Happy Thanksgiving! This month Sweetheart Robin Constantine is offering up a veritable feast of a prize: a signed copy of her New Jersey romance, THE PROMISE OF AMAZING, along with a winter reading survival kit filled with some of her favorite comfort items!
Robin’s novel happens to have an awkward Thanksgiving scene … check it out:
* * *
The Camelot Thanksgiving buffet ran smoothly. I kept looking for warning signs of Brooke’s ominous words that it was a sinking ship. All I saw was the Caswell clan working together — well, I was working; Brooke spent a lot of time reconnecting with Eben while Josh, still green from his Thanksgiving Eve bender with his home-from-college buds, tried his best not to puke in the mashed potatoes. Everyone, even my dad, who rolled up his Brooks Brothers sleeves to help plate the sides for the buffet table, was happy, buzzing , joking. No doom and gloom. Nothing out of place to make me think we were in any sort of trouble. Brooke had to be wrong.
Being busy made the afternoon go quickly, and soon enough, the five of us were alone and gathered around a table in the empty banquet hall, a little tired but full of the meal Chef Hank had prepared for us.
My mother raised her glass of sauv blanc. “You don’t know how happy it makes me to see you all together.”
“Aw, shucks, Mom, any time you want me to quit school and be your permanent child, say the word, I’m all over it,” Josh said, grinning.
“Please no, I’m finally getting some much needed peace,” my father kidded.
“What, Wrennie doesn’t throw any wild parties?”
“Hey, look what the wind blew in,” my mother said, raising her glass toward the door.
I turned to see a rather disheveled Pete, as if he’d literally been windblown, walking toward our table. Brooke got up and threw her arms around him. My stomach lurched.
Pete shrugged off his coat and hooked it over a chair at the adjacent table. “Hey, Wren,” he said, smoothing down his hair and taking the seat across from me.
With his dark, unruly curls and green eyes, Pete was exceptionally handsome, but he was so goofy once you got to know him that his good looks became less intimidating. I wondered if he knew that I knew he’d knocked up my sister. One thing was for sure: Between Brooke and Pete, this kid was going to be drop-dead gorgeous.
“How was your Thanksgiving? Your parents must have been thrilled you made it home,” my mother said, beaming.
Pete chuckled, but it was guarded. He folded his hands and glanced at Brooke. And then the world moved frame by frame.
I could feel the tremor of what was about to happen but was powerless to act on it. Please, please, Brooke, not now.
A waiter came by and dropped off a carafe of coffee for my father. Mom sat in suspended animation, waiting to hear about Pete’s Thanksgiving. Josh had nodded off, a shock of dirty blond hair partially hiding his eyes. I pinched his leg and he jerked awake.
“What?”
“We’re pregnant!” Brooke blurted out, grabbing Pete’s hand.
* * *
See? Awkward. We’ve all been there. (Well, maybe not quite there!) You know you want to read more, so here’s your chance. Entering is easy! Simply do the following:
- Leave a comment sharing one thing you are thankful for.
- Tweet a link to this post; be sure to use the the #SweetheartsofYA hashtag.
Contest ends at noon on November 29; we’ll choose a random entry (U.S. only) and announce the winner on November 30.
Good luck! xoxoxo
Please share this post (thanks ... mmmwah!):
We were so excited to welcome Melanie Hooyenga this month to the Sweethearts of YA site, and we are even more excited for the March 9 release of THE TRAIL RULES, the second book in her RULES series.
For our October giveaway, we continue to celebrate the paperback release of guest author Jay Asher’s WHAT LIGHT!
All this talk of the sun and moon this week has the Sweethearts feeling swoony and starry-eyed, so for our August contest, we are giving away a copy of