**both
books are standalones!**
Just
Friends
by
Elana Johnson
Genre:
YA Contemporary Romance
302
pages
Mitch
can't keep running from his girl problems.
High
school senior, Mitch Houser, is thrilled to have multiple colleges
recruiting him because of his record-breaking times on the track, but
Mitch hasn’t told anyone the real reason he’s been setting
records.
He’s
trying to outrun his girl problems.
He
really hits it hard when Holly Isaacson, the girl next door and his
best friend for a decade, becomes buddy-buddy with Jade Montgomery,
who is Mitch’s latest crush. He wants to move Jade from a girl he
invites to eat dinner with his family to a girl he takes out to
dinner—and maybe kisses afterward.
So
Mitch runs, and he runs fast. Things progress with Jade at the same
rate they fall apart with Holly. Most days, Mitch can’t change into
his running clothes fast enough. But running from his problems isn’t
a good solution, and Mitch will have to face both Jade and Holly—and
decide which one of them to put into the “just friends”
category.
**.99
cents March 7th-14th!!**
To
Be Yours
by
Elana Johnson
Genre:
YA Contemporary Romance
242
pages
A
girl who's lost herself and the boy who's always known how to find
her.
When
seventeen-year-old Eden Scotson skis to the bottom of a mountain on a
routine trip with her older brother's best friend, Grayson Young,
they find the lift non-operational and the biggest storm of the
season upon them.
Unable
to stay in the tiny hut, they decide to make the climb back to the
luxury condos at the top. Along the way, they have to battle the
danger of an avalanche, the elements of wind and snow, and their
feelings for each other. As Grayson deals privately with his mother's
alcoholism and an absent father, Eden's grief over her father's death
nine years earlier is a little more public.
Compared
to dealing with the complexities of friendship and
more-than-friendship, overcoming grief, and learning how to forgive
old wounds, physically climbing the mountain will be the easiest part
of the journey for both Eden and Grayson.
**.99
cents March 7th-14th!!**
So,
Drew, you need a ride home after school?” Omar Juavez sidled up
beside my sister as we walked down the main hall at Stony Brook High.
A smart move considering I’d warned him away from Drew at least ten
thousand times in the past month alone.
My
stupid lipglossed freshman
sister giggled
and looked at me for permission. I glared first into her hopeful
eyes, and then toward Omar’s sly smile.
“I
have track, so I need the car,” I said, gripping my cell phone too
tight. I willed it to buzz. Just once.
“So
you do
need a ride
home after school.” Omar draped his arm around Drew’s shoulders
and let his eyes linger on her chest —which was barely concealed
beneath the scrap of fabric she called a shirt.
She
beamed under the glow of his attention, making me stop dead in the
middle of the crowded hall. “Listen, Omar. You keep touching her
like that, and you won’t recognize yourself next time you look in
the mirror.”
The
smile slid off
Drew’s face,
replaced with a scowl. Omar dropped his hand from my sister’s
shoulders, a sheepish glint in his eyes. I’d seen this look plenty
of times over the years. Every time his mom came looking for him, in
fact. He always seemed to “forget” to call her and tell her where
he was. Omar did have the courtesy to look and sound apologetic when
he screwed up.
Drew
stopped next to Omar, and glared at me. “Shut up, Mitch,” she
said. “You’re not my father.”
Omar
was the kind of guy my dad wouldn’t want anywhere near Drew. Just
because Omar ate dinner with us almost every night didn’t mean he
could suddenly transition from sleeping in my bedroom to camping out
in Drew’s. He and I had been in the same classes for years, and
he’d spent so much time at my house, my mom washed his jeans and
stocked the kind of cereal he liked.
“When
it comes to my senior
friends—”
I glared at Omar. “— dating my little
sister, you
bet I am.” I stepped back into the flow of students, my sister and
my best friend following.
“I’m
not that little,” Drew complained. “And I don’t want to wait
until four-thirty to go home.”
