My book ROAD TRIPPING WITH PEARL NASH is officially out today!!! Gosh. I am, as always, both very excited and very very nervous! 😂😍 You would think after already having so many other books published, that I might not get quite this nervous every time, but I am starting to understand that FREAKING OUT is just my process and I guess a normal thing for me, haha. I am definitely both buzzing with excitement and a total mess, haha. 🥰
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But despite my buzzy nerves, mostly I am just feeling proud and happy that this little story I worked so hard on will be officially out in the world for people to read if they’d like to. It is a really special moment for me, and makes all that hard work worth it!❤️
Thank you to everyone who has already been so lovely about this story, sharing pictures and saying lovely things, I so appreciate you all for being so enthusiastic and amazing, and for championing books in general, and it really makes a huge difference to me (and other authors like me) at times like this, when I am battling my nerves, haha. You guys are the best, and I appreciate all the lovely support and encouragement SO MUCH!!! THANK YOU ALL :)❤️❤️❤️
It’s funny, I think in a lot of ways this story is my most personal yet, something I kind of didn’t notice myself when I was writing it. But when my husband started first reading it, he kept pointing out how much of these characters were drawn from real life!
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The protagonist Pearl wears braces and is a bit awkward and shy in certain social situations (my teens in a nutshell!), and she is a country girl who grew up rural (like I did too!).
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Pearl’s love interest in the book is Obi, who is more than a little bit inspired by Gus, which makes my husband very happy because, as he likes to point out to me often, Obi is described in the book as being very charming, popular and handsome, haha. My husband is very happy to think he inspired those bits! 😂
Here is a gorgeous illustration by talented artist @surphmespicy of the two main characters (Pearl and Obi) in ROAD TRIPPING WITH PEARL NASH.
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So from the picture you can probably guess that Pearl and Obi don’t exactly get along at the beginning of the novel, and there is plenty of petty bickering when they get stuck together in a van in the middle of the desert. 😂
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Here is a little about each character:
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PEARL is an awkward country girl (now living in the city), who is still struggling quite a lot with fitting in and making new friends. She reads romance novels, has a chaotic family, and is very uninterested in spending any more time with Obi than she has to!
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OBI is a bit of a golden boy at school. He’s obsessed with horror movies and Dune, is scared of everything, and feels quite confident that everyone loves him. And they mostly do, except for Pearl, of course. The two of them spend a LOT of their time bickering after being thrown together against their will when their best friends start dating.
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So throw in a road trip into the desert, a fancy-dress party in a beach shack, a breakdown, an AWOL nana, and a kiss that Pearl would rather pretend never happened, and you have ROAD TRIPPING WITH PEARL NASH.
