. Trumbull Correctional Facility for Women plotting her escape and is determined to get a second chance at the glamorous life she left behind. And Ariana will do anything to get her way.From the author of the bestselling Private novels comes a new series about the dark world of wealth, secrets, and Privilege.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kieran Scott writes under the pen name Kate Brian, whose best-known books are The Princess and the Pauper, Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys, The Virginity Club, Sweet 16, Fake Boyfriend, and the prolific Private series. Several books in the Private series have been on the New York Times children's bestseller list as well as the USA Today bestseller list. Justine Eyre is a classically trained actress who has narrated nearly one hundred audiobooks. With a prestigious Audie Award and three AudioFile Earphones Awards under her belt, Justine is multilingual and is known for her great facility with accents. She has appeared on stage in leading roles in King Lear and The Crucible, and has starring roles in four films on the indie circuit. Her recent television credits include Two and a Half Men and Mad Men.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

NEVER

"It's not fair."

It wasn't a whine or a complaint, just a statement. A statement of the obvious, as far as Ariana Osgood was concerned. As she stared out the window of the Brenda T. Trumbull Correctional Facility for Women, it was all she could think to say. Outside, the leaves on the trees swayed lazily in the warm summer breeze -- a breeze she would be allowed to feel against her skin for exactly fifty-five minutes during midday recess. Recess. That was what the warden called it. Who ever heard of a teenage girl looking forward to recess?

"It's just not fair."

Across the wide oak desk, her "therapist" smirked. Shifting in his seat, Dr. Meloni leaned back, forcing his expensive leather chair to let out the loud creak that he knew made Ariana's skin crawl. Just outside the fence that encircled the grounds, about a hundred yards from where Ariana now sat, Meloni's precious Doberman, Rambo, barked nonstop, as always. The inmates of the Brenda T. listened to that damn dog bark all day long, every day. It was as if Meloni was trying to remind them that he was always there, always watching, even when they weren't in session with him. The man also couldn't be away from the dog for more than two hours at a time. He was always going out there and feeding him treats, cooing to the animal like it was a newborn baby and the apple of its father's eye. Revolting. Someone should have been analyzing him.

"What's not fair?" he asked.

Ariana flicked a glance at Dr. Victor Meloni, sitting there in front of his elaborately framed diplomas from Johns Hopkins and Stanford. Thick, leather-bound books sat on the shelves to his right, most of which she was sure he hadn't even opened, let alone read. Her lip curled at the sight of his fake tan. His overly gelled salt-and-pepper hair. His heavily starched blue shirt. His capped teeth.

Two hundred dollars a tooth, but can't spring for a pair of shoes with leather soles. Ariana could ascertain everything she needed to know about a person through his or her footwear. In the sixteen months she had been in residence at Brenda T. Trumbull just outside Washington, D.C., she had only seen Dr. Meloni wear two different pairs of shoes. The same exact style, one pair in black, one in brown. Clearly, the man thought that everyone he met would be so dazzled by the veneer of his face, they wouldn't take the time to notice his shoes.

But Ariana did. And they screamed white-trash-turned-scholarship-student-turned-poseur. He'd probably taken this job because it meant he'd have the chance to torture the daughters of all the deep-pocketed classmates who had never accepted him into their inner sanctum. And torture them he did. He smiled when they cried. Laughed in the face of their desperation.

Smirked...all...the...time.

"It's not fair, me being here for twenty years," Ariana said slowly, stating the obvious. Stating the point she'd made four thousand times before.

"Twenty years to life," he corrected, his blue eyes taunting.

"I don't think about that," Ariana said, averting her gaze again. Outside the window, the lake glinted in the summer sun. A lone sailboat sliced across the window frame and disappeared.

"About what?" he asked. "The life part?"

He sat forward now. Interested.

"Yes," Ariana said. "It's unacceptable."

That was when Dr. Meloni laughed. Not just his usual amused chuckle, but a big, hearty, guttural laugh. Ariana tried not to cringe. She reached up and casually ran both hands through her soft, chin-length blond hair, securing it to the nape of her neck with an alligator barrette. She waited patiently for him to stop, curling her toes inside her state-issue white sneakers. It used to be that she would grab her own arm when she was tense, letting her fingernails cut into the flesh. Then one day last year Dr. Meloni had noticed this habit and pointed it out to her like he was oh so insightful. She hadn't done it in his presence since.

"Unacceptable," he repeated.

She looked him in the eye, her gaze unwavering. "Yes."

