In honor of Chapter-a-Week's 1000^th member (actually we're past 1020!) we're having a celebration. Sara Mills is our honoree 1000^th person to sign on—she hails from British Columbia and we're thrilled to send her a box of Chapter-a-Week's favorite new releases, including books by Traci DePree, Angie Hunt, Robin Lee Hatcher, Kim Sawyer, DeAnna Dodson, MaryLu Tyndall, Tamera Alexander, Hannah Alexander, Louise M. Gouge, DiAnn Mills, Camy Tang, Tricia Goyer and Judith Miller! You just never know what surprises will come your way with Chapter-a-Week. Congratulations, Sara! Let's keep spreading the word so others can discover new, great reads.

Sincerely,

The moderators of Chapter-a-Week

 

 

Leaving November                                                                     

(Howard Books/Simon & Schuster March 2008)

by Deborah Raney

 

 

     Daughter of the town drunk, Vienne Kenney has escaped Clayburn for law school in California. But after failing the bar exam—twice––she's back home with her tail between her legs, managing Latte-dah, the Clayburn café-turned-upscale-coffee-shop. Jackson Linder runs the art gallery across the street and Vienne has had her eye on him since she was a skinny seventh grader and he was the hunky high school lifeguard who didn't know she existed. Now it's his turn to fall for her and suddenly Clayburn seems like a pretty nice place to be...until Vienne discovers that Jack is fresh out of rehab and still struggling with the same addiction that ultimately killed her father. 

 

Chapter One

 

November

Vienne Kenney closed her eyes, inhaling familiar scents. Moldy books. Fresh shavings from the pencil sharpener. A bouquet of wilting chrysanthemums. The tick, tick, tick of the ancient grandfather clock in the library's main hall threatened to carry her straight back to her childhood.

The computer fan clicked on and its whirr rescued her, jolting her into the present—not that the Clayburn Public Library had changed one iota in the eight years since she'd moved away from this two-horse Kansas town. But the Internet was her lifeline, tethering her to California. To her future. Adrenaline surged through her veins as she clicked the mouse and scrolled down the Web page, scanning the list for the only name that mattered.

Her name had to be on that list. It had to be.

 One cautious letter at a time, she retyped her name into the search field and clicked again.

Nothing. There must be some mistake. Staring at the computer screen, her vision blurred and she fought to catch her breath.

She took a sip of lukewarm coffee from the travel mug she'd snuck in, then pushed it to the back of the book-cluttered desk. She'd agonized over this moment for three months, and now it was here. And if this official State of California-sanctioned Web site was up-to-date, she had good reason to agonize. The site supposedly verified the name of every person who passed the July bar exam.

So why wasn't her name showing up? She glanced at the connection icon on the screen. Maybe there was something wrong with the library's Internet service. Maybe the system was pulling up an old page from when she'd checked earlier today. That had to be it.

She typed in the URL again and entered her information hunt-and-peck style. The page refreshed­­––with the same results. She slid the ponytail holder from her hair and combed her fingers through the tangled mass of curls.

She couldn't have failed. Not a second time. A sick feeling settled in the hollow of her stomach. She'd lived through this humiliation once.

She massaged her temples in slow circles. She'd done everything right this time. Studied her heart out. Spent money she didn't have on a course that practically guaranteed her success at passing the bar. She'd been so confident….

How would she ever live it down if she'd flunked the bar exam again? Tens of thousands of dollars wasted on a law degree—money she'd spent grudgingly because of its source.

She lifted her head and stared at her cell phone lying on the desk beside the computer's mouse. Her mother would be calling any minute, expecting to celebrate good news. And Jenny, too. Her roommate had another semester to go, but Jenny was brilliant. She would pass easily. On her first try. Salt in the wound.

Vienne put her head in her hands. She'd probably be fired from her job the minute word got out. And if she knew Richard Spencer, he was probably online at this very moment back in California, checking the results to make sure her name was there. When he discovered it conspicuously absent, he'd no doubt call to offer consolation and a shoulder to cry on.

But he would fire her just the same.

A sour taste filled the back of her throat, and she washed it down with a sip of lukewarm coffee. At least she wouldn't have to walk in to work and face everyone Monday. But she couldn't stick around here either.

Mom probably had half of Coyote County praying for her. Since the day testing started in July, her name had no doubt been at the top of the prayer chain list at Community Christian, complete with all the gory details: Please pray God will bless my daughter, Vienne, with success as she takes the bar exam. This is especially important since she flunked—by a margin of quite a few points—the first time she took the exam.

