First Loves: A Collection of Three YA Novels
Jolene Perry
Jolene Perry
THREE NOVELS and THREE SHORT STORIES IN ONE - Knee Deep, Night Sky, and Spill Over PLUS three new short stories--one that follows each novelKnee Deep - Shawn is the guy Ronnie Bird promised her life to at the age of fourteen. He's her soul mate. He's more uptight every day, but it's not his fault. His family life is stressful, and she's adding to it. She just needs to be more understanding, and he'll start to be the boy she fell in love with. She won’t give up on someone she’s loved for so long.Luke is her best friend, and the guy she hangs with to watch girlie movies in her large blanketopias. He's the guy she can confide in before she even goes to her girlfriends, and the guy who she's playing opposite in Romeo and Juliet. Now her chest flutters every time he gets too close. This is new. Is Ronnie falling for him? Or is Juliet? The lines are getting blurry, but leaving one guy for another is not something that a girl like Ronnie does.Shawn’s outbursts are starting to give her bruises, and Luke’s heart breaks as Ronnie remains torn. While her thoughts and feelings swirl around the lines between friendship and forever, she’s about to lose them both.SUNK - a new short story - picks up just after Knee Deep leaves off...NIGHT SKY -After losing Sarah, the friend he’s loved, to some other guy, Jameson meets Sky. Her Native American roots, fluid movements, and need for brutal honesty become addictive fast. This is good. Jameson needs distraction – his dad leaves for another woman, his mom’s walking around like a zombie, and Sarah’s new boyfriend can’t keep his hands off of her.As he spends time with Sky and learns about her village, her totems, and her friends with drums – she’s way more than distraction. Jameson’s falling for her fast.But Sky’s need for honesty somehow doesn’t extend to her life story – and Jameson just may need more than his new girl to keep him distracted from the disaster of his senior year.SKY LINE - a new short story that takes place three years after the end of NIGHT SKY.SPILL OVER -When an assignment overseas gives Antony's Mom the opportunity of a lifetime, she sees it as a chance for Antony to get to know his dad - a guy strange enough to live on a boat. Near dreary Seattle. Antony’s sure that the next few months will feel like a lifetime. He and his dad can’t even fill up a five minute conversation on his birthday call.Then he meets Amber, the girl from five boats down, and his prospects perk up. But when it becomes very clear, very fast, that all she’s after is friendship, Antony wonders if he’ll survive the next three months.He is absolutely. Completely. Totally. Displaced.And then tragedy hits.Spill Over is a novel about love, loss, and figuring out what’s actually important.YOU FIRST - A new short story from Amber's POV
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Summer I Found You
Jolene Perry
Jolene Perry
Kate's dream boyfriend has just broken up with her and she's still reeling from her diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Aidan planned on being a lifer in the army and went to Afghanistan straight out of high school. Now he's a disabled young veteran struggling to embrace his new life.When Kate and Aidan find each other neither one wants to get attached. But could they be right for each other after all?
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Falling
Jolene Perry
Jolene Perry
Dana is definitely not the kind of girl to be living in the dump of a wilderness lodge she finds herself waitressing in. But when Craig, the sexy cop who’s handling the murder case where she’s a witness, suggests it—it seems like a good idea. Now she’s got no BMW, no shopping and an assortment of hairy Alaskan men who definitely belong in a run-down old lodge. Her exciting visits from Craig are getting less exciting, and the lodge owner, Jason, is quickly moving from grouchy and judgmental, to funny, smart and unexpectedly complex.Jason knows exactly the type of girl Dana is—beautiful, spoiled, and high maintenance. She’s everything that hurt him in the past, and why he now lives as far away from city life as he can manage. If he wasn’t so hard-up for help, he would have never said yes to his friend, Craig. Despite his reservations, Dana becomes the perfect antidote to everything in his life—both his disaster of a divorce and precocious little sister who shows up on his doorstep. Jason realizes he’s falling for Dana too late to stop it, or even slow it down.As the trial approaches, Dana knows it’s time to move on with her life—but is her life back in the city she left or with a guy she never meant to fall for?
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All the Forever Things
Jolene Perry
Jolene Perry
From growing up in the funeral home her family runs, Gabriella knows that death is a part of life and nothing is forever. Yet Bree, her best friend, has been a constant; it's always been the two of them together against the world. But when Bree starts dating a guy—the worst guy— from that ultra-popular world, suddenly she doesn't have time for Gabe anymore. Now the only one at school who wants to spend time with "Graveyard Gabe" is Hartman, the new guy, but Gabe, not wanting to lose her mind over a boyfriend the way Bree has, holds back. It takes a very strange prom night (with the family hearse instead of a limo) for Gabe to truly fall for Hartman. But when she leaves the after-prom party with him, she's not there for Bree—or for the deadly accident that happens that night. Bree survives, but will she and Gabe ever be able to rebuild their friendship?
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Has to Be Love
Jolene Perry
Jolene Perry
Years ago, Clara survived a vicious bear attack. She's used to getting sympathetic looks around town, but meeting strangers is a different story. Yet her dreams go far beyond Knik, Alaska, and now she's got a secret that's both thrilling and terrifying—an acceptance letter from Columbia University. But it turns out her scars aren't as fixable as she hoped, and when her boyfriend begins to press for a forever commitment, she has second thoughts about New York. Then Rhodes, a student teacher in her English class, forces her to acknowledge her writing talent, and everything becomes even more confusing—especially with the feelings she's starting to have about him. Now all Clara wants to do is hide from the tough choices she has to make. When her world comes crashing down around her, Clara has to confront her problems and find her way to a decision. Will she choose the life of her dreams or the life that someone she loves has chosen? Which choice is scarier?
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Stronger than You Know
Jolene Perry
Jolene Perry
After police intervention, fifteen-year-old Joy has finally escaped the trailer where she once lived with her mother and survived years of confinement and abuse. Now living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in a comfortable house, she's sure she'll never belong. Wracked by panic attacks, afraid to talk to anyone at her new school, Joy's got a whole list of reasons why she's crazy. With immense courage, Joy finds friends and grows closer to her new family. But just when hope is taking hold, she learns she must testify in her mother's trial. Can she face her old life without losing her way in the new one? Will she ever truly belong in a world that seems too normal to be real?
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Night Sky
Jolene Perry
Jolene Perry
After losing Sarah, the friend he’s loved, to some other guy, Jameson meets Sky. Her Native American roots, fluid movements, and need for brutal honesty become addictive fast. This is good. Jameson needs distraction – his dad leaves for another woman, his mom’s walking around like a zombie, and Sarah’s new boyfriend can’t keep his hands off of her.
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