The Wedding Cake Girl($9.99Value)

Description

Seventeen-year-old Alexandra spends so much time helping others realize their dreams that she never has time for her own. An expert ocean diver and reluctant maker of wedding cakes, she longs to leave roses and frosting behind to study oceanography. Alex’s mother won’t have it—needy and dependent, Mom can’t run the family wedding cake business on her own. No matter what Alex does, things only get worse for her. When she saves a man's life while scuba diving and becomes the local hero, Mom's angry with Alex for going diving at all. Mom discourages Alex's new friendship with Jeremy, a fun and insanely wealthy boy who happens to have a secret. Then, Alex's best friend, Zack, a hunky island guy, starts to take an interest in her as well. The problem is, he's dating another girl.As Alex struggles to learn where she stands between her two difficult and confusing Prince Charmings, it occurs to her that maybe what she really needs is a Prince Charming for Mom. If she doesn't do something fast, they'll bury her in her "Sue's Wedding Cakery" apron with a spatula in her hand. The Wedding Cake Girl features a colorful island setting, dangerous underwater diving adventures, a family of billionaires, and lots and lots of buttercream. The book is Alex's journey toward not only finding love, but learning how to step forward and take control of her own life, a rite of passage that faces all young readers. "I loved this tender, sweet and emotionally charged story that kept me reading half the night!" "The Wedding Cake Girl was cute, funny, down-to-Earth and surprised me a few times along the way." "A well-written emotional plot with a lot of twists and turns that will keep you hooked from the beginning. Highly recommended for all YA genre fans." How Does Living In California Inspire Your Writing? I find Los Angeles endlessly interesting, and because I've lived here for thirty-five years, a lot of my personal experiences serve as springboards for the fictional stories I write.  For example, I lived for years on a tiny road in the Hollywood Hills very similar to the Trail of Terror in What We Do for Love. I was married on Catalina Island, and my wedding cake was made by a woman who did all the wedding cakes on the island. Hence, the inspiration for The Wedding Cake Girl, my island-based tale of a girl who wants to leave buttercream frosting behind for college.   How Did You Get Into Writing Novels? When I first started writing, I wanted to be Dr. Seuss and write lovely stories in perfect rhyming verse. I composed long tales about the adventures of two white rabbits named Peri and Winkle, all the while striving to write perfect rhythm and rhyme. I'm not sure I succeeded, but I do think that trying is not a bad exercise for someone learning to write. I later turned to prose and began writing children's and YA books. I've published four novels in the YA/New Adult genre and am now publishing a work of women's fiction called What We Do for Love.