Book One of the Always, Somehow Series
Sunny never chooses to leave the only home she's known. When her father's new job uproots their family, she enters middle school as the outsider - isolated, homesick, and counting the days until she can escape again.
Then she meets Charlie Harris.
Charlie is everything steady and familiar about this small town. What begins as a classroom friendship grows into first love - intense, tender, and all-consuming. With Charlie, Sunny feels seen for the first time since moving. He becomes her anchor, her first everything.
But when a surprise opportunity lands Sunny in a Broadway production, her world suddenly expands beyond town limits. Rehearsals, headlines, and new faces - including charismatic rising star Luke McIntyre - pull her into a life that feels bigger than the one she's known. As ambition and distance strain her relationship with Charlie, Sunny begins to question whether love is enough to keep two people moving in different directions together.
When an injury brings her home, she's forced to choose: the comfort of first love and familiar roots, or the uncertain promise of a future far beyond them.
Always, Somehow; Spread Apart is a coming-of-age story about first love, ambition, and the painful realization that sometimes growing up means growing apart.