Bolt Risk, a first novel by Ann Wood, was released in 2005 by Leapfrog Press. The short novel tells the tale of a 'good' girl, sick of the pretense of her exclusive New England College, who becomes an assistant to a B-list Hollywood actress. Fleeing the boredom of the tinsel town fringe, she lands a job as a stripper and begins a harrowing journey through the underworld of Los Angeles dive bars, phone sex factories, groupies and drug motels.

Publishers Weekly writes that "Wood's debut features plenty of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll...Welcomed as voyeurs, readers are given an insider's look into the subculture created by the smart and talented who arrive in L.A. with big dreams and wind up with big addictions. speaks to aliened teenagers, world-weary hipsters and cynical survivors of all types. Like Go Ask Alice, this tell-all tells much about what it takes to survive."

The Washington Post called the book, "As bracing as a shot of rotgut whiskey, the brutal, unflinching prose is a tonic for the chick-lit weary."

The author Ann Wood, born in 1970 in Pittsfield, Mass. and raised in Springfield Mass., is a former staff arts and entertainment reporter for the Provincetown Banner and other local and alternative papers. She has won several New England Press Association awards for writing and photography, and lives in Provincetown, Mass. with her son Samuel. She also authored the Bolt Risk screenplay, which is being produced by Michael Mailer Films, and is at work on a second novel as well as a stage play.