"You do realize you killed someone," Dr. Meloni said, in the tone adults use when scolding naughty children.

Ariana blinked, just barely betraying her internal flinch.

Thomas's blood. Thomas's blood. Thomas's blood. Just like that, she saw it on her hands. Under her fingernails. In her hair. She had made them chop it all off when she was waiting for trial and hadn't let it grow past her chin since. All that blood...

No. She mentally wiped it away. Gone. Back to the present. She focused in on Meloni's quote-of-the-day calendar. Today, for the twenty-ninth of June, was a Molière quote: "The greater the obstacle, the more the glory in overcoming it." Not a bad point.

"Yes. I do realize I killed someone," Ariana said, in a tone she reserved for idiots.

What no one here seemed to understand, or cared to hear, was that she hadn't meant to do it. Thomas Pearson had been the love of her life. He had been the only real thing she had ever possessed. It wasn't her fault that Reed Brennan had swooped in out of nowhere and stolen him away. It wasn't her fault that her best friend, Noelle Lange, had come up with the idea to kidnap him and tie him up in the woods to teach him a lesson after he'd humiliated Reed. And it definitely wasn't her fault that when she had gone back to show him how much she loved him, to show him mercy and untie him and set him free, he had chosen to mock her instead of thank her. Had chosen to tear her down and act like her devotion to him was worth no more than the mud under his feet. Had chosen to push her and push her and push her until she snapped.

If only he'd stopped when she'd asked him to.

"So you took the life of one of your schoolmates, one of your friends, and yet you don't think you deserve to be locked up for life," Dr. Meloni said.

"It was one mistake," Ariana replied.

One of three, but no one other than Ariana herself knew that.

"A mistake," he challenged, ducking his chin.

God, she was sick of this. Sick of him. Sick of his tiny little pea-brained, one-sided take on her and every other woman in this hellhole.

"You see everything in black and white, don't you?" Ariana snapped, her blood rising.

"And what you did was somehow gray?" he retorted.

"I'm not in denial. I know what I did and I'm sorry for it," Ariana said, her words clipped. "But this isn't how it's supposed to be...."

She was supposed to go to Princeton. Supposed to take the train up to Yale to visit Noelle on weekends, or into the city to club hop with Kiran and Taylor. Supposed to join a secret society. Supposed to hobnob with literary geniuses. Supposed to graduate magna cum laude and snag the job as features editor at Vanity Fair. Supposed to live in a loft in Chelsea and meet some gorgeous artsy man who would sweep her off her feet and take her to exotic places like Thailand and India and Sri Lanka. Supposed to be proposed to on a mountaintop as the sun set in the distance. Supposed to have babies and take them home to Georgia to visit her family's estate and sit out on the porch and sip lemonade and watch them play tag under the same peach tree she used to climb when she was little.

This was her life. Her life the way it was supposed to be. It couldn't be over. The very thought made her heart constrict to the point where she actually thought she might stop breathing. Actually thought she might die over the futility of it all.

These were her dreams. Her mother's dreams. They couldn't be over. Not because of --

"One mistake," she said again.

Dr. Meloni stared at her. She was gripping the arms of her metal chair now, her heart pounding. As he stared, Ariana realized that she had just shown emotion for the first time in a year and a half of these daily sessions. She had let the pressure get to her. And Meloni was now smiling.

"One mistake that ended someone else's life," he said.

I know. I know this. I see him every night. Every night as I start to fall asleep. Every night I jolt awake in an ice-cold sweat. I haven't really slept in almost two years, thinking about how he made me kill him. How he didn't give me a choice. Isn't that torture enough?

"I just want this to be over," Ariana mumbled. She straightened her posture and stated it more firmly. "I just want this whole thing to be over."

Dr. Meloni leaned back in his chair again, the creak setting Ariana's arm hair on end, and let out an amused yet frustrated-sounding groan. He looked up at the wood beams that crisscrossed the ceiling and shook his head.

"It's always the same with you girls," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ariana snapped.

She didn't appreciate being likened to anyone else in this loony bin.

He glanced at her, then slowly stood up and slipped his hands into the pockets of his white coat. Watching her the whole time, he walked around his desk -- the ancient wooden floor squeaking and cracking under his feet, and stood directly in front of her. For a long moment he stared down at her, his expression unreadable. Ariana stared back and felt an unexpected jolt of hope.

Oh, just try something, please. Touch me inappropriately. Try to hurt me. Whatever you're thinking, do it so that I can get your pathetic, low-rent ass fired.

