High school is hard for most people and for Chloe Miller, this is no exception. She is forced to learn the perils of her choices the hard way and the result leads her to building a steel wall around herself that is impossible to crack. Eventually, her mother loses her job and Chloe is then forced to move in with her cousin and their family. This means a new school and on the first day she arrives with a dynamite mission in mind. A mission to reclaim everything that she had once lost at the hands of others. She quickly finds herself fighting a past that she struggles to forget and creating a future that she can live with. It becomes a constant battle for her, centered around peer pressure, character stereo types, cliques and consequences. Couple that with the plight of falling in love and she finds herself playing a starring role in the game of life where everyone is playing for keeps. Will she win... or will she lose? Excerpt: Sauntering forwards, she slid onto his lap with all the grace of a prima ballerina and wrapped her long arms around his neck. Leaning in to his ear, she blew out a little puff of hot air so that it fanned lightly over all the right places. She felt a sense of utter satisfaction when he shuddered. Now that Chloe was certain that she had his attention, she whispered in his ear. “You may have been the best bucko, but guess what…..I’m going to be better.” She lifted up so that she could look him in the face and smiled confidently back at him. His previous cocky demeanor had seemed to have lost some of its earlier steam, “Who are you?” he asked so low that only Chloe could hear him. His forehead was creased as he searched her face, watching her as if she was some type of strange puzzle that needed to be solved. Chloe lifted her hand patted his cheek. The boy didn’t have a clue. “I, my friend, am your biggest adversary. So what do you say Mr. Player, won’t you play with me?”

Piper Smithson and Liam Nelson were best friends. That was when they were seven and eight years old. Since moving away from small town Lewisburg , Tennessee , Piper has gone on to bigger and better things in her young, teenage life. She's evolved from a stubborn, mean little girl into a kind and sympathetic teenager. Moving away from that hick town was the best thing that happened to her! Until Daddy loses his job and they have to move into their summer home--which, coincidentally is their old house in Lewisburg, that Piper had no idea about. Immediately, her old, stubborn 'tude is returning with news of the move and only worsens when she literally bumps into Liam, though she doesn't recognize him. He's arrogant, he's country, he has an annoying accent and says "y'all" and "ain't" all the time. He, on the other hand, falls right back into being friends with her, easily charming her. Underneath his arrogant, cowboy exterior there's something special. Piper just has to open her eyes and see beneath the surface to figure that out. She never claimed to be a fast learner, though. But there's a reason in everything. There's a reason Piper's father lost his job, and there was a reason he kept the old house. There was a reason Piper found Liam again.