Today we are excited to share the cover reveal, along with an exclusive excerpt, for the contemporary YA novel Before & After You & Me by Dallas Woodburn, coming May 7th from Owl Hollow Press.
Woodburn’s debut novel The Best Week That Never Happened won the Grand Prize in the Dante Rossetti Book Award for Young Adult Fiction, and her follow-up Thanks, Carissa, For Ruining My Life captured hearts around the world. Now she’s back with an emotionally captivating, unforgettable story about first love, first heartbreak, and the fierce hope of starting over.
Tara K. Ross says, “Woodburn’s ingenious use of timelines and her powerful command of details puts her in league with the best of today’s contemporary YA authors.” Author Rebecca Bischoff agrees: “If it’s possible for a book to break your heart and mend it at the same time, Before & After You & Me does just that.”
Judging from this gorgeous cover and exclusive sneak peek, you’ll be eager to get your hands on Before & After You & Me in May!
For fans of Sarah Dessen and Jennifer Niven comes a breathtakingly original contemporary YA novel about love, grief, art, and the tiny choices that change our lives.
Emma blames herself when a freak accident at a pool party leaves Hunter, the town’s rising track star and her former boyfriend, paralyzed from the waist down. As she struggles with anxiety, loneliness and regret, she begins to obsessively paint portraits of legs and feet—Hunter’s legs and feet—and for the first time receives critical acclaim and notice for her artwork.
But what started as therapeutic for Emma ends up deepening her guilt. Does creating meaningful art require retreating inward toward self-expression, or striving outward toward recognition—or can it somehow be both?
Searching for one whole, authentic identity, Emma grapples with love, ambition, grief, homecoming, and—ultimately—redemption.
EXCERPT
It happens at a party.
The week before Christmas. Robbie Zwick’s house. A cloudy California night absent of stars.
In the months to come, I will examine and reexamine my memory of this night, trying to find the exact moment the party veered off course. Because at some point—some moment before The Moment—there must have been a fork in the road, like in that famous Robert Frost poem we read in freshman English class, and somehow this party took the wrong path. And that made all the difference.
I cling to this belief, because it means that somewhere out there, in some other universe, this party took the other path—the right path—the one leading to normal and expected outcomes. In some other universe, another version of me had cheap wine spilled on her shoes, woke up with a dull hangover, and met other-universe Céline for coffee the next morning to compare and dissect every ordinary detail.
But in this universe, the party routed itself toward nightmare. Again and again, the moment that sticks out in my memory is this: someone had the idea to go skinny-dipping. That moment changed everything. That moment ruptured my normal, average life.
And Hunter’s life too, of course. Hunter’s most of all.
Nobody except me will remember whose idea it was to go skinny-dipping in Robbie’s bright blue pool.
The reason I remember?
It was my idea.
Before & After You & Me will be released May 7, 2024. Don’t forget to add it to your Goodreads “want to read” shelf! You can connect with the author on Instagram, Facebook and at her website.
Thank you so much, Tami! <3 Ahh I can't wait to share it with you!
Hooked already. Can’t wait to read it!
I can’t wait to read this book. If it’s anything like The Best Week That Never Happened it’s going to be absolutely heartbreakingly beautiful.