Vienne gave a silent, humorless laugh. Ironic she would find her name on that dubious prayer list, and nowhere in sight on the list that mattered.

The walls of the library closed in on her. She started to push away from the desk. But something—some misguided sense of hope—compelled her back to the computer. She put her hand over the mouse again. Did this Podunk library even have the right software to display the page correctly?

A glimmer of optimism sparked in her. Maybe she'd just missed it. The page refreshed, and the ominous message appeared again: No names on the pass list match "Vienne Kenney." And this time she knew the truth. She'd failed. Again. Thirty years old and she would never be able to sign her name Vienne Renée Kenney, Attorney at Law.

Brinkerman & Associates had been forced to keep her on after the first time she'd failed. But without a license, they didn't have a position for her––at least not at a salary she could survive on. Not that she'd consider staying at the firm after this humiliation. And she would not take the test a third time. She'd wasted too many years and too much of her mother's money. Her father's money.

She shuddered. It was time to cut her losses, and move on. But the job market in Davis was pathetic. Besides, did she really want to face the chance, every day, that she might run into some well-meaning Brinkerman associate who'd feel obligated to pat her arm and tell her how sorry they were and how much they missed her and how was she doing? And was she taking the exam again, etc., etc., ad nauseam?

But where could she go now? She stared at a large painting hanging on the wall in front of her—a misty landscape of gnarled cottonwood trees and a green-watered river. It was probably supposed to be the Smoky Hill that Clayburn was built upon. It was a peaceful scene—and nicely done. But it was locus classicus Kansas. And she had shaken the dust of Clayburn off her feet when she left town the summer after high school graduation. The only dreams she'd ever entertained about returning involved thumbing her nose at this hick town and her so-called friends who had made her persona non grata when she needed them most.

 

ONLY UNI

By Camy Tang

 

Will Trish Sakai be able to follow her three simple rules and hold out against two gorgeous guys?

 

Trish Sakai is ready for a change from her wild, flirtatious behavior. And her three cousins are anxious for her to change, too. Trish is always knocking something over, knocking herself out, and taking hard knocks in her perpetual confusion about men.

 

When Trish's ex-boyfriend, Kazuo the artist, keeps popping up at all the wrong moments, Trish decides to be firm with herself. She creates three simple rules from First and Second Corinthians and plans to follow them to the letter. No more looking at men! No more dating non-Christians! She will persevere in hardship by relying on God.

 

Except now Kazuo is claiming Trish is his muse, and he can't complete his major work of art without her. And a gorgeous coworker is reassigned, bringing him in daily contact with Trish. But her cousins are determined to hold her accountable to her plan. She thought three rules would be a cinch, but suddenly Trish's simple rules don't seem so simple after all.

 

 

Chapter One

 

Trish Sakai walked through the door and the entire room hushed.

 

Well, not exactly pin-drop hushed. More like a handful of the several dozen people in her aunty's enormous living room paused their conversations to glance her way. Maybe Trish had simply expected them to laugh and point.

 

She shouldn't have worn white. She'd chosen the Bebe dress from her closet in a rebellious mood, which abandoned her at her aunt's doorstep. Maybe because the explosion of red, orange, or gold outfits made her head swim.

 

At least the expert cut of her dress made her rather average figure curvier and more slender at the same time. She loved how well-tailored clothes ensured she didn't have to work as hard to look good.

 

Trish kicked off her sandals, and they promptly disappeared in the sea of shoes filling the foyer. She swatted away a flimsy paper dragon drooping from the doorframe and smoothed down her skirt. She snatched her hand back and wrung her fingers behind her.

 

_No, that'll make your hips look huge._

 

She clenched her hands in front.

 

_Sure, show all the relatives that you're nervous._

 

She clasped them loosely at her waist and tried to adopt a regal expression.

 

"Trish, you okay? You look constipated."

 

Her cousin Bobby snickered while she sneered at him. "Oh, you're so funny I could puke."

 

"May as well do it now before Grandma gets here."

 

"She's not here yet?" Oops, that came out sounding a little too relieved. She cleared her throat and modulated her voice to less-than-ecstatic levels. "When's she coming?"

 

"Uncle picked her up, but he called Aunty and said Grandma forgot something, so he had to go back."

 

Thank goodness for little favors. "Is Lex here?"

 

"By the food."

 

Where else would she be? Last week, her cousin Lex had mentioned that her knee surgeon let her go back to playing volleyball three nights a week and coaching the other two nights, so her metabolism had revved up again. She would be eating like a horse.

 

Sometimes Trish could just kill her.

