Harlequin Series Blog Tour Promo Post: Someone to Trust by Patricia Davids

Some connections go beyond words…in this novel by USA TODAY bestselling author Patricia Davids. On an Amish matchmaking trip, can she avoid falling in love? Esther Burkholder has no interest in her stepmother’s matchmaking when her family visits an Amish community in Maine. Deaf from a young age, she’s positive a hearing man couldn’t understand the joys and trials of living in a silent world. But Gabe Fischer is certainly handsome, hardworking and brave. More importantly, he sees the real Esther. Might this Amish bachelor be her unexpected perfect match?

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“I’m happy to tell you that your mother’s cousin Waneta is coming for a visit.”

Gabe Fisher looked up from the glowing metal wheel rim he was heating in the forge as something in his fa­ther’s voice caught his attention. Ezekiel Fisher, or Zeke as everyone called him, wasn’t overly fond of Waneta, so why was he trying so hard to sound cheerful?

Gabe glanced around the workshop. None of his three brothers seemed to have noticed anything unusual.

Seth continued setting up the lathe to drill out a wheel hub. “That will be nice for Mamm. She has been missing her friends back home. I know she and Waneta are close.”

Seth was Gabe’s younger brother by fifteen minutes. They might look identical, but Seth was the most ten­derhearted of the brothers. He was twenty minutes older than no-nonsense Asher, the last Fisher triplet, who was readying wooden spokes to be inserted into the finished wheel hub. Asher bore only a passing resemblance to his two older brothers. Where Gabe and Seth were both blond with blue eyes, Asher was dark-haired with their mother’s brown eyes. All three men shared the same tall, muscular frame as their father.

“Is she bringing her new husband to meet the rest of us?” Moses asked, greasing the axle of the buggy they were repairing. At twenty he was the baby brother by four years and the one that looked the most like their mother, with his soft brown curls and engaging grin. He was the only one who hadn’t yet joined their Amish church. He was still enjoying his rumspringa, the “running around” years most Amish youths were allowed before making their decision to be baptized.

“This isn’t the best time for a visit,” Asher said, ex­pressing exactly what Gabe had been thinking.

“Apparently your mother and Waneta have been plan­ning this for ages, but she only told me last night. She wanted it to be a surprise for you boys.”

Asher’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

“You know Waneta. She likes to surprise folks. They should be here later today.”

Gabe continued turning the rim in the fire. Both his parents had gone to the wedding, but he and his broth­ers had been busy keeping the new business running. A business that didn’t look like it would support the entire family through another winter. If things didn’t improve by the end of the summer, the family would have some hard choices to make.

“They? Her new husband is coming with her, then?” Seth said.

Gabe glanced at his father and saw him draw a deep breath. “He isn’t, but his children are.”

Seth finally seemed to notice their father’s unease and stopped working. “How many children?”

“Five.”

“The house will be lively with that many kinder un­derfoot,” Moses said. “How old are they?”

“The youngest is ten. The others are closer to your ages,” Daed said, keeping his eyes averted.

Seth, Asher and Gabe exchanged knowing looks. They shared a close connection that didn’t always re­quire words.

Asher’s lips thinned as he pinned his gaze on his fa­ther. “Would they happen to be maydels close to our age?”

Their father didn’t answer.

“Daed?” the triplets said together. Moses stopped what he was doing and gave them a puzzled look.

Their father cleared his throat. “I believe your mother said they are between twenty and twenty-five. Modest, dutiful daughters, as Waneta described them.”

“Courting age,” Moses said with a grin.

“Marriageable age.” Seth shook his head. “I don’t have any interest in courting until we are sure our business will survive.”

Gabe crossed his arms over his chest. “Has Mamm taken to importing possible brides for us now?”

There was a lack of unmarried Amish women in their new community in northern Maine, but that didn’t bother Gabe. Like Seth, his focus was on improving the fam­ily’s buggy-making and wheel-repair business while ex­panding the harness-making and leather goods shop he ran next door.

“Tell Mamm we can find our own wives,” Asher said.

“When we are ready,” Seth added.

