The Messy Truth About Love: A Cantos Novel

Emma-Christian daughter of Mo and Amy Matthews, big sister to Shelby, lover of John Hughes films, and Salutatorian of the senior class-has spent her entire high school career playing it safe because she stifles her risk-taking gene for perfectionism instead. This behavior isn't necessarily because that's who she is, but because of all of those external expectations wrapped up in her parents' approval and the religious messages she's grown up believing. She's not a perfect girl; she just feels like she's supposed to be. Now, she's headed to college in the fall ill-equipped to face the challenges of real life. Though that one time junior year when she got drunk for the liquid courage to coerce Tanner James into kissing her might be an outlier, unlike most of her well-laid plans (even if she got what she wanted), she took the calculated risk to squash her infatuation for Tanner and it didn't work. She still wants to have sex with him.Like Emma, Tanner hasn't forgotten that kiss junior year either, but for entirely different reasons. Party f-boy extraordinaire has reached high school graduation without options-a dead end. He's made choices rooted in the expectations of his friends and their pact: the Bro Code. Except, he's tired of the party life and the Nowhere it leads. That junior-year kiss changed something in him, and now he'd rather be at home reading his favorite book. As graduation and the great empty beyond looms, Tanner questions every choice he's made. This upheaval unravels the protective box he's built to insulate himself for all the real stuff he's been avoiding, namely his older brother's death and the volatile divorce of his parents. One week before high school graduation, Emma and Tanner find themselves face-to-face at the edge of a cliff at the Quarry when it's time for the partner-jump during the traditional Senior Send Off. Under the light of the stars, they both face the terrifying adventure of making a different choice. Tanner asks Emma to be his partner; Emma says, "yes," both risking everything to write a new story they'd thought had already been written. It's just that change always has a price.

If faced with perpetuating the perfect lie or confessing the ugly truth, which would you choose?Seth Peters has been angry for a long time. Living with an abusive, alcoholic father has that effect. When he wakes up in a hospital - outside of his body - due to an accident that he doesn’t remember, Seth is no longer angry; he’s terrified.As his memories begin to return, he is confronted with a legacy of lies he’s constructed to survive the pain of his own life. Realizing he’s no different than the man he’s loathed his whole life, Seth learns that his choices have set into motion far-reaching and terrible consequences.Challenged with wallowing in the pain or confronting his fears and admitting to the ugly truth about himself, Seth must decide if facing what he fears most to save his friend’s life is worth the risk of losing his own.

Adam Kane is approaching the one¿year mark of his wife Megan's death, and grief still shadows every corner of his life. When he finally gathers the courage to open her journals, he expects heartbreak. What he doesn't expect are the strange coded markings hidden throughout her entries. Desperate for answers, he turns to the one person who knew Megan best: her friend Alex, the woman he once cared for and then pushed away.Their history is complicated, and the spark between them is tangled with resentment, guilt, and unfinished business. But when people begin dying under suspicious circumstances, the markings in Megan's journals take on a terrifying new meaning. Someone is following the trail Megan left behind and they're willing to kill to keep her secrets buried.Forced to work together, Adam and Alex race to decipher the messages before the killer closes in. Every clue pulls them deeper into a web of danger, and every step forward threatens the fragile trust growing between them. Saving the people they love-and each other-means confronting the past they've both tried to forget.The Letters She Left Behind is a gripping second¿chance romantic thriller about hidden truths, dangerous secrets, and the kind of love that refuses to stay buried.

What do you do when your world has fallen apart, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to put it back together?Abby Kai¿ulu (Kaw ee aw oo loo) gets the chance to start over when her family relocates from Hawaii to a small town on the Oregon coast.But she’s hiding a secret. Leaving the past and the cultural lessons of her Hawaiian grandfather behind, Abby redefines who she is to hide it. There’s Good Abby - she makes and follows the rules - and there’s Bad Abby - she always questions them. But both leave Abby wondering: which one is she really? Her road of self-discovery takes her on a journey where she must discover the truth of who she is as a daughter, a sister, a woman, a Hawaiian and as a friend. But just when she thinks her world might be coming back together, it falls apart all over again.

Emma-Christian daughter of Mo and Amy Matthews, big sister to Shelby, lover of John Hughes films, and Salutatorian of the senior class-has spent her entire high school career playing it safe because she stifles her risk-taking gene for perfectionism instead. This behavior isn't necessarily because that's who she is, but because of all of those external expectations wrapped up in her parents' approval and the religious messages she's grown up believing. She's not a perfect girl; she just feels like she's supposed to be. Now, she's headed to college in the fall ill-equipped to face the challenges of real life. Though that one time junior year when she got drunk for the liquid courage to coerce Tanner James into kissing her might be an outlier, unlike most of her well-laid plans (even if she got what she wanted), she took the calculated risk to squash her infatuation for Tanner and it didn't work. She still wants to have sex with him.Like Emma, Tanner hasn't forgotten that kiss junior year either, but for entirely different reasons. Party f-boy extraordinaire has reached high school graduation without options-a dead end. He's made choices rooted in the expectations of his friends and their pact: the Bro Code. Except, he's tired of the party life and the Nowhere it leads. That junior-year kiss changed something in him, and now he'd rather be at home reading his favorite book. As graduation and the great empty beyond looms, Tanner questions every choice he's made. This upheaval unravels the protective box he's built to insulate himself for all the real stuff he's been avoiding, namely his older brother's death and the volatile divorce of his parents. One week before high school graduation, Emma and Tanner find themselves face-to-face at the edge of a cliff at the Quarry when it's time for the partner-jump during the traditional Senior Send Off. Under the light of the stars, they both face the terrifying adventure of making a different choice. Tanner asks Emma to be his partner; Emma says, "yes," both risking everything to write a new story they'd thought had already been written. It's just that change always has a price.

What do you do when your world has fallen apart, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to put it back together?Abby Kai¿ulu (Kaw ee aw oo loo) gets the chance to start over when her family relocates from Hawaii to a small town on the Oregon coast.But she’s hiding a secret. Leaving the past and the cultural lessons of her Hawaiian grandfather behind, Abby redefines who she is to hide it. There’s Good Abby - she makes and follows the rules - and there’s Bad Abby - she always questions them. But both leave Abby wondering: which one is she really? Her road of self-discovery takes her on a journey where she must discover the truth of who she is as a daughter, a sister, a woman, a Hawaiian and as a friend. But just when she thinks her world might be coming back together, it falls apart all over again.

Gabe Daniels always figured his DNA is flawed. One only has to look to his past to see it, and it's why he’s tried to hide it in new layers of his life: his new home, his adoptive parents, Seth, Abby. But darkness is always at his heels. With the impending death of his former best friend - a death for which he feels responsible - the depression, the broken relationships, the day-to-day struggle, and the monster trying to break out of him have left a debris field in his wake. Gabe decides the broken past that made him was always going to lead him down the road of no return. It is in his DNA, after all, in the biological parents who made him.