BooksChatter: ☀ Every Big & Little Wish

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Every Big & Little Wish, a Young Adult Romance by E.C. Moore (22 October 2015, Booktrope Editions, 221 pages).

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below, as well as our Q&A with author Elizabeth Moore.
Read the first four chapters with Amazon Look Inside. Every Big & Little Wish is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

E.C. Moore will be awarding one paperback copy of Every Big & Little Wish by E.C. Moore (US/CAN) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

Synopsis | Teaser | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

Every Big and Little Wish, E.C. Moore’s young adult novel, opens in late spring 1970. Sixteen-year-old Jacy Wilbert’s Mom got promoted, so her parents sold their Victorian home in California and moved to a townhouse in Oregon.

Torn away from the only home she's ever known and forced to leave her beloved German shepherd behind, Jacy now feels misplaced. Exacerbating an already terrible situation, her dad runs off with the bombshell real estate agent who sold them their townhouse. And, just when it seems things can’t get any worse, her mom loses the stupid job they left California for in the first place. As her mother drowns her sorrows with pink wine night after night, Jacy’s caught in the middle, struggling to maintain a relationship with her AWOL dad while tolerating his annoying, much-younger girlfriend.

Missing old friends back in California, and feeling like an outsider, Jacy needs to build a new social life in a new school. Not the sort of girl to wait around for what she wants to come her way, she sets her sights on Neil Wilder, the best-looking boy around.

Everything changes when Jacy Wilbert knocks on the wrong door.