Daed scowled at all the brothers. “That kind of talk is exactly why your mother was worried about sharing this news. She wants you boys to be polite to Waneta’s new stepdaughters and nothing more. Show them a nice time while they are here. No one is talking about marriage.”

About the Author

USA Today best-selling author Patricia Davids was born and raised in Kansas. After forty years as an NICU nurse, Pat switched careers to become an inspirational writer. She enjoys spending time with her daughter and grandchildren, traveling and playing with her dogs, who think fetch should be a twenty-four hour a day game. When not on the road or throwing a ball, Pat is happily dreaming up new stories.

Website

 

Blog Tour Promo Post: The Girl From the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat

 

An extraordinary story of human triumph against impossible odds

The year is 1940, and the world is torn apart by war. In June of that year, Hitler's army captures the Channel Islands--the only part of Great Britain to be occupied by German forces. Abandoned by Mr. Churchill, forgotten by the Allies, and cut off from all help, the Islands' situation is increasingly desperate.

Hedy Bercu is a young Jewish girl who fled Vienna for the island of Jersey two years earlier during the Anschluss, only to find herself trapped by the Nazis once more--this time with no escape. Her only hope is to make herself invaluable to the Germans by working as a translator, hiding in plain sight wIth the help of her friends and community--and a sympathetic German officer. But as the war intensifies, rations dwindle, neighbors turn on neighbors, and Hedy's life is in greater danger every day. It will take a definitive, daring act to save her from certain deportation to the concentration camps.

A sweeping tale of bravery and love under impossible circumstances, Hedy's remarkable story reminds us that it's often up to ordinary people to be quiet heroes in the face of injustice.

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ONE

Jersey, Channel Islands

Summer 1940

The sun's heat had begun to mellow, and the gulls were cruising for their final catch of the day when the siren sounded. Its wail climbed and fell, calling out over the jumbled slate roofs and church spires of the town, and across the patchwork of potato fields beyond. In St. Aubin’s bay, where the waves lapped and fizzed on the sand, its warning finally reached Hedy’s ears as she lay dozing by the sea wall, and woke her with a jolt.

Rising in slow motion, she scanned the sky. Now she could also hear a faint, tinny whine in the east. She tried to steady her breathing. Perhaps it was another false alarm? These warnings had become a daily event these past two weeks, each time the reconnaissance planes merely circling, then disappearing back out to sea with cameras crammed full of blurry images of main roads and harbor walls. But this time something was different. The engine sound contained a note of brutish intent, and now several tiny black dots were emerging in the distant blue. The whine became a hum, and the hum a stri­dent drone. Then she knew. This was no reconnaissance mis­sion. This was the start.

For days now, the islanders had watched the black smoke rise and mushroom on the French coast, felt the vibration of the distant blasts pulse through their bellies, and rattle their bones. Women had spent hours counting and recounting the tinned foods in their larders, while the men squashed into banks to withdraw the family savings. Children had yelled their complaints as gas masks were forced over their heads. By then, all hope had vanished. There was no one here to deter the aggressors, nothing between them and their shimmer­ing prize but flat blue water and an empty sky. And now the planes were on their way. Hedy could see them clearly now, still some distance away, but from the outline, she guessed they were Stukas. Dive-bombers.

She spun around, looking for shelter. The nearest beachside café was almost a mile away. Stopping only to grab her wicker bag, she sprinted for the stone steps leading to the walkway above and took them in three bounds. At the top she scoured the promenade; a hundred meters toward First Tower was a small seafront shelter. It contained nothing but a single wooden bench on each of its four exposed sides, but it would have to do. Hedy hurtled toward it, grazing her shin as she mistimed the leap onto the low plinth, and threw herself against the bench. A moment later she was joined by a panic-stricken young mother, probably not much older than herself, gripping a small white-faced boy by the wrist. By now the planes were over St. Helier harbor, one arcing across the bay toward them, the noise of the engine so thunderous that it drowned out the boy’s screams as the woman pushed him to the ground. The violent rat-a-tat of machine-gun fire stung Hedy’s ears as several bullets found the sea wall and zinged off in random directions. A second later, a distant explosion shook the shelter so hard Hedy thought the roof might collapse. “Was that a bomb?” The woman’s face was ashen beneath her tan.

