New Author on My Favorites List - Emery Lord

image from Emery's website

I adored Emery Lord's debut novel, Open Road Summer, and was thrilled to hear she had a second book coming. I was even more thrilled when I was asked for my address to have an early copy of The Start of Me and You sent to me. I adored Emery's second book also, and even though it's very different in feel, it maintains that same lyrical beauty to the writing that I was enamored with in her first book. And I love the gorgeousness of her books covers. Emery Lord is, without a doubt, a new author on my favorites list. If you haven't read her books yet, what are you waiting for? You can read the synopsis and my thoughts for each of them below.

Title: OPEN ROAD SUMMER
Release Date: April 15, 2014
Number of Pages: 352
Source of Book: ARC from Publisher (Thanks Bloomsbury!)

After breaking up with her bad-news boyfriend, Reagan O’Neill is ready to leave her rebellious ways behind. . . and her best friend, country superstar Lilah Montgomery, is nursing a broken heart of her own. Fortunately, Lilah’s 24-city tour is about to kick off, offering a perfect opportunity for a girls-only summer of break-up ballads and healing hearts. But when Matt Finch joins the tour as its opening act, his boy-next-door charm proves difficult for Reagan to resist, despite her vow to live a drama-free existence. This summer, Reagan and Lilah will navigate the ups and downs of fame and friendship as they come to see that giving your heart to the right person is always a risk worth taking. A fresh new voice in contemporary romance, Emery Lord’s gorgeous writing hits all the right notes.

Love this book so, so much! Read it in one day because I couldn't stop until I knew how it ended. It's a special book...well-written, honest characters, sass, romance, music, and heart.


Title: THE START OF ME AND YOU
Release Date: March 31, 2015
Number of Pages:
Source of Book: ARC from Publisher (Thanks Bloomsbury!)

Following her pitch-perfect debut Open Road Summer, Emery Lord pens another gorgeous story of best friends, new love & second chances.
       It’s been a year since it happened—when Paige Hancock’s first boyfriend died in an accident. After shutting out the world for a year, Paige is finally ready for a second chance at high school . . . and she has a plan. First: Get her old crush, Ryan Chase, to date her—the perfect way to convince everyone she’s back to normal. Next: Join a club—simple, it’s high school after all. But when Ryan’s sweet, nerdy cousin, Max, moves to town and recruits Paige for the Quiz Bowl team (of all things!) her perfect plan is thrown for a serious loop. Will Paige be able to face her fears and finally open herself up to the life she was meant to live?
       Brimming with heartfelt relationships and authentic high-school dynamics The Start of Me and You proves that it’s never too late for second chances.

I am so in love with Emery Lord's books! Her writing is beautiful, her stories are quietly powerful, and they are so full of honesty and truth and hope that they make me want to be better. Hope for relationships, hope for the future, hope for teens just starting to figure themselves out. I adored Open Road Summer and immediately knew that I had found a new author to add to my favorites/must-buy list, and although The Start of Me and You is very different, it solidified for me that I was right on that first assessment of Emery Lord's potential as an author of contemporary realistic stories with sweet romances and the importance of friendships and family. Here stories are character-driven, and the characters are done so well. The Start of You and Me has elements to character that are so deftly layered in Lord's hands that I felt as if these characters were my own friends. There is such a realness to her character building that the issues and circumstances of her characters resonate with the reader. The Start of Me and You resonates with elements of grief, divorce, siblings, family suffering with Alzheimers, friendships, crushes, dreams for the future, going for what you want, not seeing the person right in front of you, and pushing yourself to be the best you. What I adore about Emery Lord's stories is that they aren't just about the boy-the boy is there, but it's about the girl figuring herself out first before being ready for a boy. And it's about a great, nice boy-the kind that you would want the girls you care about to end up with. Beyond the nice guys, Emery Lord writes wonderful girl friendships in a way that makes me want to buy her books for my best friends, and hand them to my students to see what supportive girl friendships are really all about. I can't wait to see what Lord will write next, but in the meantime, I'll be recommending this book (and her last one) over and over again!


And I absolutely can't wait for Emery Lord's next book, When We Collided, coming from Bloomsbury in 2016. She is for sure a new author on my favorites list which makes her an automatic must-buy for any new books she writes.