Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

Book excerpt: A summer romance headed for heartbreak turns into a mother-daughter road trip in the name of true love in this story of love, loss, and redemption from Printz Honor medal winner and National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti. It is summer in the northwest town of Nine Mile Falls, and Ruby McQueen—ordinarily dubbed The Quiet Girl—finds herself hanging out with gorgeous, rich, thrill-seeking Travis Becker. With Travis, Ruby can be someone she’s never been before: Fearless. Powerful. But Ruby is in over her head, risking more and more when she’s with him. In an effort to keep Ruby occupied and mend her own broken heart, her mother, Ann, drags Ruby to the weekly book club she runs for seniors. At first, Ruby can’t imagine a more boring way to spend an afternoon, but she is soon charmed by the women she’s spending time with. And when the group discovers one of their own members is the subject of the tragic love story they are reading, Ann and Ruby ditch their respective obsessions to spearhead a reunion between the long-ago lovers. They’re in search of a happy ending…but for who? This lyrical, multigenerational story of love, loss, and redemption speaks to everyone who has ever been in love—and lived to tell the tale.