“Yes. Near the harbor, I think.”

The woman gave her a brief, confused look. It was the ac- cent, Hedy knew—even in a moment like this it still set her apart, marked her out as an alien. But the woman’s attention quickly turned back to her child.

“Oh my God,” she muttered, “what have we done? My husband said we should have evacuated when we had the chance.” Her eyes fixed on the sky. “Do you think we should have gone?”

Hedy said nothing but followed her companion’s gaze upward. She thought about her employers, the Mitchells, staggering onto that filthy, inadequate cargo boat with their screaming child, and nothing but a change of underwear and a few provisions stuffed into a brown packing case. At this moment, with the aroma of burning aviation fuel in her nostrils, she would have given anything to be with them. Her knuckles turned yellow on the slatted bench. Corkscrews of charcoal smoke drifted across the bay, and she could hear the little boy beside her sobbing. Hedy swallowed hard and focused on the questions bouncing around her brain like a pinball. How long now before the Germans landed? Would they round people up, stand them in front of walls to be shot? If they came for her, then…? There was no point finishing that thought. Anton, the only person on this island she could call a friend, would be powerless to help her. The shelter vibrated again, and she felt its fragility.

Hedy remained crouched silently, listening to the planes loop and dive and the crack of explosions a mile away, until at last the sound of the engines began to fade into the distance. An aging gentleman with disheveled white hair stumbled toward them and stopped to peer into the shelter.

“The planes have gone,” he called. “Try to get home as quickly as you can. It can’t be long before they get here.” Hedy’s eyes fixed on his jacket, which was covered in dust and uneven patches of blood. “Don’t worry, it’s not mine,” the man assured her. “Old fellow walking near the harbor took a bullet in the leg—we had to get him to the hospital.” “Are there many hurt? Or…?” Hedy glanced toward the

little boy, not wanting to finish the question.

“Some, yes.” The man’s voice faltered a little, and Hedy felt a surge of anguish. She pressed her fist to her lips and swallowed again before he continued: “They bombed a line of potato trucks waiting to unload at the harbor. I mean, for God’s sake, what’s the point of that?” He shook his head and gestured toward his destination. “Hurry now.”

The man hastened away. Hedy hauled her shaking body to its feet, wished the woman good luck, and set off along the promenade toward the town, wondering how on earth she would get back to the Mitchells’—assuming the house was still there. She tried to hurry, but her skinny legs felt weak. She imagined Hemingway cowering beneath the sofa in the empty living room, his gray feline fur stiff with terror. Already she was half regretting disobeying Mr. Mitchell’s instruction to have him put down. The animal’s trusting eyes had melted her heart at the door of the vet’s surgery. Now she wasn’t even sure if she’d be able to feed herself, never mind a cat.

By the time she reached the outskirts of St. Helier town she could hear the bells of the ambulances and the random shouts of desperate men trying to work as a team. Smoke rose in missing, some wandering aimlessly, and one old couple on a bench, sobbing. Hedy walked on, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, deliberately edging her mind to- ward reality. The seas around the island were probably already full of U-boats. Soon she would once again be surrounded by those gray-green uniforms and hear the barking of orders. She pictured the bang on the door, Wehrmacht hands grabbing at her elbow, the house abandoned with dirty dishes still on the table. Anything was possible now. She recalled only too well the way the Germans had behaved in Vienna.

Especially toward Jews.

She pressed on, pushing her body weight forward, willing herself home. She needed to reach Hemingway and give him a hug.

Excerpted from The Girl from the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat, Copyright © 2020 by Jenny Lecoat Published by Graydon House Books

About the Author

Jenny Lecoat was born in Jersey, Channel Islands, where her parents were raised under German Occupation and were involved in resistance activity. Lecoat moved to England at 18, where, after earning a drama degree, she spent a decade on the alternative comedy circuit as a feminist stand-up. She also wrote for newspapers and women's magazines (Cosmopolitan, Observer), worked as a TV and radio presenter, before focusing on screenwriting from sitcom to sketch shows. A love of history and factual stories and a return to her island roots brought about her feature film Another Mother's Son (2017). She is married to television writer Gary Lawson and now lives in East Sussex. The Girl from the Channel Islands is her first novel.

