Books

  

MEANT TO BE BROKEN, a Carolina Clay Novel

Small town Southern life has always felt…well, fake to seventeen-year-old Rayne Davidson. She loathes always having to do what’s expected while other people trade out faces like underwear. When the town’s favorite all-star QB Preston Howard wants to date her, Rayne is initially swept away by the idea of being with THE hot guy, even if she’s skeptical of his motives. But once they’re together, she secretly struggles to feel a spark. Until she does—with Preston’s black-sheep brother, Gage, who literally has an invitation to break the rules inked on his body.

Both competitive to a fault, Rayne and Gage challenge each other, but the biggest challenge of all is concealing the feelings developing between them, because as it turns out, there are rules that shouldn’t be broken, like cheating on your boyfriend or causing rifts between brothers. When their secret infatuation is exposed on the school’s jumbotron at the biggest football game of the year, Preston dumps Rayne into Gage’s eager arms, and she realizes the truth really does set you free. Or does it?

When her anxiety-riddled Mama confesses to a decades-long tangle of lies and cover-ups between the two families, Gage questions his identity and runs, Preston steps up and Rayne once again folds under pressure, choosing to protect everyone around her instead of following her heart. That is, until Gage returns. Now she must decide whether to continue with the lies to save the family’s reputation in town or admit the truth and risk losing the only one she truly loves.

AS MUCH AS I EVER COULD

Seventeen-year-old CJ Ainsworth doesn’t drive—not because she can’t, but because she won’t. For the last eight months, she’s lived with the guilt of being the sole survivor of the head-on collision that claimed her mother’s and sister’s lives. It’s the reason she refuses to get behind the wheel. It’s the reason her father has nearly abandoned her. It’s the reason she’s sent to piddle the summer away at her estranged Memaw’s house. All CJ wants to do is isolate herself and make it through to the trial at summer’s end, where she’ll testify against the stranger who couldn’t keep his car in its own lane.

CJ doesn’t expect to fall for a boy, especially not Jett Ramsey, local in Memaw’s beach town and a hotshot racing champion destined for greatness on the NASCAR circuit. At first resistant to his natural charisma, CJ’s resolve crumbles when she loses a bet that puts her squarely in Jett’s driver’s seat. While he patiently reintroduces her to driving, they confide in each other, and CJ learns she’s not the only one silently suffering through a loss.

But as their connection deepens, Jett’s focus on the track is called into question. When a horrific crash lands him in the hospital, CJ flashes back to her own accident, her feelings of culpability more intense than ever. As headstrong Jett begins plotting his next career moves from his hospital bed, CJ panics and retreats home to her father, who encourages her to face the truth of what really happened the night her mother and sister died. Only then does CJ realize that if she can’t overcome her crippling guilt by making amends with the past, her fear of losing Jett could become a reality.

AS MUCH AS I EVER COULD, a YA contemporary romance (85,000 words) that explores love, loss and learning to live again in a coastal South Carolina town, will appeal to readers of Morgan Matson’s Second Chance Summer, Emery Lord’s The Start of Me and You, and Jennifer Castle’s The Beginning of After.