About the Author

Sarah Dessen is one of America's most successful writers of teenage fiction. Her books have won various awards, and her latest novel, Lock and Key, reached number 1 in The New York Times bestseller list. Sarah lives in the countryside in North Carolina with her husband, daughter, some lizards and two very spoilt dogs. Sarah's following in the UK is growing all the time and this novel follows the success of the acclaimed Just Listen, The Truth About Forever, Lock and Key and That Summer.

Reviews

"Beautifully captures that sense of summer as a golden threshold between past regrets and future unknowns." -"The Washington Post"

Studious good girl Auden, named for the poet, makes a snap decision to spend her summer before college at her father's beach house rather than with her mother, a professor whose bad habits include male grad students. Auden's parents divorced three years earlier, a split she's not yet over. Her remarried father has already produced another heir, a colicky baby named Thisbe (after a tragic figure from Shakespeare), with his young wife, Heidi, who owns a boutique. Feeling sympathy for stressed-out Heidi, Auden agrees to do the shop's bookkeeping, providing her with an instant social circle-the teenage clerks plus the boys from the neighboring bike rental, including hunky, wounded Eli. Both night owls, Auden and Eli bond when he coaxes her to experience childhood activities-bowling, food fights, learning to ride a bike-that her insufferable parents never bothered to provide. Auden's thoughtful observations make for enjoyable reading-this is solid if not "top shelf" Dessen: another summer of transformation in which the heroine learns that growing up means "propelling yourself forward, into whatever lies ahead, one turn of the wheel at a time." Ages 12-up. (June) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

The YA author's ninth book, following Lock and Key (2008); Rachel Botchan reads. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

"Beautifully captures that sense of summer as a golden threshold between past regrets and future unknowns." -"The Washington Post"