Penny adores her best friend Rodney. He’s always there for her, and she knows they’d be the perfect couple—except that they’re still in high school, and she’s watched too many friends go through painful breakups. Besides, Penny has bigger things to worry about—like her mother, who desperately wants to have more children. After an endless string of miscarriages and failed adoptions, Penny’s mother is ready to give up hope. But Penny has the perfect plan: if she gets pregnant, she can give her mother the baby she’s always wanted. Penny’s sure this is the right thing to do, but only after she sets her plan in motion does she realize that sex will change her relationship with Rodney—in ways that she never expected. And the more she tries to fix things for her mother, the more she risks losing everything she wants for herself. All Penny wants is for the people she loves to be happy. So why isn’t anything going the way that she planned?
Janci Patterson is the author of two other contemporary young adult novels: Everything's Fine, which won the Utah Arts Council award for Best Young Adult Novel in 2007, and Chasing the Skip, which was released by Christy Ottaviano books in 2012. For more about Janci, visit her online at jancipatterson.com.