It's Finally Here!!!!

It has been so exciting to have my second book, THE LIFE OF GLASS, make its way into the world this week! And a huge thank you to my fellow Novel Girls for all their kind words and support.

The reason I picked the topic of love stories for the week is because the idea of love stories plays a big role in THE LIFE OF GLASS. The book takes place about a year and a half after 14-year-old Melissa loses her father to cancer. As she begins her freshman year of high school, all she has left of him is his journal of strange facts and interesting stories, a journal he’d been keeping as notes for a book before he died. As the book begins, Melissa’s mother decides it’s time to start dating again. And that’s when Melissa decides to start keeping her own journal, a journal of love stories, specifically, the love stories that make up her family history. She begins just as her mother goes on her first date, with the idea that, if she doesn’t write it down, her mother and father’s love story might disappear forever. Then there is also her grandparent’s love story, which seems especially important to record as her grandmother’s memory is slowly fading away due to Altzheimer’s.

Through the course of the book, Melissa questions the idea of love and what it means to love. Is her beautiful pageant-obsessed older sister, Ashley, really in love with the captain of the baseball team? Could her mother really be in love with this new guy, whom Melissa nicknames “the cowboy” because he lives on a ranch and rides horses? Could her best friend, Ryan, really be in love with Courtney, the deceptively beautiful new girl? And then there’s Melissa herself, who suddenly finds herself the object of Max Healy’s attention – one of the cutest and most popular guys at school. But is what she’s feeling for him really love?

Here’s a little excerpt from the book where Max notices Melissa for the first time:

Staring right at me, his big brown eyes all sparkly and sweet-looking, was Max Healy. “Hey there, Ashley’s sister.” He smiled. He had this sort of cocky smile that seemed to say he knew just how gorgeous and nice and funny he was, and if you couldn’t recognize it , well then, too bad. . .

“I have a name,” I said, surprised by the no-nonsense sound of my voice, because I hadn’t thought the words through before they popped out of my mouth.

“A secret name?”

I felt my neck getting hot, and I knew it would only be a matter of seconds before the flush spread across my face and I was completely bright red. “Melissa,” I finally mumbled, and then looked back into the locker as if I were searching for something very urgent, which, unless you were counting piles of old gum wrappers and balled up math homework, I wasn’t.

When I looked up again, he was gone.

If you want to know what happens in their love story, you’ll have to read the book! To read a longer excerpt from the book, you can click on over to the Harperteen site here.

I’m also giving away one signed copy of the THE LIFE OF GLASS, chosen at random, from everyone who leaves a comment all week long. So leave us a comment if you want to enter to win!