Hello, everyone!!! I've missed you!!! It's been quite awhile hasn't it? *sheepish grin* Life is busy and crazy wonderful but I've missed this community and outlet in my life. But I'm back today for a very special reason! One of my favorite authors, and someone I'm honored to call a friend, Shannen Crane Camp has brought me something exciting to share with you all: the cover to Keeping June, the 4th and final book in her June series!!!!!
My heart is a bundle of mixed emotions at this reveal. I am very excited to be so close to getting my hands on the final installment of this wonderful series....
...but despite if all, we are not here to cry, but celebrate this exciting release! And those of you who are already familiar with the June series know that Shannen has been blessed by the cover gods. Well let me tell you that Keeping June is no exception. :) So without further ado (because let's be honest, you'll just scroll through all the information if I delayed..) I present, in all her vintage, romantic beauty.........Keeping June!!
Isn't it beautiful?! *swoons from the happy feels* Now, for a little refresher & a special sneek peek!
The June books is a YA/LDS fiction series that follows June Laurie, actress and vintage romantic, in her journeys navigating life, acting and love. Filled with humor and romance these books explore what it means to find yourself and standards in a crazy world.
**for more detailed summaries, follow the Goodreads link for access to each individual book.
Shannen Crane Camp was born and raised in Southern California, where she developed a love of reading, writing, and anything having to do with film. After high school, she moved to Utah to attend Brigham Young University, where she received a degree in Media Arts and found herself a husband in fellow California native Josh Camp. The two now live in Utah with their miniature schnauzer Hemingway. Shannen's true love is Young Adult Fiction though she often dabbles in New Adult, Paranormal, and Mystery. She takes any opportunity to include her love of film and video games in her writing and you might just find a nerdy Easter Egg or two hidden in her works.
And now for even more excitement....a snippet of Keeping June that I got begged and pleaded Shannen to share. I hope you love it just as much as I do!!
My fingers were all prune-y from the amount of time I’d spent being sprayed by water on set that day. Even though it was a five minute scene, I’d ended up getting soaked for nearly three hours, and now my skin was rebelling by refusing to look normal. I sighed at the impossibility of ever looking normal after a day of shooting.
My cheeks were always bright red from scrubbing makeup off, my hair was usually a hard shell of over-hairsprayed 1950s curls, and my feet killed from walking around in heels on set all day. Luckily, everyone else looked about the same.
Stepping out of my trailer with a purse slung over my shoulder, I walked through the nearly dark studio lot to where Joseph would pick me up. Gran had finally given me the vintage red car of hers that I’d always wanted since I was officially getting married and she’d wanted it to be a wedding present. I’d offered to pay her for it a million times, but she absolutely refused. As a compromise, I told her I’d buy her a car, but she countered by saying that would defeat the purpose of a gift.
Still, in the end, we’d come to the understanding that I’d pay for at least half of the car so I wouldn’t feel so terrible about just taking it. And now the beautiful vehicle was mine. But the problem with an old car, was that is was an old car, which meant it broke down more than I’d like to admit. So while it was in the shop, Joseph was shuttling me around.
Looking down at my phone and sending Joseph a quick text to let him know I was on my way, my concentration was broken by Ryan, who had exited his own trailer at the same time as me,
“Please don’t be a text-walker,” Ryan joked with a little smile.
Things were definitely still weird between us, but I was glad that he at least made an effort to forget about all the drama that had happened in the past.
“For you, I’ll change my ways,” I promised, sticking my phone back in my purse and continuing the walk to the front of the studio.
Ryan walked with me in silence for a few minutes. I wasn’t sure if it was an awkward silence or not. I guess it all depended on what Ryan was thinking. Either way, I didn’t like it and felt like it needed to be broken up.
“So, did you get our wedding invitation in the mail?” I asked, realizing too late that I was breaking up a potentially awkward silence with definitely awkward conversation.
“Yeah, it was nice,” he said, looking at his feet as he walked and sticking his hands in his jacket pockets.
These were the classic Ryan-feels-awkward signs. I knew him well enough to know when he was uncomfortable.
“You can bring Dez,” I said, hoping this would be a nice olive branch for our friendship. There was no reason we couldn’t go back to being friends, no matter how cliché it sounded.
Ryan squinted his eyes for a moment, as if figuring out how to respond.
“Yeah,” he began slowly, sighing before continuing on. “I don’t think I’ll be going.”
“Oh,” I replied, deflated by this revelation.
“It’s nothing personal, it’s just… you know… a little weird still.”
Which made it personal. Not that I would point that out.
“Of course,” I agreed, trying to act like this didn’t hurt my feelings a little. “I just wanted you to know you were invited.”
“I appreciate it,” he said, looking up then over at me. “I think your ride is here.”
Following his line of sight I saw Joseph Cleveland, my childhood sweetheart and soon-to-be husband standing beside his old VW Bug and giving me the sideways smile that always made his brown eyes crinkle in the corners. As sad as I was that Ryan and I wouldn’t be best friends any time soon, somehow, seeing Joseph put my worries at ease.