Connect with Jenny!

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Blog Tour Promo Post: Forgiven by Garrett Leigh

High school sweethearts Mia and Luke get a second chance at love in this brand-new contemporary romance from award-winning author Garrett Leigh.

When Mia Amour returns to England to open a florist shop, all she wants to do is put her lousy ex behind her and never look back. But getting a fresh start is easier said than done when her first love, the boy who once broke her teenage heart, strolls back into her life. He’s every bit as sexy as she remembers, and the urge to melt back into his arms almost makes her forget how devastated she was when he took off without a word. Almost.

Left with no choice, Luke Daley did what he had to do, leaving town to earn enough money to save his broken family, though it just about broke him, too. But now he’s back, running his uncle’s business and trying desperately to forget about Mia, the girl he left behind all those years ago. When he runs into her in town, the shock of seeing her again brings an intense rush of emotions: love, guilt…and an overwhelming urge to find out if it’s still as amazing between them as it used to be.

It doesn’t take either of them long to give in to desire and discover the fiery passion they once shared burns hotter than ever. With each new touch, each moment of forgiveness, old hurts heal and the future they’d hoped for ten years ago becomes possible again. But their fragile connection is tested by a threat neither of them saw coming—a threat that could end their second chance before it even gets started.

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Mia Amour. Her name had haunted me so much my bunkmate had once found me sleep-scrawling it on our cabin wall. He thought it had meant something—that I was writing a message from another dimension in a language he didn’t understand—but the reality had been far more simple: even on the other side of the world, I couldn’t get her out of my head.

Somehow, though, over time, I’d forgotten what her eyes did to me. How they could root me to the spot with a single glance and empty my mind of anything but her. Mia. I counted my heartbeats as they thundered in my ears. One, two, three, four. And then she tore her stormy blue gaze away from mine and walked out of the chip shop.

I reached for the empty space she left behind, and my faculties slowly returned to me as her footsteps echoed in my shell-shocked brain. As drawn to her as I’d al­ways been, I drifted after her, but when I got outside, she was gone.

A thousand emotions warred in my gut, but the age-old frustration was so familiar I felt sick. Fucking Mia Amour. Deep down, I’d always hated her as much as I’d loved her, because there was no one else on earth who could make my heart pound like she did, my palms sweat, and my fingers tremble.

Cursing, I hauled myself back into the van. Gus followed a moment later, an open bag of chips in each hand. “Where’d you get to? It was your turn to buy tea.”

I tossed him a crumpled-up fiver. “Why didn’t you tell me your sister was in town?”

“Oh fuck.” Gus held out a bag of chips, then set it on the dashboard when I made no move to claim it. “Are we really doing this?”

I gave him a flat look.

He sighed. “Fuck’s sake. Why would I tell you? You two aren’t exactly friends, and you haven’t been a cou­ple since I was fourteen and nicking Mayfair Lights from her school bag.”

Shit, had it been that long? Why was it that just a glimpse of her face could set me back a decade? The weight in my chest increased and I started the van, gunning the rickety diesel engine with a roar. “Either way, a fucking heads-up would’ve been nice.”

“But why, though?” Gus pointed a chip at me. “You want her number so you can catch up on old times?”

I wondered if he’d actually give it to me. Then pictured myself calling Mia and her reaction to hearing my voice for the first time in ten long years.

A legit shudder passed through me. I was done torturing myself for putting my family first, for giving up my entire life to keep a roof over my mum’s head, but that didn’t make the obvious anger in Mia’s eyes easier to bear. Her temper had fascinated seventeen-year-old me—sometimes I’d wound her up on purpose, just to revel in her flushed skin and sharp tongue—but I didn’t have the stones to take it now. My Mia angst tolerance was at an all-time complacent low.

“Luke?”

I spared Gus another glare. “What?”

“Can I eat your chips?”

About the Author

Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer and book designer.

Garrett's debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards.

When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.

Garrett is also an award-winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.

