About YA Romance Novel Kissing Frogs.

SUMMER CONSTELLATIONS

Julia Ducharme is ready for a fresh start. Her little brother has finally recovered from a serious illness, and now she just wants to enjoy peak season at the campground her family owns. Maybe this will be the year her annual summer fling with Dan Schaeffer becomes something more?

But her summer dreams are quickly shattered. First, Dan arrives for vacation with a new girlfriend in tow, and then Julia discovers this may be her last summer in the only home she’s ever known.

Crushing medical bills have brought her single mom to the brink of bankruptcy, and a wealthy developer is sniffing around the campground. He sees what Julia sees: lush woods, a pristine lake, miles of trails for adventure. Unlike Julia, he thinks this is the perfect spot for a casino resort.

Heartbroken and afraid, Julia looks to the stars for some perspective. Taking her telescope down to the dock one night, she has a chance encounter with a guitar-playing boy who offers some helpful advice. Too bad this handsome stranger is the developer’s son, Nick Constantine.

As plans for a resort move forward, Julia is desperate to find a solution that doesn’t mean leaving the lake. Nick, in turn, is desperate to separate himself from his father’s aggressive business tactics. He promises that, together, they can thwart the sale.

But can Julia trust him to conspire against his own father? And could she ever she trust him with her heart?

SUMMER CONSTELLATIONS is a story of lost summers, hidden treasure and love written in the stars. It is also a thoughtful reflection on what it means to love — and leave — one’s childhood home.

Summer Constellations Readers’ Guide

CCBC’s Best Books for Teens
NERFA Finalist – YA Category (US/CAN)
German Rights to Ravensburger
12 and up

Reviews

… a fairy-tale romance …―Booklist Online

A pleasant coming-of-age story for fans of teen romance.―Kirkus Reviews

… a fast-paced, humorous and romantic story, with realistic dialogue and a cast of interesting and relatable characters.―School Library Journal

… a classic, steamy summer romance that young teen girls will love.―CM Magazine

… this fast-moving summer romance will interest mature intermediate readers …―Resource Links

KISSING FROGS

Popular party girl and high school senior Jessica Stone has a secret: she used to be a nerd — a big one; a goody two-shoes, grade-skipping, all-state spelling bee champ. But she lost the braces, put on some contacts, and applied all her academic genius to studying and imitating the social elite. Now she rules the school from the upper echelon of the high school realm. With her cool new friends and hottest-guy-in-school boyfriend, life’s a beach — and that’s where she’s headed for Spring Break. That is, until her teacher breaks the bad news that she’s failing Biology — and her only chance to make up the grade is to throw away the culminating trip of her hard-earned popularity and join the Conservation Club in Panama to save the Golden Frog.

Unable to let go of her faded college dreams, Jess finds herself in a foreign country with a new social crew, and one handsome face that stands out as a blast from the past, threatening to ruin her queen bee reputation. Travis Henley may have grown up, but he still likes to play childish games and as payment for retrieving Jess’ lost ring from the bottom of a jungle pool, he wants three dates.

While Jess does battle with spiders, snakes, wildfires and smart mean girls, she desperately tries to hang on to the last vestiges of her popular existence like the Golden Frog from its webbed toe. But as she starts to care about something more than tanning and texting – a species on the verge of disappearing forever – she may realize the worth of her inner nerd, and the one frog in particular that could be her prince in disguise.

Set in the lush and tropical El Valle de Anton, this modern fairytale re-imagining of “The Frog Prince” is toe-curling contemporary romance with an environmentalist heartbeat, in the tradition of Stephanie Perkins.

Kissing Frogs Readers’ Guide

Featured in Quill & Quire Books of the Year Issue
Contemporary Romance
Modern re-telling of Frog Prince fairy-tale
Features environmental and conservation themes, STEM, bullying, and being true to yourself
Ages 9 and up

Reviews

“The environmentalist storyline runs throughout the novel, and the beautiful location is described in such vivid detail that it feels like another character in the story. But what’s most entertaining is how Sevigny balances an eco-conscious story about saving amphibians with a reminder that, sometimes, you have to kiss a lot of “frogs” before finding your prince…These are the kind of teen characters you want to root for and can identify with; they’re not heroes like The Hunger Games’ Katniss or wise beyond their years like Hazel Grace in The Fault in Our Stars. Their ordinariness is refreshing in a genre that is often fighting to make characters unnecessarily extraordinary.” – Quill and Quire

“The conservation theme really differentiates Kissing Frogs from all the other cute, bubbly romances out there. I have to give Alisha Sevigny credit for raising awareness about the plight of endangered species in general and Panama’s Golden Frog in particular. She made me care about the animals and want to make a difference without ever making me feel pressured or guilty… If you’re already planning your summer vacation and are looking for a book to take along to the beach, you can’t go wrong with Kissing Frogs. You’ll smile, you’ll laugh, and you’ll certainly want to save some endangered species.” – Angela’s Library

I bought and read this book totally because of the environmental tie-in. I’d been looking for a YA environmental book that didn’t fall into the climate fiction category. In YA those books are usually about a human-made environmental disaster and a woe-is-us aftermath. This is a YA romance with an environmental setting and secondary story line. The author did a good job of avoiding the environmental YA cliches of “Let’s save a species!” or “We young people must save the world from adults!” I very much like the idea of connecting environmental material with a mainstream genre. This is the first time I can recall seeing anyone do it. – Gail Gauthier, Children’s Book Blogger