 

She tugged at her skirt—a little tight tonight. She should've had more self-control than to eat that birthday cake at work. She'd have to run an extra day this week … maybe.

 

She bounced like a pinball between relatives. The sharp scent of ginger grew more pungent as she headed toward the large airy kitchen. Aunty Sue must have made cold ginger chicken again. Mmmm. The smell mixed with the tang of black bean sauce (Aunty Rachel's shrimp?), stir-fried garlic (any dish Uncle Barry made contained at least two bulbs), and fishy scallions (probably her cousin Linda's Chinese-style sea bass).

 

A three-foot-tall red streak slammed into her and squashed her big toe.

 

"Ow!" Good thing the kid hadn't been wearing shoes or she might have broken her foot. Trish hopped backward and her hand fumbled with a low side table. Waxed paper and cornstarch slid under her fingers before the little table fell, dropping the _kagami mochi_ decoration. The sheet of printed paper, the tangerine, and rubbery-hard mochi dumplings dropped to the cream-colored carpet. Well, at least the cornstarch covering the mochi blended in.

 

The other relatives continued milling around her, oblivious to the minor desecration to the New Year's decoration. Thank goodness for small—

 

A childish gasp made her turn. The human bullet who caused the whole mess, her little cousin Allison, stood with a hand up to her round lips that were stained cherry-red, probably from the sherbet punch. Allison lifted wide brown eyes up to Trish—hanaokolele-you're-in-trouble—while the other hand pointed to the mochi on the floor.

 

Trish didn't buy it for a second. "Want to help?" She tried to infuse some leftover Christmas cheer into her voice.

 

Allison's disdainful look could have come from a teenager rather than a seven-year-old. "You made the mess."

 

Trish sighed as she bent to pick up the mochi rice dumplings—one large like a hockey puck, the other slightly smaller—and the _shihobeni_ paper they'd been sitting on. She wondered if the _shihobeni_ wouldn't protect the house from fires this next year since she'd dropped it.

 

"Aunty spent so long putting those together."

 

_Yeah, right._ "Is that so?" She laid the paper on the table so it draped off the edge, then stuck the waxed paper on top. She anchored them with the larger mochi.

 

"Since you busted it, does it mean that Aunty won't have any good luck this year?"

 

"It's just a tradition. The mochi doesn't really bring prosperity, and the tangerine only symbolizes the family generations." Trish tried to artfully stack the smaller mochi on top of the bottom one, but it wouldn't balance and kept dropping back onto the table.

 

"That's not what Aunty said."

 

"She's trying to pass on a New Year's tradition." The smaller mochi dropped to the floor again. "One day you'll have one of these in your own house." Trish picked up the mochi. Stupid Japanese New Year tradition. Last year, she'd glued hers together until Mom found out and brought a new set to her apartment, sans-glue. Trish wasn't even Shinto. Neither was anyone else in her family—most of them were Buddhists—but it was something they did because their family had always done it.

 

"No, I'm going to live at home and take care of Mommy."

 

Thank goodness, the kid finally switched topics. "That's wonderful." Trish tried to smash the tangerine on top of the teetering stack of mochi. Nope, not going to fly. "You're such a good daughter."

 

Allison sighed happily. "I am."

 

_Your ego's going to be too big for this living room, toots._ "Um … let's go to the kitchen." She crammed the tangerine on the mochi stack, then turned to hustle Allison away before she saw them fall back down onto the floor.

 

Taken from ONLY UNI, Copyright © 2008 by Camy Tang. Used by permission of Zondervan.

 

Camy Tang is the loud Asian chick who writes loud Asian chick lit. She used to be a biologist, but now she is a staff worker for her church youth group and leads a worship team for Sunday service. She also runs the Story Sensei fiction critique service. On her blog, she gives away Christian novels every Monday and Thursday, and she ponders frivolous things like dumb dogs (namely, hers), coffee-geek husbands (no resemblance to her own...), the writing journey, Asiana, and anything else that comes to mind. Visit her website at http://www.camytang.com/ for a huge website contest going on right now, giving away five boxes of books and 25 copies of her latest release, ONLY UNI.

 

Endorsements:

"SUSHI FOR ONE is an entertaining romp into the world of multi-culturalism. I loved learning the idiosyncrasies of Lex's crazy family—which are completely universal. Enjoy!" –Kristin Billerbeck, author of WHAT A GIRL WANTS

 

Look for SUSHI FOR ONE and ONLY UNI at your local bookstore, www.Amazon.com, www.Christianbook.com, or order an autographed copy at www.SignedByTheAuthor.com.