Sunkissed, Kasie West [best authors to read TXT] 📗
- Author: Kasie West
Book online «Sunkissed, Kasie West [best authors to read TXT] 📗». Author Kasie West
ALSO BY KASIE WEST
The Distance Between Us
Pivot Point
Split Second
On the Fence
The Fill-In Boyfriend
P.S. I Like You
By Your Side
Love, Life, and the List
Lucky in Love
Listen to Your Heart
Fame, Fate, and the First Kiss
Maybe This Time
Moment of Truth
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2021 by Kasie West
Cover art copyright © 2021 by Ana Hard
Cover lettering copyright © 2021 by Jill De Haan
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
GetUnderlined.com
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: West, Kasie, author.
Title: Sunkissed / Kasie West.
Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2021] | Audience: Ages 12 and up. | Summary: Betrayed by her best friend and dragged off to a remote family camp, seventeen-year-old Avery’s dreams of a perfect summer seem over until a whirlwind romance leads to an unexpected journey of self-discovery.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020031481 (print) | LCCN 2020031482 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-593-17626-9 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-593-17627-6 (library binding) | ISBN 978-0-593-17628-3 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Family life—Fiction. | Camps—Fiction. | Love—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.W51837 Sun 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.W51837 (ebook) | DDC [Fic] —dc23
Ebook ISBN 9780593176283
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader.
ep_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0
Contents
Cover
Also by Kasie West
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To my big sister, Heather Garza. I’ve always looked up to you (even though you’re the shortest in the family). Love you!
I took a breath and closed my eyes, letting the sun-drenched glass warm me as I leaned my head against the car window. This was going to be a perfect summer. If I said it enough times, it would come true. After everything that had happened this week, I needed a good summer. The one before my senior year was mine to claim, Dad had said months ago. I was ready to claim it.
Up front, my parents had turned the radio to barely audible but I could just make out a Taylor Swift song. My AirPods had lost their charge ten minutes ago, rendering the remainder of my perfectly curated road trip playlist—Stuck in the Backseat with You—useless. As I felt myself drifting toward sleep, my sister’s voice rang out louder than necessary from beside me.
“Hey, viewers. Happy summer! We’re on hour four of our car ride and so ready to be done. Say hi to my older sister, Avery!”
Lauren had her elbows propped on the pillows between us and was holding up her phone, the camera facing me. Behind her phone, she gave a silent plea that said, Give me something, anything, aside from your normal boring face. Since boring was the face I was born with, I held up a peace sign, which apparently was good enough, because she flipped the recording back to her. “This year, the parents are taking us to the middle of the forest. Are you ready to join us?” She pointed the camera out the car window, the tall pine trees zooming by in a hazy blur.
The middle of the forest wasn’t exactly how I’d describe the four-star family camp we’d be spending the summer at, but exaggeration is the key to any good social media video. I shook my AirPod case as if that would make them charge faster. I needed some noise-canceling, head-clearing music.
“Did you girls pack your swimsuits?” Mom asked, even though there was nothing we could do about it now, four hours from home, if we hadn’t.
Lauren dropped her hand. “Mom, I was recording.”
“Oh, sorry,” Mom whispered.
“Well, I’m not anymore.”
“I hear there’s a huge Slip ’N Slide at this camp,” Dad said, as if this was the most exciting thing a seventeen- and a fifteen-year-old could hear. “Supersized for super kids.” He laughed at his own joke, and I couldn’t help but laugh too.
Lauren gave me the Really? look, then said, “There’s real water, too, though, right?”
“Real water?” Mom asked.
“A lake or something?”
“Yes, there’s a lake and a pool,” Dad responded as he took a curve too fast, pushing me against the door.
“I don’t know why we couldn’t just go to the camp we went to a couple years ago,” Lauren complained. “It was closer and the roads weren’t so windy.”
“Because this year is our epic adventure,” Dad said. “Next summer Avery will be so busy prepping for college she’ll boycott a family vacation.”
“So true,” I said, and smiled when my mom turned around to make sure she shouldn’t be offended. When she saw my face, she gave my leg a little slap.
Both my parents had summers off. Mom was a professor at UCLA and Dad taught sixth grade and coached middle-school basketball. So most summers for as long as I could remember, we went on an “adventure.” Sometimes it was a cabin on the lake or a KOA near the beach. And most of the time, it really was an adventure. Sometimes
Comments (0)