Connect with Garrett Leigh 

Website | Goodreads Page | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Blog Tour Promo Post: The Forever Girl by Jill Shalvis

When Maze returns to Wildstone for the wedding of her estranged bff and the sister of her heart, it’s also a reunion of a once ragtag team of teenagers who had only each other until a tragedy tore them apart and scattered them wide.

 

Now as adults together again in the lake house, there are secrets and resentments mixed up in all the amazing childhood memories. Unexpectedly, they instantly fall back into their roles: Maze their reckless leader, Cat the den mother, Heather the beloved baby sister, and Walker, a man of mystery. 

 

Life has changed all four of them in immeasurable ways. Maze and Cat must decide if they can rebuild their friendship, and Maze discovers her long-held attraction to Walker hasn’t faded with the years but has only grown stronger.

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CHAPTER 1

Now

 

You’ve got this, Cat told herself. But note to self: she so did not in fact have this. Her nerves had taken over—her own fault, of course. She’d done a thing. A big thing. And though her heart had been in the right place when she’d done that thing, butterflies were revolting in her gut, telling her she’d be the only one who’d see it that way. It was times like this that she missed Michael the most, because he would’ve been her ally in this, she was sure. Back then, even at half her height and weight, he’d been her shadow. The cutest shadow on the planet. Over time, she’d gotten used to being without him, but it’d never

gotten easier.

Twin piglet-like snorts distracted her, and she looked down at her fiancé’s “babies.” The pug brothers had huge buggy black eyes and little round bodies and vibrated like they needed their batter- ies changed. Roly was black and Poly tan, both with black faces, black curly tails, and little black feet.

They snorted at her until she gave in and scooped them up, one in each arm, having to smile at their smushed-in faces. “Okay, guys, listen up. We’ve got a lot to do today.” She took a good, hard look around the old cabin that had been in her family’s possession since the early 1900s. It sat right on Rainbow Lake, about twenty minutes outside of Wildstone, a small ranching community on California’s central coast. She had a lot of good memories here: visiting her grandparents, learning to swim . . . she’d even run away here a few times in her dramatic teens.

Her grandparents were gone, and her parents now lived in South Carolina, where both of them were college professors. They were thinking of selling this place, but had agreed to let her live here until her wedding. At least that was the official reason. The unofficial one was that she was losing her collective shit and had needed the safety net.

The problem was that there were still a few vital pieces missing from the puzzle of Caitlin’s life: the most important pieces, the corner pieces, the ones you couldn’t do without. And since Michael was an angel now—and damn, her heart still squeezed painfully every time she thought about him, which was a lot— she was really counting on the wedding to bring the other vital pieces back to her. Those pieces named Heather, Walker, and Maze.

The estrangement between them all felt like a huge, gaping hole. It’d started at Michael’s grave three years ago and had only gotten worse. Hence the thing she’d done.

No one was going to thank her. And it was entirely possible it would all blow up in her face. But she’d had to try. Just thinking about it had the butterflies in her belly escaping and taking flight in her nervous system, giving her the shakes. But that might have been the five cups of coffee she’d consumed. She set down the pugs, much to their snorting, squealing dis- pleasure, and got to it. Running around like a madwoman for the next few hours, she changed the sheets on the beds in the spare bedrooms, swept the wood floors, washed the towels so they’d smell fresh . . . all while fielding call after call from her boss, Sara.

Cat managed the Wildstone deli that Sara owned. Cat also made all the hot food, which was actually the only part of her job she enjoyed, because the deli itself was a nightmare. She’d taken three weeks off for the wedding, but Sara, who’d missed her calling as the passive-aggressive queen of the universe, had been in contact almost every day in the guise of needing something, while really just wanting Caitlin to know of her every little mistake or misstep.

So when her phone buzzed in her pocket yet again while Cat was folding clothes in the laundry room, she ignored it.

“Caitlin?” came Dillon’s voice. “Can you bring me my laptop?”

She transferred another load into the dryer, turned it on, blew a stray hair off her sweaty face, and poked her head out of the laundry room to find Dillon sitting on the couch in the living room, feet up on the coffee table, Roly and Poly curled up on his lap.

“Are you kidding me?”

He flashed her the charming smile that had caught both her attention and her heart a year ago. “Sorry,” he said. “But my ankle’s bothering me again. Do you mind?”

