In this powerful new novel by award-winning author Nicole Melleby, 12-year-old Winnie Nash is forced to live with her grandma for the summer and finds herself torn between her family’s secrets and the joy of celebrating Pride.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Nicole Melleby’s Winnie Nash Is Not Your Sunshine, which is out April 2nd 2024.
Winnifred “Winnie” Nash is not a senior citizen, despite what anyone thinks of her name. And she is definitely not excited to live with her grandma in New Jersey for the summer. Not only are they basically strangers, but Winnie—who’s always known she’s gay—has been pushed into the metaphorical closet by her parents, who worry what Grandma will think. So Winnie keeps quiet about the cute girls she befriends; plays card games with seniors, which she does not enjoy; and dreams of the day she can go to the Pride Parade in New York City—a day that can’t happen when she’s hiding the truth from Grandma.
Meanwhile, her mom’s latest pregnancy is approaching its due date, and Winnie is worried it might end like the ones before, with Winnie still an only child. As she tries so hard to be an agreeable, selfless daughter, getting to NYC for Pride is feeling more and more like her only escape from a family who needs her to always smile. Winnie Nash is not your sunshine—and maybe it’s time to show the world who she really is.
Chapter One
Winnie sat smack dab in the middle of a group of nosy senior citizens with a scowl on her face. They were discussing her name, instead of the book they were there for.
“It says Winnifred Nash. I just assumed she was one of us! Can you blame me?”
“You know what they say about assuming. You make an—”
“Shh! Watch your mouth around the child!”
“This is why I vote that she goes. I don’t want to have to censor myself. It’s really not fair, you know.”
“You don’t need to censor yourself,” Winnie chimed in, still scowling. “And are you going to keep talking about me or can we start this stupid book club and talk about the actual book.”
Winnie’s grandma would scold her for talking to them like that. But Winnie’s grandma was the reason she was here in the first place, was the reason for a lot of things weighing on Winnie’s chest, so, really, she didn’t care what her grandma wanted. Her grandma was currently in a heated game of canasta, which Winnie hated. Mostly because Winnie was terrible at it. But her grandma refused to let Winnie stay home alone—even though she was twelve, not five, and home was now her grandma’s house, which was literally across the street from the community clubhouse.
From three to four every weekday, Winnie’s grandma played canasta. So, from three to four every weekday, Winnie was forced to go with her.
Winnie’s dad both worried and worked around the clock, and her mom was working (causing her dad more worry) a lot lately, too. And since school was out for the summer, and Winnie didn’t have anything else to do, she was sent an hour away to stay with her grandmother, even though no one asked Winnie what she wanted to do. Her parents said they needed the time to “deal with some things.” Which meant Winnie’s grandma was left to deal with her, and vice versa.
“The clubhouse” sounded fancier than what it was. It was really just a scuffed-up and overused auditorium with some tables, a few couches, a ton of folding chairs, and a single unisex bathroom that smelled like a mix of Vicks VapoRub and peppermint and pee.
On her third visit to the clubhouse, after declaring canasta the worst card game ever!, Winnie had sulked in the corner, prepared to frown and wait in silence until it was time to cross the street back home. She’d been frowning a lot lately. Which was fine, because then Winnie’s mom could keep all the smiles for herself.
But on that third visit, while Winnie sulked in the corner, she shifted in an uncomfortable metal folding chair and managed to knock over a stack of books on the table next to her. She’d sighed, continued to frown, and picked up the books to restack them.
The cover of one was colorful and flowery and elegant. The kind of cover that ends up with an Oprah or Reese Witherspoon book club sticker on it.
Winnie figured it was probably some dumb romance. That was what old people read, wasn’t it? Something with a tall, dark, and handsome man. Winnie didn’t care much for tall, dark, and handsome men.
But she’d had an hour to kill.
And a dumb romance novel was better than canasta.
Which was why, after what turned into an hour and a half of waiting for her grandma to be ready to leave, Winnie had held on to the book. And she added her name to the Book Club Sign-Up Sheet.
Winnifred Maude Nash.
A fitting name for a senior citizen book club. Because of this, no one questioned it, until she’d shown up, tall but still twelve. The actual senior citizen members of the book club had no idea what to do with her.
“So?” Winnie spoke up. “Are we gonna talk about this book or not?”
The answer, apparently, was not, as they continued discussing (more like arguing about) her, right in front of her. Which, really, she was pretty used to ever since her mom had lost her smiles, which just made Winnie extra mad. She stood abruptly, uncomfortable folding chair screeching against the worn hardwood floor. “Fine. Whatever. The book was trash anyway.”
“You sit your butt right back down.” The white woman at the very edge of the semicircle pointed a bony finger in Winnie’s direction. She had fiery red hair Winnie assumed came from a box and gold-brown eyes that kind of clashed with it. “If you’re going to talk nonsense, you better at least be smart enough to explain yourself.”
“She probably didn’t read the entire book,” the old white man to Winnie’s left said, for about the thirtieth time. His posture was perfect—his legs crossed in front of him as he balanced the book on his knee. He had a funny little mustache that was perfectly white, even though the hair on his head was dark gray. “I’m here because you said this would be a serious book discussion. None of this seems very serious to me.”
“I’m serious,” Winnie said. She was the most serious. Her dad’s favorite joke was “Winnie doesn’t know how to laugh!” though she didn’t know why she was supposed to laugh at that anyway. Especially when her mom was finally laughing again, and Winnie figured her mom deserved to have all the laughter, and Winnie could save it all for her.
“She belongs to Maude,” the fiery redhead said.
“She’s helping her daughter and son-in-law out by keeping her for the summer.”
“What, are they too busy to take care of her themselves?”
“Is Maude even allowed to do that?”
“I do not belong to Maude,” Winnie said. “But it is true that she is my grandma.”
“Did you read the book?” the perfect posture man asked again.
Winnie wanted to kick him in his perfectly straight shins. “I read the book,” Winnie said. Again.
“Oh, just let her stay,” Jeanne Strong said, patting Winnie’s knee. Jeanne Strong was a tall Black woman who lived next door to Winnie’s grandma and purposely sat next to Winnie when she saw her. She had a broken wrist enclosed in a neon pink cast that she refused to let anyone sign. Even though almost every- one in the clubhouse had asked, as if they were the students in Winnie’s fifth grade class, who’d had the same excited reaction when Owen Coleman broke his arm last year.
Jeanne and Winnie’s grandma did not get along, but they did not get along in that polite way where they say nice things to each other, but really mean I hope you fall off the face of the earth, please.
When Winnie’s parents had dropped Winnie at her grandma’s, Jeanne was the first in the community to come over to greet them. She brought a lasagna. Winnie didn’t know what happened to that lasagna, but she knew for certain they never ate it.
Anyway, the hour was half over, and Winnie was having regrets. She’d grabbed the stupid book out of boredom and signed up for the book club to avoid canasta (and her grandma), but this wasn’t worth it. Nothing—not being dumped at her grandma’s, or her dad’s new job, or her mom’s returning smiles—seemed completely worth it yet.
Only, Winnie was stubborn enough to at least see this through. “I read the book,” Winnie said again, meeting her eyes straight on with Perfect Posture Man. “Did you?”
