Nothing.Everything.

Author: Virginia Montanez
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Winding Road Publishing, 2023
Pages: 426
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: To her children, her pushy mother, her preacher father and her four seemingly perfect brothers, irreverent YA author Ellis Sloan is surviving the sudden demise of her damaging marriage just fine. She's her usual irreverent self, helping her teens adjust while working hard on her second novel. But inside, the words are all gone, and she has been typing gibberish into a document she deletes every day.

Her depressing monotony is interrupted when her one-time childhood nemesis and eventual first kiss re-enters her life by shouting profanity at a toppled piano outside her bedroom window. Now famous and beloved, Lincoln Hale's mysterious return resurrects memories Ellis buried deep on the prom night he never came for her and unleashes a chain of events that leads her to discover what it's going to take to finally get back to who she once was. With equal doses of humor and heart, she learns the secrets of the past, faces her paralyzing fears, and tries to repair her brokenness before time runs out on her next book and her first shot at real happiness.

Review: I wasn't sure I wanted to read something that isn't fluff this late in the year, but the first two chapters grabbed me so I kept right on going. Montanez is a local author for me, and once blogged as PittGirl.

I loved this book. I loved the characters, I loved the story, I loved the ending. This is the book I wish I would have written.