1
TAYLOR
Exactly how smallisthis small town?
The question starts as just a whisper in my mind as I drive out of the city and into miles of suburbs, heading for Angel Mountain, Pennsylvania.
At first, I’m passing nice apartment buildings and townhomes packed in tightly between gas stations and shops. Then those melt into brick cape cods and colonials, which eventually spread out into manicured golf courses and subdivisions of sprawling McMansions.
But I’m not even close yet, so I just keep driving.
After a while, the houses thin out and the trees start to push in closer on either side, like the forest wants to take the road back, and the long, straight stretches of asphalt start to wind and climb.
By the time the sun starts to sink, my little MG is hugging the curves of a serious mountain without ahouse in sight, and the question in my head is louder and more urgent.
How small a town can this be?
The answer doesn’t matter. I’m out of choices.
Well. I haveonemore option, but I’m not that desperate.
Yet.
Sure, I’ve been humiliated and publicly fired, and now I appear to be moving to some kind of ghost town in the Pocono Mountains.
But it’s still better than being an accountant.
A pang of guilt squeezes my heart at that thought. My dad is an accountant, and he runs what he always hoped would be a family firm. Dadlovescrunching numbers and solving tax and finance dilemmas. He’d be thrilled if I gave up and moved home to use thesensible degreehe and Mom made me get.
The accounting degree was for them, but I actually double-majored with English, so I could pursue my real dream—finding the next great story.
Stories have been pretty much my whole world just about as long as I can remember. Most of my friends spent their summers at camp or working at the ice cream shack, or maybe doing sports or traveling.
I spent mine at the library.
In my opinion, there’s nothing better than treasure-hunting your way through an endless pile of books. Of course, there were hundreds that I read and loved. But the real fun was in that zap of electricity I felt onlythree or four times, opening the cover to find a story that sent a tingle straight up my spine from the very first sentence, and pulled me in like a riptide.
Wow.
Those are the books that change you, and sometimes, they’re the ones that are capable of capturing the imagination of the whole world, if they appear at the right time.
When I found out that discovering new authors and getting their stories out in the world was an actual job, I was enchanted. Years of accidental practice made me sure that I was destined to work in the publishing industry and find just the right book for the next generation of kids to grow up on.
When I landed an internship right out of college, I instantly knew I was in the right place. I would come in early every morning, the only intern at our tiny publishing house who was excited to attack the slush pile.
I didn’t resent starting at the bottom, and I was thrilled when I quickly moved up the ranks until I was just one promotion away from being in the power seat to do what I had always wanted to do—choose and commission manuscripts for publication myself.
The day I finally got that promotion to commissioning editor was the happiest day of my life. All my dreams were coming true. I was eager to discover the next great, generation-changing young adult novel.
But I guess I was a little too eager.
Anyway, there’s no use thinking about it now. I burned all my bridges and that’s that.
The tiny bookstore I’m headed to tonight is my lifeline. I might not get to discover the next great story, but at least I’ll live a life surrounded by books and book lovers, even if it’s in a remote mountain town.
I turn the radio on for company, and to keep my thoughts out of the past.
“Snow is coming,”the deejay chirps happily. “Let’s kick things off this hour with something to suit the occasion.”
