You Are My Only: a small excerpt

Because I finished working through the last of the copy edits of You Are My Only this week, and because I have lately been hearing from a few early readers (and I thank them from the bottom of my heart), and because this photograph reminds me of Autumn, one of my characters, it occurred to me to post this small excerpt from the book, due out from Egmont USA in October.

I hear the creak of a bed. I hear another blow of giggles. Finally Granger walks to the curtain and snaps it back, and there Autumn is, standing on her own thin cot in a gray T-shirt and a red puff skirt, throwing a ridiculous curtsy. Through the small round of the window behind her, the sun comes in and where it hits her hair, there’s a burst of yellow orange.

“What happened to you?” she asks me.

“Be nice,” Bettina tells her.

“It’s a question,” Autumn says, “is all.” And now she curtsies again, pinches the red puff up into her skinny fingers, cracks her legs at her knees, and says, her voice gone solemn, “Welcome to State.”