Girl Out of Water
by Laura Silverman
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: May 2, 2017
Genre: Young Adult
Anise Sawyer plans to spend every minute of summer with her friends: surfing, chowing down on fish tacos drizzled with wasabi balsamic vinegar, and throwing bonfires that blaze until dawn. But when a serious car wreck leaves her aunt, a single mother of three, with two broken legs, it forces Anise to say goodbye for the first time to Santa Cruz, the waves, her friends, and even a kindling romance, and fly with her dad to Nebraska for the entire summer. Living in Nebraska isn’t easy. Anise spends her days caring for her three younger cousins in the childhood home of her runaway mom, a wild figure who’s been flickering in and out of her life since birth, appearing for weeks at a time and then disappearing again for months, or even years, without a word.
Complicating matters is Lincoln, a one-armed, charismatic skater who pushes Anise to trade her surfboard for a skateboard. As Anise draws closer to Lincoln and takes on the full burden and joy of her cousins, she loses touch with her friends back home – leading her to one terrifying question: will she turn out just like her mom and spend her life leaving behind the ones she loves.
Excerpt…
The game continues for another half hour, secrets slipping out from friends I didn’t think had any secrets left to share. When it’s Tess’s turn again, she faces me. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” I say.
“Shocker.” Eric grins and nudges my shoulder. “Have you ever picked truth?”
I shake my head. I’m a strong believer in actions over words.
But as I look at Tess’s face, I know I’ve made a big mistake. She tricked me. My pulse quickens as I realize there’s a 95 percent chance she’s about to dare me to kiss Eric.
Instead she says, “Go catch a wave.”
“What kind of dare is that?”
“Naked.”
I stare at her. Then I stare at her some more. Then I stare around the circle to make sure everyone else is staring at her too. Growing up on the beach, we’ve all skinny-dipped more than our fair share of times, but there’s a big difference between stripping down and jumping in the water and stripping down and getting on your surfboard. It’s dangerous. My wet suit saves me from a lot of potentially nasty cuts and burns. Whenever I go out in just a bikini, I always come back littered with scratches.
“Come on,” Tess says. “Memories and all that.”
“I don’t know…” I say slowly, but I’m already giving into the idea.
Because I’m not one to turn down a dare.
Because why the fuck not?
Because I need something to remember this summer by.
“Actually,” Tess continues. “I’m going to modify that dare. I dare you all to surf naked.”
Laughter erupts around the campfire, people shouting, “nice try” and “not happening.”
Marie cuts in among the fray. “Umm, the rules of truth and dare do not work that way. You can only dare one person at a time. The only way more than one person can be involved is if you are daring the intended party to do something with a different party.”
“How legalese of you,” Cassie teases and leans over to give Marie a quick kiss.
“Which is exactly what I’m doing,” Tess continues. “Daring Anise to do something, i.e., surf naked with all of you.”
“I’m down,” Eric says.
I whip my head in his direction. “What?”
He shrugs. “Sounds like fun.” And then he stands and strips off his hoodie. The firelight ghosts off the shadows of his defined abs. I’m supposed to fly two thousand miles away from those?
Tess smiles and claps slowly. “And here we have discovered one brave soul. Shall others join him, or shall I subject them to horribly embarrassing truths?”
I bite my lip. I look at Eric’s abs. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
I stand up and Eric smiles at me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me into his bare chest, his body giving off more heat than the warmth of the fire. I ignore the flush rising to my face and turn to everyone else. “Marie? Cassie?”
They look at each other without speaking, the way couples who have been together for half of forever can do. After a few moments of silent communication, they both nod and stand, faces bright in the curling firelight.
“We’re in,” Marie says.
“So in,” Cassie agrees.
“Excellent,” Tess says. “Anyone else?”
There’s a long pause as I glance around at my circle of friends. This is an all or nothing situation. Either they join us, or the dare will fizzle to smoke.
Finally, Spinner stands, shaking out his long hair from its constraint. “Let’s do this.”
Everyone else echoes his words and climbs to their feet.
“Now if you don’t mind,” Tess continues, “I’ll just get my camera out and—”
“No!” The objection comes from all of us at once, followed by laughter. The last thing I need is to wake up tomorrow to photos of my bare ass.
“Fine, fine.” Tess waves her hand. “It was worth a shot.”
Meet the author…
I currently live in Atlanta, Georgia. I love dogs, stationary, TV, an epic amount of bubble bath, and books (surprise!). I live with undiagnosed chronic pain. I have degrees in English and Advertising from the University of Georgia, and I have an MFA in Writing for Children from the New School. While I lived in NYC, I interned at Penguin and two different literary agencies, and I used to freelance edit novels and query letters almost full-time. Lately my chronic pain and novel writing limits my freelance work, but I still love doing it when I’m able.
I’ve seen this cover in a few places but didn’t’ really know what the book was about. Now I get what the water/fields mean 🙂
Sounds good.
For What It’s Worth
Thanks for that excerpt, this sounds really good!
I saw this cover somewhere recently….oh well, sounds good 🙂
I have seen this book everywhere and most people are loving it. There is something about the cover that speaks to me. I think I am going to have to read this one.
Oh sounds interesting. Thanks for bringing it to my attention and for the blurb!
New to me, thanks for sharing!!
Thanks for stopping by my blog today and sorry for the wwwwwwwwwwwwww.
(I have no idea what that even was!)
This sounds really good Kristin. And I’m absolutely in love with the cover!