“Fine,
whatever.” I hooked Omar with a pointed look as I stopped at my
locker in Senior Row. “But no touching.”
He
crossed his heart and slung his arm around Drew’s shoulders—
which counted as touching in my book—drawing her down the hall and
away from me.
I
watched them go, my mood darkening as he leaned in and whispered
something that caused Drew to throw her head back and laugh. Omar
twirled her ponytail around his fingers. I turned away before I
witnessed them doing something I wouldn’t be able to erase from my
mind.
I
spun the combination on my locker and opened it, thinking that
someone had to watch out for Drew. She was all flirt and no thought,
and Omar kept blankets in the trunk of his car. I’d never cared who
he slept with, but the thought of that person being my
fourteen-year-old sister filled my stomach with fire.
I
clenched my teeth and drove them from my mind. The frustration
remained as my phone stayed silent. Holly hadn’t texted.
She
wouldn’t until she could do it alone—without the inquisitive eyes
of her latest boyfriend, Greg Matthews. I had nothing against Greg.
He and I had played football for the jaguars until seventh grade. He
went on to play tight end until he made the varsity team as a
freshman, and I’d left football to the real jocks. I preferred
being able to think with my brain and switched to a sport that didn’t
require special equipment: Track.
Holly
Isaacson and I had been best friends since fifth grade, when she
moved in next door. With a newly divorced mom and a younger brother,
Holly came with a bright smile and lots of lawyer jokes. We had Mrs.
Toolsen, and she was the kind of teacher that made us hand our
spelling tests to the person behind us to get corrected. I never
crossed my t’s, so they looked like l’s—until Holly, who sat
behind me, crossed them for me. It was this unspoken thing between
us, the fact that she was saving
my
fifth grade spelling grade every week. When Mrs. Toolsen found
out—Holly didn’t have an identical blue pen to cross the t’s
with one week—she said if Holly crossed my t’s one more time,
we’d both fail.
The
very next Friday, we both failed, because Holly crossed all my t’s.
I could still remember the stubborn glint in her eyes as she stared
at Mrs. Toolsen and took her F without a word. From that Friday on,
we’d been inseparable. We ran together, we studied together, we
grew up together. I talked to her everyday— except when she was
dating someone.
I’d
texted her last night with no response. And again this morning. Still
nothing. It wasn’t like I needed
her. I didn’t have a pressing question for her to
answer. I didn’t like her for anything besides a friend. But I
didn’t know how to function without her.
She’d
know what to do about Omar and Drew, and she’d ask if I’d
finished my history essay. She’d remind me about youth group on
Wednesday, and she’d assure me I was going to win the cross-country
meet on Friday. I’d tell her about my latest crush on Jade
Montgomery, and she’d advise me how to ease into Jade’s social
calendar without being obvious. Without Holly, I felt isolated, lost.
As
much as I hated to admit it, I was lonely without Holly. I missed
hanging out at her house after track, and I missed having her and her
brother over for dinner when her mom had to work late. Holly and I
had trained for track all summer, running earlyearly in the morning
before the sun could bake the Kansas landscape into hundred-degree
temps and before I had to work at the car wash and she had to strap
on her roller skates and waitress at the drive-in. When Holly started
dating Greg in mid-July, I’d found a new running partner. I wanted
to believe that getting up at five a.m. to train with Ivy Olsen and
Lance Higbee was the same, but it wasn’t. I gathered my books for
first and second period and slammed my locker. My cell buzzed,
causing a tremor of hope to vibrate through my chest. The warning
bell rang as I checked the message.
A
speculative fiction author and USA Today bestseller under the name
Elana Johnson and an inspirational adult romance author under the pen
name of Liz Isaacson, her work includes the young adult dystopian
romance series Possession, published by Simon Pulse (Simon &
Schuster), Elevated, the Elemental series, the Songs of Life fantasy
series, the Redwood Bay romance series, and the #1 bestselling Three
Rivers Ranch Romance series.
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