Hard to, when his twisted ankle was actually her fault. She’d seen a Cosmo post online titled “The Top Ten Ways to Spruce Up Your Sex Life.” Feeling ambitious, she’d gone with number one: “Seduce Your Man in the Shower.” What could she say? The illustrations had looked intriguing.

Turned out attempting intriguing things in the shower was dangerous.

Feeling guilty, she ran up the stairs and got his laptop, stopping to straighten out the mess he’d left on the desk. When she got back downstairs, he was standing at the front door with his golf bag slung over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just got a call from Mom. Her golf date bailed and she needs me to do the back nine with her.”

“But your ankle.”

“We’ve got a cart.” He handed her the pugs.

Juggling the soft sausage loaves while trying to avoid the inevitable face kisses—a big no-thank-you, since they had a fondness for licking each other’s butts—she stared at Dillon. “You said that you’d be here to meet my family and have dinner with us.”

“Babe.” His face softened. “I’m your family. Me and my mom, and your parents.”

“You know that’s only technically true,” she protested. She and Heather and Walker and Maze might not be blood, but they were something even deeper. A self-made family, and yeah, okay, maybe it was a very dysfunctional one, but it felt more real than anything else in her life.

“Come on,” Dillon said, putting his hands on her hips and giving her a frustrated smile. “When’s the last time you heard from Maze or Heather”—he set a finger against her lips when she tried to speak—“where you didn’t contact them first. I mean, have they offered to help you with the wedding? They’re in it—you insisted on them over your local friends—so . . . where have they been?”

She could admit that he had a point. They hadn’t been together since their fight in front of Michael’s grave. Heather had vanished, just gone dark for a whole year before suddenly responding to Caitlin’s texts again as if nothing had happened. But she still hadn’t been back to Wildstone and wouldn’t give Caitlin much in- formation other than that she was okay and “working on things.” Whatever that meant.

Caitlin hadn’t seen Maze either, and not for a lack of trying. But they’d texted and had a few strained calls. And to give Maze credit, she always responded when Caitlin reached out, even with her busy life that was now in Santa Barbara, two hours south of Wildstone.

But Caitlin had, however, seen Walker. Sparingly, but he’d been gone on the job nearly nonstop the past three years. She missed him. She missed all of them and wanted them back together.

 And as the self-appointed bossy older sister of the fam, she was determined—and, okay, also slightly desperate—to make it hap- pen. And yeah, maybe, maybe, she’d rushed her wedding along, knowing it was the one thing that could bring her siblings of the heart back together. She couldn’t help herself. For whatever rea- son, the four of them had synced and melded into a core family that long-ago year, but they were losing each other, and that scared her. She’d already lost Michael; hell if she’d lose the others too. She needed this so badly she couldn’t even explain it to Dillon. But the truth was the last time she’d felt vibrantly alive had

been when they’d all been in her life, and she was just desperate enough to play with fate to make it happen.

“Please stay, Dillon.”

He studied her face and sighed, his eyes lit with affection as he cupped her jaw. “I promised Mom, but I’ll get back asap. Take care of my babies?”

It was the best she was going to get, so she nodded. He brushed a nice, warm kiss across her lips, and then he was gone.

From THE FOREVER GIRL by Jill Shalvis, published by William Morrow. Copyright © 2021 by Jill Shalvis. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollinsPublishers

 ABOUT JILL SHALVIS

New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold and visit her website, www.jillshalvis.com, for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures. 

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Winter Reads Blog Tour Promo Post: One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite

A shockingly powerful exploration of the lasting impact of prejudice and the indomitable spirit of sisterhood that will have readers questioning what it truly means to be an ally, from sister-writer duo Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite, authors of Dear Haiti, Love Alaine.

ISN’T BEING HUMAN ENOUGH?

When teen social activist and history buff Kezi Smith is killed under mysterious circumstances after attending a social justice rally, her devastated sister Happi and their family are left reeling in the aftermath. As Kezi becomes another immortalized victim in the fight against police brutality, Happi begins to question the idealized way her sister is remembered. Perfect. Angelic.

One of the good ones.

