landing

After a gnarly fall in competition, a DUI, and moving in with her mom dashed her hopes for a spot in this year’s X Games, 16-year-old skateboarder Summer O’Neill is left with one last shot at redemption. But her fresh start is even harder than getting back on the half pipe: hours of community service, a party girl reputation she can’t shake, and life with a mother she hardly knows leave Summer scrambling. The very last thing Summer is looking for is a boyfriend, at least until she meets Sebastian Vega. Steady, unassuming, and self-assured, he’s everything she’s not. Before long, she’s sneaking out for midnight sandcastle building excursions and trading in her art class for private photography lessons with Bastian. But Summer’s past won’t stay behind her and Bastian has problems of his own – including a bleeding disorder that seeps into every aspect his life. While he pushes the limitations of his hemophilia, she is bound by the rules of probation. When the ramifications of her past crimes collide with his frustration, it may be more than their budding relationship can bear. With the next qualifier rapidly approaching, Summer has to own up to her mistakes if she wants to soar again. If she can’t, she’ll lose more than her second chance. She’ll lose her future—in skating, and with Bastian. Available from Bloomsbury Spark at these and other e-book retailers ISBN-13: 9781619637870 Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Publication date: 02/16/2016

When you wipe out in life, who helps you get back up again?

Catch up with Bria, Ben, Abby and the rest of the OHS gang in THE ART OF FALLING, book 1 in Oceanside High series available at e-book retailers now

Follow Jenny Kaczorowski's board Trick to Landing on Pinterest.

Abby shook her head, scattering pink and turquoise everywhere. “Friends are easy. Friendship is rare.”

Being nobody at a new school was bad. Being somebody at a new school was worse.

Just before her stomach dropped out, before the pain waiting on the other side, a single moment of clarity opened.

“Is this all some elaborate plot to make me relive my childhood?” she asked. “Candy Land, mac and cheese, Go Fish.” “You still remember Candy Land! That’s great!”

Her insides were broken and pulled apart and smashed back together until she didn’t even recognize herself.

...someone who saw beauty where she just saw a surface to carve up with her board. Someone who created, who added to the world instead of sucking things out of it.

Her heart and her head throbbed, too full for the speed and motion of skating.

“I don’t need to look past anything. I’m looking right at you and I want you. All of you. Broken parts included.”

“When I said I was in, I meant I’m all in. This is all of me, here with you.”

It took a second, a quick repositioning, to take the hard, awkward smash of overeager lips and transform it into something soft and subtle and oh, sweet sunshine, what did he just do with his tongue?

“Maybe it was part of some plan, you know?” A slow smile lifted the side of his mouth. “What plan would that be?” “I don’t know, but meeting you feels like something.”

“The landing should be effortless. She’d done it dozens of times. And missed dozens more.”

She waited for an eternity, while her heart went numb and her body turned cold and the stars wheeled overhead.

Words hurt. Words brought up the past and resurrected pain, no matter how deep you buried it. Words destroyed things and she needed those friendships, no matter how tenuous they seemed

“Love always comes with that risk. Would you rather not love at all?”

She watched his face, watched the reflection of the sunset on his glasses, watched the soft way his smile spread in time with the sun disappearing into the ocean.

“Golden hour.” The imagery made her smile. “Mmhmm. Two hours out of twenty-four when the light is magic.”

"Chocolate is better than kissing, right?” “Not these kisses,” Bastian said, still not taking his eyes off Summer.

<

>

Instagram

@jennykaczorowski

“There are no good people, only broken people trying to do the right thing.”

the trick to landing