The Serpent King meets Girl in Pieces in this moving and darkly funny story about a teenage girl coming of age and learning how to grieve in small-town Montana. Tiffany Templeton is tough. She dresses exclusively in black, buys leather jackets that are several sizes too big, and never backs down from a fight. She's known in her tiny Montana town as Tough Tiff, and after her shoplifting arrest and a stint in a reform school, the nickname is here to stay. But when she comes back home, Tiffany may not be the same old Tough Tiff that everybody remembers. Her life is different now: her mother keeps her on an even shorter leash than before, she meets with a probation officer once a month, and she's still grieving her father's recent death. As Tiffany navigates her new life and learns who she wants to be, she must also contend with an overbearing best friend, the geriatric cast of a high-maintenance drama production, her first boyfriend, and a town full of eccentric neighbors--not to mention a dark secret she's been keeping about why the ex-football coach left town. "Fifield succeeds in delivering a cast of quirky, unpredictable characters and an intriguing plot."  — Kirkus "Fifield is a promising new voice in YA."  — Booklist “Tiffany Templeton may be tough, but her story is equal parts humor and heart.” —Preston Norton, author of Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe   “From the very first page, I wanted to be friends with Tiffany Templeton: she’s wry, she’s funny—but what surprised me most is her enormous heart. Richard Fifield has given us a fresh take on a classic story of coming of age, one that's filled with humor, compassion, and a few small crimes.” —Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding and Honestly, We Meant Well   “In this small Montana town with more big problems, secrets, and personalities than Times Square, Tiffany Templeton is the biggest personality of all. Along with a gift for comedy and creating lovable eccentrics, Fifield gives his story real depth and an immense amount of heart. It would be a small crime to miss out on this joyously compassionate novel.” —Stephen McCauley, author of My Ex-Life “Filled with insight and complex, heartfelt characters, The Small Crimes of Tiffany Templeton is a jewel among novels, both darkly humorous and deeply revealing. Richard Fifield’s gift for crawling inside his characters’ adolescent skins is unsurpassed. A book that will resonate with both adults and those still in the throes of youthful discovery.”  — Susan Crandall, author of Whistling Past the Graveyard Richard Fifield was born and raised in Montana. A graduate of both the University of Montana and Sarah Lawrence College, he currently resides in Missoula, where he volunteers as a creative writing teacher and works with adults with intellectual disabilities. His first novel, The Flood Girls , was published in 2016, and he is the editor of the anthology We Leave The Flowers Where They Are . He is currently at work on his third novel. Follow him on Twitter @richard_fifield and on Instagram @mrsjakeryan. The court-appointed advocate dropped me off at two o’clock in the morning. She didn’t even bring me all the way to my house, just left me on the side of the highway. I guess she wasn’t worried about my safety, lugging a suitcase without wheels all the way around the loop in the middle of the night. I was the only girl from Dogwood that didn’t want to be paroled, but the other girls didn’t have to return to Gabardine. I dragged the suitcase across the frozen ruts in the road, the ice sparkling under a thin winter moon, the only light in the entire trailer court. The front door was unlocked, but nobody locked their doors in my hometown.   It was only appropriate that my first day back at high school fell on the first day after spring break. I guess my classmates looked well rested. I had slept for less than four hours, and I’m sure it showed.   David could smell my vulnerability. Before the bell even rang in homeroom, he had managed to set a trap for me, just to watch it spring shut. Eighty-three days, but it was like I never left. I thought he would acknowledge my return, but he looked away and moved his desk closer to the radiator, cold as always. He barely fit in his desk. David was nearly six foot three, the kind of guy who was born with muscles, even though I know the only exercise he got was from arts and crafts. Blond, gorgeous, and, this morning, full of evil.   David was my best friend.   That morning, he ignored me, so I knew a plot was in motion. I expected something spectacular, but he just sent over a cheerleader to say something mean. He’d appointed himself in charge of the cheerleaders ages ago, and they all did his bidding. Kaitlynn, Caitlyn, Victoria, and Becky may have been varsity, but they were totally JV when it came to everything else. David fed them the insults, just like he monitored the rest of their diets. Their