TAKE ME HOME

Overworked grad student Hazel Elliot doesn't do afters...

If the universe closes a door, she burns the whole place down and doesn't look back. But when she's summoned home for her semi-estranged father's Christmas Eve wedding, she must return to the small town of Lockett Prairie, Texas, for the first time since she fled for college. To make matters worse, she's reluctantly agreed to take Ash Campbell, high school nemesis and current chair thief at her regular study spot, along for the ride. While Hazel would love a snowstorm to prevent her from reaching West Texas, Ash is desperate to get home for the holidays to manage a family crisis.

Hazel's game plan: play the part of dutiful, easy-going daughter so convincingly even her father won't see that it's an act. Better to maintain the threadbare relationship than blow it up. She'll smile and survive the week's Christmas tree shopping, winter festivals, and forced bonding with his new family at all costs.

Ash's game plan: celebrate the holidays with his tighter-than-tight family, while convincing his proud parents that they need more help than they admit. He has no room on the agenda for Hazel and her own family drama.

But small towns lack hiding places, and even when Ash turns out to be a surprisingly good buffer, Hazel can't avoid the people or heartaches she boxed up and left behind years ago. Meanwhile, Ash must confront his role in his family, and his own buried feelings from the past.

Funny, emotionally true, and incredibly sexy, TAKE ME HOME is a brilliant upmarket debut that heralds a long and successful writing career to come.

Melanie Sweeney holds an MFA in fiction from New Mexico State University. Her work has appeared at Babble.com, as well as in several literary magazines, including Reunion: The Dallas Review, Rougarou, and Mom Egg Review. Her nonfiction chapbook, Birds as Leaves, was published in 2015 by The Lettered Streets Press in their Split Volume Series. TAKE ME HOME is her debut novel.