I tried not to smile too much when I saw him. I didn’t need Joseph getting a big head or Ryan thinking I was trying to make things weird. Instead I just winked at him so that Ryan wouldn’t see.
It was difficult worrying about the feelings of your on-screen husband and your soon-to-be husband all the time.
“Hey Ryan,” Joseph said with a nod at the man who used to be his friend and was now… whatever they were.
“Good to see you,” Ryan responded. “Bye, June.”
And with that he was gone.
I waited for him to walk around the corner before I let the smile I’d been holding back break over my face.
“Joseph Cleveland, how gallant of you to come and rescue me when I was stranded without a car,” I said, trying to sound as dramatic as possible.
Joseph smiled and slid an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him.
“I must be pretty gallant then, because you never seem to have a working car.”
He leaned closer to me, touching my nose to his.
“I’m starting to think you sabotage all of my transportation just to prove that you’re a gentleman.”
“That wouldn’t be very gentlemanly,” he said, touching his lips to mine in a slow kiss.
I wished I could say that kissing Joseph was old hat by now and didn’t faze me in the slightest. But that would be a lie. It always felt like my stomach was dropping out from under me when he kissed me.
“You’re a gentleman,” I promised him as I pulled away with a ridiculous smile on my face.
He smiled back before shaking his head.
“I was about two seconds away from saying “Hey, thanks for being paid to kiss my fiancé all day, because that’s not awkward at all,” when I saw Ryan,” Joseph began. “Before I realized that nothing about that joke would be funny. It would just get really weird really fast and everyone would think I was secretly plotting to kill your TV husband.”
I made a face at this idea.
“Yeah, I’m glad your brain stopped that particular “joke” before it had the chance to escape,” I agreed. “It would just be like all the times Candice jokes about killing Lucas Leighton. We think she’s being funny but no one’s really sure.”
“I don’t think anyone is really unsure on that front. I think her hate for Lucas Leighton is pretty obvious.”
Shrugging my shoulders at the truthfulness of his statement, we got into the car and headed back toward Simi Valley, to the street we’d both grown up on our whole lives. The VW Bug, however, that usually smelled faintly of gasoline, now smelled like blueberries and my stomach growled at the warm sugary scent.
“What is that glorious smell?” I asked Joseph, closing my eyes and breathing in deeply.
“Oh, right,” he exclaimed, reaching behind him as he drove and producing a small round object from the back seat. “It’s a cup pie.”
I studied the small blueberry pie that fit in his palm and wondered if it was too cute to eat, or if my growling stomach would ignore its aesthetic appeal in favor of how amazing it smelled.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, taking the cup pie from him and inhaling the scent once more.
“I made it,” he answered, obviously proud of his accomplishment.
“Since when do you know how to make regular pies, let alone cup pies?”
“Since today, when my mom taught me after my classes.”
I looked over at my fiancé who always seemed to know that the way to my heart was through food and romantic gestures that often went hand in hand, and let out a small laugh.
“You just thought, “Hey, today is a good day to learn to bake pies”, did you?”
“We’re getting married soon, which means we’ll need to actually feed ourselves and if I’m only able to cook one meal for the rest of my life, I want it to be pie,” he explained.
“While I totally agree with the idea of eating pie forever, why are you the one who’s learning to cook. I’m the wife. Shouldn’t I be working on that particular aspect of our forthcoming domestication?”
Joseph nodded his head slowly, as if considering my words carefully.
“You’re right. I should probably go to my classes for six hours each day, then come home and sit around until you get home from a twelve hour work day, and then force you to cook me dinner, so that we can eat by midnight.”
“See, I know you’re being sweet right now, but I can see right through you,” I told him, taking a bite out of the cup pie, which actually turned out to be just as delicious as it looked. “You do get brownie points… or pie points, for wanting to make dinner since I work so late and not wanting me to be overwhelmed, but I know the real reason you want to cook, is because you don’t think I could learn to cook even if I wanted to.”
I was expecting Joseph to lie about his faith in my nonexistent cooking abilities, or at least to think about it for a minute, but he didn’t skip a beat in answering.
“I love you more than any boy has ever loved any girl,” he began sincerely. “But we’ll both be dead in a month if we try to eat your cooking.”
***************************************
And there you go! So cute. So wonderful. All the happy happy feels!! :) Thanks to Shannen for sharing that gem along with the gorgeous cover! The book is going to be fantastic. :) And now last but not least, here is the official synopsis for Keeping June. Make sure you all go check Shannen and her books out!
June Laurie has spent the better part of her young adult years in the Hollywood world of fame, envy, and rumors, and has managed to come out of it mostly unscathed. Now that she’s finally followed her heart and married her true love, she knows she’s found the perfect end to her story. But at twenty-two years old, it turns out her story is only beginning — and marriage, it seems, is more of an opening act than a finale. When fans of June’s television show start spreading online rumors about her faithfulness to her new husband and fabricating an off-set romance between her and her costar, she learns that even marriage offers no immunity from the gossip that always seems to haunt her. With complications in her personal and professional lives threatening to topple them both, will June be able to hold to her beliefs and her newfound happiness, even as what she thought was her perfect ending transforms into the challenges of reality that lurk beyond the fairytale?
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