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"SHE WAS THE KIND OF GIRL
who was a chaos of contradictions
from one second to the next
for her mind was never free
sometimes bright like the sun
sometimes calm like the moon
sometimes stormy like the ocean
and sometimes all three. "
• • •
GRACE BAKER seeks a summer away from her small hometown that is Oakley, Arizona. The seventeen year old feels like she's slowly suffocating between walking the halls with her ex-boyfriend/best friend, and the condition of her favorite Aunt Lydia worsening as she continues her five year battle with cancer. Not to mention, her last year of high school is coming to an end and in the fall she's expected to embark on her college journey in North Carolina and at the moment, she's a complete and utter mess that's most likely not capable of that.
Her stress levels are high and just as the last few days before graduation are upon her, the Baker family gets the news Aunt Lydia lost her battle. Grace is devastated, seeing as her favorite person is missing her graduation which they were only a few days short of. Not only that, but she won't be here to witness her future wedding, or her children. Grace has never felt less like herself and so hopeless. However, there's one thing that strikes a small spark in the girl.
Aunt Lydia has left something for Grace, her most favorite valuable she owns; the family beach house 5 hours away in Youth, California that Grace spent every summer at up until she was thirteen. It's written off to the girl in her will, proclaiming it should be taken care of by no one else but her favorite niece. With that news, Grace is setting off to the memorable place in her old baby blue truck, with just a bag of clothes, her ukulele and sketch book, and her lovable golden retriever, Sadie, at her side.
Youth was Grace's favorite place as a child, her favorite escape during the summer months and she had a feeling days spent strumming on the back porch and nights listening to waves crash against the shore could be a perfect start to finding herself again. However, she doesn't know what she's in for when she discovers a boy she once called her best friend many summers ago in his own family beach house next door. Daniel Seavey isn't the same scrawny boy she once knew, and gives Grace a unfamiliar feeling she can't put her finger on. Not to mention, he comes bearing four other boys who would debunk everything she thought she knew about people and life throughout the summer and quickly become her most favorite people in the world.
And as the time ticks down to Grace leaving for college in North Carolina, she's swept up in a whirlwind of late nights and adventures, aching hearts and timid love, friendships you only get once in a lifetime, and ultimately, the journey of finding herself.