Even as the phrase rings wrong in her mind—why are only certain people deemed worthy to be missed?—Happi and her sister Genny embark on a journey to honor Kezi in their own way, using an heirloom copy of The Negro Motorist Green Book as their guide. But there’s a twist to Kezi’s story that no one could’ve ever expected—one that will change everything all over again.

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Chapter 2

Kezi

 Monday, April 16—1 Day Before the Arrest Los Angeles, California

I must have died and gone to hell.

Right?

Because why else would I have heard that outrageous bleating from my alarm at 5:30 (in the morning!) and chosen to wake up? It was mid-April of twelfth grade. I should have been suffering from a severe case of senioritis that could be cured only by sleeping in. But there I was, doing my Monday morning countdown to study.

“Eight…seven…six…five…four…four…four…three… why, oh, why…two… ONE!”

I yanked the covers shielding my head down to my waist and leapt out of bed before the just-right firmness of my mattress and perfectly fluffed pillows could lure me back into their warm nest.

Bang bang bang.

Couldn’t even blame her. I dragged my feet over to the wall I shared with my baby sister, Happi, and knocked twice. Two syllables. Sor-ry. (For counting so loudly that I woke you up while I was trying to wake myself up.)

Silence.

I slipped on cozy padded knee socks and plodded to my desk, where my notes were spread neatly across my laptop, right where I’d left them the night before. Mr. Bamhauer, my AP US History teacher and the miserable Miss Trunchbull to my precocious Matilda, was a stickler for the “old way” of doing things and insisted our notes be handwritten on wide-ruled paper so that the letters were big enough for him to see without his glasses while grading.

I skimmed over the major moments of the Civil Rights Movement that I knew the Advanced Placement test makers were likely to ask about when I sat for the exam in less than a month: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Emmett Till. The March on Washington. The Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Voting Rights Act of 1965. Each bullet point was like a twist unscrew- ing the faucet of my brain, flooding my skull with facts. To me, Brown v. Board of Education wasn’t just some case. It was the rebuttal to Plessy v. Ferguson, the racist court decision that dictated the “separate but equal” ideology. It was one of many nails in the giant coffin of Jim Crow laws and had ushered in the legacy of the Little Rock Nine. But before the Nine, we’d had students like Linda Brown, the Topeka One. Mr. Bamhauer lectured about the past, of course…but he made it stale and removed. To him, the people involved in all this world-changing were just names and dates in a book. Nothing more. They hadn’t had souls. Or dreams.

Brown v. Board of Education propelled my thoughts directly to that little girl. I envisioned how Linda Brown must have felt when she’d learned at nine years old that she couldn’t go to the school down the road, the one her white friends in the neighborhood attended, just because of her skin color. I felt her heart hammering when she saw how shaken up her daddy was on the walk home after his talk with the school principal. I imagined the hushed conversations Oliver and Leola Brown had over the kitchen table when they decided to move for- ward with the case, knowing what it would mean. I thought of all the parents hunched over in exasperation, fear, and de- termination, the folks in Delaware, Washington DC, South Carolina, and Virginia, who decided they could no longer accept segregation either.

I drank in American history, in all its problematic glory, like water. It was mine after all. My dad’s grandmother Evelyn had embarked on the Great Migration to California after her husband was killed overseas in World War II. He died for a country that didn’t think he deserved to call it home. My mom’s grandfather Joseph had been killed right here in America’s Jim Crow South. And their tales were just the family history that had been passed down.

I wasn’t much of a morning person, but once I rubbed the crust out of my eyes, I couldn’t close them again. Not with all these stories of individuals insisting they be remembered calling out to me at once. I had to listen to them.

After almost an hour of studying, my alarm rang again to drag me out of my bubble. I walked back over to my and Happi’s shared wall and knocked out another syllabic message: Hap-pi! Wake! Up! Her groan was loud and miserable. I chuckled. The only human being on earth less of a morning person than me? Her.

As I waited to shower, I checked the email account I used for my YouTube page, marking off the usual spam, replying to short messages, and noting the invitations and requests I had to think on more and get back to.

But then. I paused.