Teaser: Excerpt

new girl

     The day started off all wrong. I screamed like a lunatic but still my mother wouldn’t budge. The woman known to spring to life spontaneously at six a.m. without the help of an alarm clock was impossible to revive. Two empties sat on the nightstand. As of late, it wasn’t all that unusual for her to polish off one bottle of cheap bubbly while glued to a portable boob tube. But two set a record.
      I kind of understood why Mom got hammered on pink wine night after night. Clearly, Mrs. Imalush’s life had gone downhill at lightning speed. Drinking and watching variety shows helped her forget how she’d been dumped over the Christmas holidays when my father decided to run off with Brenda Morgan, the bombshell real estate agent who sold them our condo. Whenever Mom got tipsy she could ignore all her troubles. She wouldn’t gripe about losing the stupid job we left California to go to Oregon for, back in the fall of 1969, which felt like a hundred years ago but in truth was only a few months back. Under the influence, she never complained about Grandma Effie’s exhausting convalescence after heart surgery. I was forced to stay with my father and Miss Homewrecker in his love nest while my mother was down in Palm Springs taking care of Grandma, but that’s another story. No wonder Mom turned to booze for comfort. Her boss had the nerve to introduce her replacement, right in front of three other coworkers, in what used to be her private office. Talk about a crap-load of misery for one dinky woman.
      Sorry as I felt about Mom’s troubles, I needed a ride to school. So I stepped over the pool of dried barf on the shag carpet, took hold of her bony shoulders, and shook her as if she were a rag doll. One bloodshot eye fluttered open, and she mumbled something about me staying home for the day. But Mom had always been proud of my perfect attendance record, and if she’d been in her right mind she would never suggest I miss school. I gave up and tucked her back under the covers.
      If I rode the bus, I ran the risk of being labeled a loser. But I had no other choice.
      Lucky me, I had a seat to myself, a minor miracle. But then Cay Worth plopped down and forced me to scoot over. When the bus shuddered to a stop at the corner, she pointed at a dumpy house outside the window. “Neil Wilder, that new cutie from homeroom, he lives there. Hard to believe, isn’t it?” I marveled at the island of horribleness in an otherwise neat and tidy neighborhood. Neil Wilder sat behind me in homeroom because my last name happened to be Wilbert, and the seating order was all about how you fell in alphabetically. I usually avoided Cay Worth, but she had pinned me in. Miss Pushyandpesky was stoked to have my attention. Anxious to keep the momentum up, she said, “I saw Neil walking with Lindsey Hall yesterday. I think she’s prettier than Marcia from The Brady Bunch. Hey, Jacy, do you think Lindsey might’ve dumped that quarterback for Neil?”
      Lindsey Hall was the type of girl most other girls either love or hate. Soft-spoken but not shy, big smile but not horsey-mouthed, smart but not geeky, cleavage like a Playboy bunny as opposed to an average high school junior. She was undeniably enviable in every way. Her dad was an architect. Her mom was an ex-beauty queen. Lindsey Hall made me feel like a Sasquatch. “Oh, man, not her,” I lamented. “I didn’t think Neil would go for someone so preppy.”
      Lindsey Hall was the type of girl most other girls either love or hate. Soft-spoken but not shy, big smile but not horsey-mouthed, smart but not geeky, cleavage like a Playboy bunny as opposed to an average high school junior. She was undeniably enviable in every way. Her dad was an architect. Her mom was an ex-beauty queen. Lindsey Hall made me feel like a Sasquatch. “Oh, man, not her,” I lamented. “I didn’t think Neil would go for someone so preppy.”
      I nodded. I had to admit, the girl did have it made. Besides those God-given good looks, Lindsey drove a super-sporty Opel GT, a car you’d expect a secret agent, or a maybe some starlet to drive. My mother didn’t believe I should even try for a driver’s license, not until I was at least eighteen. Mom hadn’t gotten hers until she was twenty. Pathetic.
      The brakes squealed as the bus pulled alongside the curb. I ran up the aisle, flew down the steps, and took off like a rocket. I couldn’t afford to be seen walking with Cay Worth, a girl with stringy hair and scuffed-up vinyl boots. Back home in California, I’d lived in the same neighborhood and hung out with the same kids since forever. I had been well-known and well-liked. It was tough to be the new girl who continually had to prove herself. I did hang out with a pair of cousins from time to time, but I viewed Gail and Trish as nothing more than temporary stand-ins until I found some real friends. If any of the popular girls spotted me with mousy Cay Worth, I’d never be accepted.
      I asked around before class and was I ever relieved to find out Lindsey Hall was still going steady with her jock. The bell rang, but Neil Wilder’s chair remained conspicuously empty. He was often tardy, so I expected him to rush in anytime and beautify that orange seat with the backside of his raggedy Levi’s.
      When he didn’t, I formulated a radical plan. I would visit his house after school. I’d tell him I was a somewhat new student too. We had that much in common. If he slammed the door in my face, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. But honestly, I didn’t think he’d be mean. Even if Neil didn’t want to hang out, he’d let me down easy.
      I needed another tall guy to replace my ex-boyfriend, Peter Neilson. Peter was busy living the high life back home in Redley. He hadn’t wasted any time. I had no sooner left California when he decided to go after some cheerleader. I would stare at his new girlfriend’s preppy photo in my sophomore yearbook, and if I’d known any voodoo, I probably would’ve put a spell on that boyfriend-stealing Destiny Dutton. Peter’s gushy weekly letters had stopped abruptly. How can you profess your love, tell someone you’ll wait for them to turn eighteen so they can come back home and attend college with you, and then ditch them so easily? My dad had turned his back on my mom too. I had a hunch though— it would be impossible for the entire male species to be that heartless. Wouldn’t it?
      The more I thought about dropping in on Neil, the better I felt. A person who lived in such a rundown house wouldn’t feel superior. Surely, he’d have insecurities of his own. I knew about insecurity. You can’t be a girl, and barely two inches shy of six feet, and not be a little unsure of yourself. People liked to tell me I was too concerned about my height. They’d name fashion models as examples of how great it is to be tall. But I was stuck in real life, not in some glossy magazine.
      Being the only giant in my family didn’t help matters. The top of my father’s head barely reached my nose, and my mother was ridiculously short. I don’t slouch like some tall girls do because Mom saw to my perfect posture. I learned how to carry myself properly during Genevieve Cunningham’s etiquette course. Mom intended for me to be proud and to hold my head high. So every summer for two years running, I hung out in that stuffy classroom. I am grateful for my good posture. If you’re wondering, because everyone always asks, yes, we had to place an encyclopedia on top of our pointy-heads and walk around without letting it fall off. A feat harder to accomplish than you might imagine.
      But, I could’ve done without the lessons on how to set a proper table with way too much cutlery and crystal. I zoned out when we had to waltz with the geeky boys from the chess club across the hall. I most certainly didn’t buy into the notion that a proper young lady should never cross her legs. And forget taking the backseat and always letting males lead the way in conversation. I could never be so submissive. Women’s lib is not alive and well in Genevieve Cunningham’s classroom. Her curriculum is a throwback to the repressive ’50s. If that teacher had her way, all her students would grow up to be as coy and demure as Doris Day.

Every Big & Little Wish
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About the Author

When Elizabeth’s not writing feverishly, you will find her out walking or sightseeing. She’s crazy about coffee, books, cooking, good wine, cairn terriers, miniature ponies, historical houses, tapas, and witty people.

She resides in a fifties bungalow in Southern California, with her creative-director, hubba-hubba husband, a yappy blonde dog, and one feisty Chihuahua.

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