A blocked writer must untangle why her best friend quit speaking to her before college starts and their childhoods are done forever...
Ginny Merchant just graduated from high school. Her best friend refuses to talk to her. And her writer’s block? It’s still going strong, unless she’s writing to the one person who won’t listen.

Since her best friend left, Ginny hasn’t written a word worth keeping. When Ginny is invited to work at Storybook Land, an amusement park with a castle, a carousel, and familiar childhood characters, she takes the chance, optimistic that surrounding herself with children’s stories might help her write again.

But working at Storybook Land isn’t the fairytale Ginny hoped for. She’s still anxious about leaving home in the fall and how chasing her dreams might affect her family. Even after meeting Summer, who sees the world through her camera and lives for adventure, Ginny worries about making the wrong decision.

Then there’s Milo, who works on the park’s maintenance staff and brings Ginny strawberry slushies every day. Milo has his own past that connects with Ginny’s from before this summer. Leaving home is never as simple as it seems, especially when you grow up in a town with its own yellow brick road...

Vibes:
  • Last summer before college
  • Sleepover in a dreamy carousel
  • The girlhood we all deserve
  • Summer jobs and strawberry slushies and fireworks in the baseball diamond
  • First big love
  • MC writes notes to her ex-bff
  • Sunflower fields and tornados
  • When artists have too much time on their hands
​​
For fans of Jenny Han, Sarah Dessen, and the movie Adventureland with Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg.

available wherever you buy your books!

Please try to support indie book stores and authors first by buying from bookshop.org, or request it from your favorite shop!
Picture
Stephanie at Storybook Land, 2005.
Every story has a playlist.

EARLY READERS ARE LOVING tHE rIGHT KIND OF LIGHT

“This book understands what it feels like to outgrow someone and still love them.”

“The vision the author had for this story is CRYSTAL clear, and it's rendered so beautifully on the page ♥ I love a story that reminds me of a time in my life when possibilities stretched out in front of me, just waiting for me to make choices, and this one absolutely does that. It is deep without trying at all; no overwrought prose and no forced themes here! It's the kind of writing that helps you view the past in a way that makes you feel hopeful about the future. 1000% would recommend this story."

“I really appreciated how this explored the complexity of female friendship alongside the romance."

​“The writing was soft and atmospheric, and the summer setting felt incredibly vivid.”

"The letters Ginny writes Lou killed me. It's a perfect bookend (literally) to Lou's story in Not Without You where Lou's hearing Ginny's voice the whole time. It's soulmate level stuff."