Oh Kezi. I was reading this ridiculous article about parasocial relationships. It was describing those pathetic people who feel like they know media personalities but don’t. You know, those freaks who get excited when they catch a glimpse of a celebrity’s baby or read every interview to see what brand of shampoo they use. Like that would make them closer. I thought it was fine. But I stayed up all night. All night. All night wondering if you would see me that way too. Like some random weirdo on the internet.

But I told myself over and over, she’s much too good, way too smart, to not realize that some of her subscribers are more special than others. And I’m more than a subscriber. I’m a supporter. A lifeline. We get each other. No one understands the struggle and what you’re fighting for like I do. But all night I thought of this. Going insane. Running in circles in my mind until I tripped on something that made me stop. It was something you said, actually.

I tried to swallow but couldn’t get past the sand in my throat. Nausea washed over me in waves, and I clutched my stomach to steady myself.

You said: We’re in this together. You remember that don’t you? It was that youth panel you spoke on two weeks ago at city hall and you made this beautiful, beautiful comment on how to have hope in the face of hopelessness. You promised that “even in the darkest moments, when you feel completely alone, like you’re the only one who cares, just remember that I care. Our community cares. And the people who came before us and behind us and the ones who come up beside us care too. So long as we keep caring and trying, there is hope.” I cried when your words came to me. And I’m going to sleep well tonight knowing that I’m not alone. I’m not hopeless. I have you.

There was a video attached to the email, sent from an address named mr.no.struggle.no.progress. My eyes widened and my pulse pounded against my ears when I registered whose face was in the thumbnail. Mine. I clicked on the preview button with a shaky hand and watched myself at the event the email sender mentioned. There I was, speaking animatedly and pronouncing the very words this stranger had taken the time to transcribe. The camera panned slowly across the room as my voice continued in the background.

I remembered that day. I almost hadn’t made it in time, be-cause Happi’s audition for our school’s Shakespeare play had gone longer than planned. Instead of taking my sister home after her tryout, I had dragged her with me straight to the panel. There she was in the video, seated between Derek and Ximena, who’d also come to show their support. The customary sounds of an audience wove in and out of the audio, a fussy baby babbling merrily, a chorus of a dozen sheets of paper rustling, a sniff ly man’s sneezes punctuating every few sentences.

The camera continued its survey of the room, and I noticed a group of people standing along the back wall. The space had been remarkably packed for a city hall meeting, and I recalled that quite a few members of the audience had come because they were subscribers to my YouTube channel, generationkeZi. When the meeting was adjourned, more than half in attendance had made a beeline to where I was seated, to chat. I’d greeted a lot of people, but others had stood on the sidelines and watched from afar, never approaching.

Who was the person who had sent this message? A fan I hadn’t gotten to speak with? The cameraperson? A local citizen who was feeling particularly inspired?

The slow creak of the bedroom door opening diverted my attention. I spun in my chair, not even sure when I’d grabbed the silver plaque I’d received from YouTube for reaching one hundred thousand subscribers, noting the instinct I had to hold it in the air menacingly.

“Bathroom’s all yours,” Happi said, pausing midyawn to look at me strangely.

“Thanks, I’ll be right in,” I replied to the back of her head as she stumbled to her room.

Instead, I gripped the plaque in my lap and sat there, frozen. Him again.

Excerpted from One of the Good Ones Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite © 2021 by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite, used with permission by Inkyard Press/HarperCollins.

About the Authors

MAIKA MOULITE is a Miami native and the daughter of Haitian immigrants. She earned a bachelor’s in marketing from Florida State University and an MBA from the University of Miami. When she’s not using her digital prowess to help nonprofits and major organizations tell their stories online, she’s sharpening her skills as a PhD student at Howard University's Communication, Culture and Media Studies program. Her research focuses on representation in media and its impact on marginalized groups. She’s the eldest of four sisters and loves young adult novels, fierce female leads, and laughing.

MARITZA MOULITE graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s in women’s studies and the University of Southern California with a master’s in journalism. She’s worked in various capacities for NBC News, CNN, and USA TODAY. Maritza is a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania exploring ways to improve literacy in under-resourced communities after being inspired to study education from her time as a literacy tutor and pre-k teacher assistant. Her favorite song is “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire.

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