Excerpt and video: Jane Green, author of 'Summer Secrets'

Jane Green, author of Summer Secrets, joins us to share some insight into her June 23 release and an excerpt.

First, about the book (courtesy of St. Martin's Press):

With Summer Secrets Jane Green has reached an even deeper level of emotion that will stay with you long after you turn the last page...

Living in London in her twenties, Cat had it all--a great job and wonderful friends. But with the good came the bad--a party every night, wreaking havoc, and blackouts. When she discovers the father she never knew she had, living in Nantucket, it sends her into a spiral, costing her the new family she had desperately craved. The drinking had always been a constant evil in Cat's life. Now in her late thirties, sober, divorced from the love of her life, and trying to make up for lost time with her teenage daughter, she's ready to make amends to those she has hurt. But facing the past and the unthinkable act she committed one summer night could change the course of her life forever.

(If you can't see the video here, you can watch it on YouTube.)

EXCERPT

London, 1998

For as long as I can remember, I have always had the feeling of not quite fitting in, not being the same as everyone else.

I'm certain that is why I became a writer. Even as a toddler, at nursery school, junior school, I was friendly with everyone, without ever being part of the group. Standing on the outside, watching. Always watching. I noticed everything: how a sideways glance with narrowed eyes could say so much more than words ever could; how a whisper behind a delicate hand had the ability to destroy you for the week; how an outstretched hand from the right girl, at the right time, would see your heart soar for hours, sometimes days.

I knew I was different. The older I grew, the more that difference felt like inadequacy; I wasn't pretty enough, or thin enough, or simply enough. I couldn't have put words to it, certainly not when I was very young, other than looking at those tiny, perfect, popular girls and wanting, so desperately, to be on the inside, to be the girl that was always picked first for sports teams, rather than the one left until last.

When adolescence hit, I became the friend the boys all wanted to talk to, to confide in, to find out how they could possibly make my best friend, Olivia, interested in them.

I was such a good friend, even though I fell head over heels for every last one of them. Adam Barrett afforded me two months' worth of daydreams about how he would realize, as we were sitting on the floor in my bedroom, the Police playing on my record player in the background, that Olivia was not the answer to his dreams after all; he would suddenly notice the silkiness of my hair (always far silkier in my daydreams), the green of my eyes, the fullness of my mouth, as he woke up to the fact that I was so spectacularly beautiful (which I wasn't), how had he not noticed that before?

After Adam Barrett it was Danny Curran, then Rob Palliser, and of course, Ian Owens. None of my daydreams came true, and at fourteen I finally discovered a great way of easing the pain of all those unfulfilled dreams, those unfulfilled longings, those misplaced hopes.

Gary Scott was having a party at his house. It was a sleepover, the boys sleeping on one side of the giant loft, the girls on the other. Everyone was ridiculously excited, this being the first mixed sleepover. Looking back, I can't quite believe the parents allowed it, given the raging hormones of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old teenagers, but I suppose they thought we were good kids, or that they had it under control.

The parents were there, of course. They were having a small gathering of their own; the laughter of the grown-ups and the clinking of their glasses made its way over to us, at the back of the garden with a record player and a trestle table stocked with popcorn, plastic cups, and lemonade.

Ian Owens was my crush at the time. He had become my very good friend, naturally, in a bid to get close to Olivia, who was, on that night, standing under the tree with Paul Johnson, her head cocked to one side, her sheaf of newly highlighted blond hair hanging like a curtain of gold over her right shoulder, looking up at Paul with those spectacular blue eyes. Everyone in that garden knew it was only a matter of time before he kissed her.

Ian was devastated. I was sitting on the grass talking to him quietly, reassuring him, praying that I might be second choice, praying that he might lean his head toward mine, might brush my lips gently with his, spend the rest of the night holding me tightly in his arms.

"I took this," he said, gesturing to his side, where a bottle of vodka was nestling under his thigh.

"What? What do you mean, you took it? From where?"

"I found it in the garage. Don't worry, there's tons more. No one will notice. Want to?" He nodded his head in the shade of the trees, to a private corner where we wouldn't be seen.

Of course I wanted to. I would have done anything to keep Ian Owens by my side a little longer, to give him more time to change his mind about Olivia and fall in love with me.

I got up, brushing the pine needles from my jeans, aware that there was a damp patch from the grass. I was in my new 501s. Olivia and I bought them together and went back to her house to shrink them in the bath. Hers were tiny, and looked amazing when we were done, drainpiping down her legs. Mine flapped around my ankles like sails in the wind. I had a small waist but great big thighs, so I had to get a big size to fit, which meant they had to be clinched in at the waist with a tight belt and were huge all the way down.

I never looked the way I wanted to look in clothes. I had a new plaid shirt from Camden Market that I really liked, and had smudged black kohl underneath my eyes. Peering from beneath my new fringe—I had cut it two days ago—my eyes looked smoky and sultry, the green sparkling through the kohl. I liked the way I looked, which wasn't something that happened often.

Maybe tonight was going to be a first for me. Maybe Ian would like the way I looked too.

Find out more about Jane and her books at janegreen.com.

Copyright © 2015 by Jane Green