Authors: Jackie Lea Sommers

Truest (27 page)

acknowledgments

Thank you to Jesus Christ, for rescuing me twice and dailyâand for making me a writer.

I'm forever indebted to my amazing agent, Steven Chudney, who plucked
Truest
out of obscurity and gave it a chance. And to my phenomenal editor, Jill Davis, who championed my story and its characters from the moment she met them. Jill, you pushed me past the brink of my own talent and made this novel more than I could have ever imagined. Thank you too to Laurel Symonds for so much help along the way, and to everyone at Katherine Tegen Books and HarperCollins, including Kelsey Horton, Lauren Flower, Ro Romanello, and Alana Whitman. Thank you to Jenna Stempel for the beautiful jacket and to Alexei Esikoff for her careful copyedits and proofreading.

I'm inexplicably grateful to my beta readers: Stacey Anderson, Elyse Kallgren, Tracy Lair, Rachel Larson, Megan Rapp, Mary Roach, Brienna and Melody Rossiter, and Ashley Thorman.

Truest
would not be the story it is without Cindy Woerner and Kristin Luehr. You two helped so tremendously that Iâwho am rarely without wordsâhave none with which to truly express my gratitude. There's a reason this book is dedicated to you.

Thank you to my parents, Tom and Ronda Sommers, who never batted an eye when I said I wanted to be a writer! Dad and Mom, your support means the world to me. And thank you to Kristin and Kevin, my siblings, for everything: the stories, the laughs, the prayers.

I'm so grateful for my friendsâmy
team
âfor being my sanity, my backbone, my sounding board, and for giving me a tether from our friendships into plenty of space to write. My team includes many of those whose names I've already listed, along with Erica Davis, Desiree Anderson, Brittane Turner, Jessica Willman, Brooke Jameson, Caitlin Leimbach, Dora Von Wald, Chelsea Pederson, and my Voye “sisters,” Emily, Rachel, and Abby.

Thank you to my Northwestern friends for celebrating every step with meâespecially Josh Wielgus, Erick Klein, and my “Think Tank” peeps, Matt Anderson, Steve Mattson, Whitney Gerdes, and Sam Fredin. Kyle and Janine Marxhausen, you were two of my biggest encouragers on this crazy journey. Robyn Frank was my prayer warrior, which got me through some anxious weeks. Judy Hougen, Betsy Grams, and Deb Schmidt, you cultivated my love for words and stories, and I'm forever indebted to you.

And, finally, thank you to everyone who reads this novel. It's a gift from my heart to yours.

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About the Author

Photo by W.Daberkow Photography

JACKIE LEA SOMMERS
lives and writes in Minnesota, where the people are nice and the o's are long. Like West, Jackie grew up in a small town with few secrets, but now she makes her home in the Twin Cities, where she lives more anonymously with all her book boyfriends. She is the 2013 winner of the Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult Writing.
Truest
is her first novel.

www.jackieleasommers.com

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

Credits

Cover design and lettering by Jenna Stempel

Copyright

“since feeling is first.” Copyright 1926, 1954, Â© 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust. Copyright Â© 1985 by George James Firmage, from
Complete Poems: 1904â1962
by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Excerpt from “The First Dream” from
The Art of Drowning
, by Billy Collins, Â© 1995. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Excerpt from “somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond” from
ViVa
by E.E. Cummings. Reissued in Liveright paperback 1997. Copyright Â© 1931, 1959 by E. E. Cummings Copyright Â© 1979, 1973 by Nancy T. Andrews Copyright Â© 1979, 1973 by George James Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

TRUEST
. Copyright Â© 2015 by Jackie Lea Sommers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.epicreads.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sommers, Jackie Lea.

Truest / Jackie Lea Sommers. â First edition.

pages cm

Summary: “Westlin Beck's summer is turned upside down when the Hart twins move to town: aggravating, intriguing, and quirky Silas and his mysteriously ill sister, Laurel”â Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-06-234825-8 (hardback)

EPub Edition Â© August 2015 ISBN 9780062348272

[1. FriendshipâFiction. 2. TwinsâFiction. 3. Brothers and sistersâFiction. 4. SickâFiction. 5. Family lifeâMinnesotaâFiction. 6. MinnesotaâFiction.] I. Title.

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