What if the last place you should fall in love is the first place that you
do?
You’d think getting sent to Turning Pines Wilderness Camp for a
month-long rehabilitation “retreat” and being forced to re-live it in this
journal would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
You’d be wrong.
There’s the reason I was sent to Turning Pines in the first place:
I got arrested. On prom night. With my two best friends, who I haven’t talked to
since and probably never will again. And then there’s the real reason I was sent
here. The thing I can’t talk about with the guy I can’t even think
about.
What if the moment you’ve closed yourself off is the moment you
start to break open?
But there’s this guy here. Ben. And the more I
swear he won’t—he can’t—the deeper under my skin he’s getting. After the thing
that happened, I promised I’d never fall for another boy’s
lies.
And yet I can’t help but wonder…what if?
“Disturbing and Beautiful…Get ready to be more than entertained. Get ready to
be changed.”- Katie Kacvinsky, Author of First Comes Love
“Raw, uncompromising…Draws the reader in with taut storytelling and complex,
original characters.” – Holly Goldberg Sloan, Author of I’ll Be There
Hello Friends,
Just a short post to let you know that TODAY is Dear Cassie’s release day. YAY!
This book, I can’t even. It is beautiful, funny, heartbreaking and filled with the awesomeness that is Cassie. I can’t wait to share it with you all.
As a special treat this week, I will send a signed bookplate and Pretty Amy bookmark to anyone who emails me at prettyamystories@yahoo.com with their address. This includes international!
If you want to have me inscribe a digital copy of the book, please link to the Authorgraph site below:
http://www.authorgraph.com/authors/LisaBurstein
As a special treat my editor posted as to why she acquired DEAR CASSIE, um I cried 😉
Acquiring a second novel from an author is very different from acquiring his or her debut. Whereas a debut is a blank slate to be molded as it will, a sophomore novel brings with it the expectations of the first and the pressure to do even better. So in many ways, it’s harder to sell a second novel than it can be to sell a first.
It wasn’t hard for me to decide to acquire Lisa Burstein’s second novel, Dear Cassie, which both works as a sequel to her debut Pretty Amy and as a stand-alone novel. And not only because Lisa’s found a loyal and vocal fan base for her writing. On a surface level, the book felt more romantic and relationship-based than Amy did, with Cassie’s tense and beautiful relationship with Ben at the forefront—always a plus in today’s teen market—but it also dealt with a ubiquitous teen issue that many teens find fascinating, explored a character many readers had already expressed wanting to know more about, and was formatted as an epistolary diary set at a unique “summer camp.” The fact that I got to edit out approximately three hundred f-bombs was an added bonus.
But I think what’s been the most gratifying about working on what is actually my third book with Lisa, including Pretty Amy and her New Adult companion novella, The Next Forever, is that each book of Lisa’s isn’t just a story—it’s an experience. Whether readers relate to these characters or not, whether they find them fascinating, horrifying, humorous, over-the-top, or even too close to real life, her stories make readers feel—discomfort, anticipation, sorrow, sympathy, empathy, disgust, delight, and oh so much more—and they make them talk. Which, with teen readers, can truly be a gift.
Happy f*cking book birthday to you, Cassie, and to Lisa!
Cassie can’t wait to make you laugh & cry. Ben can’t wait to make you swoon :). Enjoy!
Lisa Burstein 
Dear Cassie sounds so good. So sweet of you to do the bookplate and bookmark!
Dana