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Seventeen-year-old ballerina Emilia Moretti is tired of always being second best. And she’s going to prove the world she deserves to be first. In her upcoming School of the Performing Arts showcase. In the eyes of her birth parents. And in the heart of the guy she loves. She spends hours rehearsing, hours dreaming about becoming number one, hours imagining how her entire life is about to change. But when nothing goes the way she planned, she’ll need to realize what it really means to be first.
Eighteen-year-old Nick Grawski doesn’t want to follow Daddy Dearest’s rules any longer. He's going to prove he's meant to be a dancer—not a lawyer—and he is not going to stay away from Em just because his father demands it. He needs to show Em that—this time around—he’s there to stay and that he won’t break her heart again. Even when her world goes down to shit, even when he finds out his dad may have been trying to protect him all along, even if being there for one another is harder than falling in love.
ALWAYS SECOND BEST is a novel of hope and heartbreak and broken dreams. It’s a novel about falling in love and discovering that being first isn’t always what matters.
Always Second Best was released on October 13th. It was a "new hot release" in the teen dance fiction category.
CHAPTER 1 – EM
I SHOULD HAVE STAYED at the School of Performing Arts this weekend. I should have spent more time rehearsing for our big end-of-the-year showcase audition. I should have repeated each movement until I reached perfection…
I’m never going to be ready.
My throat tightens. I need more hours, more days, more time.
“Do you want more lasagna?” my grandmother—Nonna—asks. Her gray hair is cut short and even though the lines on her face are getting more pronounced, even though she’s pale and thinner, even though she gets tired more easily, her smile is still the brightest in all of New York. “Or maybe more salad?” She mixes the tomato mozzarella salad again. She grows the basil herself, and believes that she could have an entire menu using only recipes with basil, like pesto steaks, or basil sorbet.
“A bit more salad, please.” I hand her my plate. Nonna’s restaurant is usually bright and full of laughter and people and waiters trying not to run into one another, but tonight it’s only her and me. Nonna opens the restaurant for lunch on Sundays and keeps her evening free.
“There you go.” She sips her water. “Your father was so cute when he was little. That day he brought me a bouquet with roses from our garden, I didn’t have the heart to tell him he shouldn’t have cut them. Instead, I made sure to put one in his baby book,” she says and then inhales deeply as if trying to catch her breath. She smooths the red tablecloth on our small table. She called tonight a “grandmother-granddaughter” date night, setting up candles and even putting some Italian music on in the background.
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French
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Already translated.
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