Worst-Kept Secret

No one wants to move back home at twenty-six—especially not Charlie Michaelsen, and *especially* not if it means dealing with her overbearing sister, not to mention confronting six years’ worth of unresolved grief over her dad’s death. But when reclaiming her childhood bedroom coincides with reconnecting with her long-lost high-school sweetheart, it feels like a sign. Next door, Wade Hunter has moved home, too. Charlie hasn’t seen her neighbor since he was an awkward tween, still using the shared treehouse that had defined her own childhood. Now he’s back, a nineteen-year-old college student with secrets of his own—and embarrassingly gorgeous to boot. As her ex-boyfriend frustrates her—are they just friends with benefits?—Charlie turns more and more to the kid next door. Along the way their running dates and casual conversations give way to something that feels like anything but “just friends.” Simple lust? That's the easy answer. But maybe there’s a deeper reason why the only person Charlie can talk to—and be real with—is the teenaged boy next door. WORST-KEPT SECRET is a sexy, poignant tale about love, grief, family, and childhood... and how sometimes going home means growing up.

Print edition of Worst-Kept Secret: $10.99 Sienna Cash grew up in the suburbs of Boston and lives in Colorado with her family. The idea for her first novel, WORST-KEPT SECRET, and its pivotal scene came to her in a dream, but it had nothing to do with a meadow or vampires. She has never had a treehouse like the one that figures so prominently in WORST-KEPT SECRET, but she still wants one. Even though her first novel is for adults, she loves young-adult romances and thinks Stephanie Perkins is the bomb. Sienna wrote WORST-KEPT SECRET for people who are in love with love--the nostalgic kind, the heartbreaking kind, the blindsiding kind, and the keep-it-real kind. She is currently working on the sequel to WORST-KEPT SECRET, due for publication in 2017.

Worst Kept Secret is solid New Adult fiction at its best: Layered characters, a plot that keeps you guessing, and some seriously delicious heat. The writing is stellar, and while it has a full complement of characters, even those playing minor roles are REAL PEOPLE.

Confronting everything from family history and tensions, through to the roles we play for our oldest friends, WORST KEPT SECRET does what so few books in this category manage: It makes you think about yourself, and those closest to you. Honestly.

Oh, you'll get your sexy, and your funny, and great eye-candy. But at its heart this isn't a story you escape into, so much as the story you kind of want to hear in the busy diner at lunch when your best friend has just shown up after being AWOL for two months.

Be warned, this first installment asks more questions than it answers, but Lord be praised, there are no cliffhanger endings here. You'll be salivating for the sequel, but primarily because you'll want to see the delicious Wade with his shirt off again.

A very solid five stars. I'll be eagerly looking for more from Cash.

-Aimee Salter, author of EVERY UGLY WORD and DARK TOUCH (Alloy Entertainment)