Dr. Meloni leaned down and braced his hands on the arms of her chair. He brought his face within inches of hers. His breath smelled like soy sauce. Ariana wanted to recoil, but she forced herself to stay completely still.

"I have been working with psychopaths like you for the past twenty-five years," he said quietly. Up close, she could practically see her image reflected in those teeth. "You are not capable of change. If you were ever to be released from this facility, I am categorically certain that you would kill again. So no, Miss Osgood, you are never getting out of here. Not today, not tomorrow, not five years from now. Or ten. Or twenty. Not as long as I'm the ... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Audio CD
• Publisher: Tantor Media; Unabridged,MP3 - Unabridged CD edition (July 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400162424
• ISBN-13: 978-1400162420
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,311,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a total Jersey girl. I grew up in Bergen County, went to Rutgers University, lived in Hoboken for a year (requisite post-college party time) and then moved back to Bergen, got married, and bought a house ten minutes from where I grew up. I graduated from Rutgers with a double major in English and Journalism, worked as an Editor for four years, then decided I liked writing better and struck out on my own. You've been reading my books ever since!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Scary Private spinoff, January 8, 2009

By 

The Book Muncher (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Privilege (Paperback)

(What's this?)

It's not fair. Ever since Ariana Osgood was arrested for the murder of Thomas Pearson, her life has been nothing compared to the luxury of how it used to be. So what if the Brenda T. Trumball Correctional Facility for Women is one of the nicer places she could've been sent? Who cares if she's still allowed to wear her precious fleur-de-lis necklace because of her father's bribery? That doesn't change the fact that Ariana is still locked up for at least twenty years. But Ariana knows she can't stay at the Brenda T. much longer; she can't stand knowing that her future has been lost. And so she waits and cleverly plots her escape, because Ariana is willing to do anything to get a second chance at a life of privilege.

As a fan of Kate Brian's Private series, I knew I had to check out its new spinoff series, Privilege. What I got was unexpected, to say the least. Privilege details the life of Ariana--once she's too far gone down sociopath lane. And I don't hesitate to use such a cruel word, because that is what Ariana has become. I could hardly feel as much sympathy for Ariana's plight, as I did in the Private prequel Last Christmas, because the way she has become was so scary. But despite the psychotic characters, I found the plot to be cleverly executed with many twists and turns. Privilege isn't a bad book overall; in fact, it's a rather solid start to Private's spinoff series. However, I would say that Privilege is as good as Private either.

Devotees to the Private series will probably want to check out this mere dangerous spinoff, as will fans of other guilty pleasure series. I recommend reading the first four installments in the Private series and Last Christmas, in that order, before reading Privilege, to better understand its background.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much better than her last novel, January 8, 2009

By 

A. John "military mom" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Privilege (Paperback)

(What's this?)

Having read Last Christmas I was a little hesitant to read this one but decided to see if it was any better and I was glad that I did read it. It was so much better maybe because I understood Ariana a little much better. Last Christmas gave me an insight into who Ariana was so I was better prepared with this one.

With Privilege we meet Ariana in prison doing 20 to life for having murdered the love of her life. She's still in a cushy institution but planning her escape. Ariana is still the same person she was in Last Christmas. Still thinking about her designer name products and willing to kill if she has to. We also meet Kaitlyn and Briana Leigh who we love to hate until the end.

It's a real page turner and I couldn't believe that I read it in 2 days unlike Last Christmas which I constantly put down. I would recommend getting Last Christmas or even reading a few of the Private Series before picking up this one in order to better understand this new series since they are all linked.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Teenage Murderers Out for Blood (and Money), September 23, 2009

By 

Sistahs on the Shelf "The Home for Readers of... (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Privilege (Paperback)

(What's this?)

Being a teen isn't easy. Imagine how much harder it would be if you were a spoiled teen accustomed to the freedom of wealth, and now you're locked up for murder. That's the situation Arianna is facing in PRIVILEGE, the first in the series of the same name.

Well aware of the horrible crimes she's committed, Arianna is serving her crime in the Trumbull Correctional Facility for Women while secretly planning her way out. She's made one friend, Kaitlynn, who has made the time bearable, but Arianna still misses her previous life of means - and will do anything to have it back. The novel follows her getaway, and her plan to seek revenge on those who made her life miserable.

I won't rehash more details, but Privilege is a tolerable novel. I was intrigued by Arianna's escape and the surprising twist at the very end. Yet the time it took to get there was too drawn out because I could stand the attitudes of these girls. I think young women will like the warped girl-power theme, but the violence and murder is altogether something different.