Title: Love Like Sky
Author: Leslie C. Youngblood
Pub. Date: November 6, 2018
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Pages: 304
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, iBooks, TBD
“Brims with charm and compassion.”
—Vashti Harrison, New York Times best-selling author of Little Leaders
Synopsis:
Title: Love Like Sky
Author: Leslie C. Youngblood
Pub. Date: November 6, 2018
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Pages: 304
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, iBooks, TBD
“Brims with charm and compassion.”
—Vashti Harrison, New York Times best-selling author of Little Leaders
Synopsis: “Love ain’t like that.”
“How is it then?” Peaches asked, turning on her stomach to face me.
“It’s like sky. If you keep driving and driving, gas will run out, right?”
“That’s why we gotta go to the gas station.”
“Yep. But have you ever seen the sky run out? No matter how far we go?”
“No, when we look up, there it is.”
“Well that’s the kind of love Daddy and Mama got for us, Peaches–love like sky.”
“It never ends?”
“Never.”
G-baby and her younger sister, Peaches, are still getting used to their “blended-up” family. They live with Mama and Frank out in the suburbs, and they haven’t seen their real daddy much since he married Millicent. G-baby misses her best friend back in Atlanta, and is crushed that her glamorous new stepsister, Tangie, wants nothing to do with her.
G-baby is so preoccupied with earning Tangie’s approval that she isn’t there for her own little sister when she needs her most. Peaches gets sick-really sick. Suddenly, Mama and Daddy are arguing like they did before the divorce, and even the doctors at the hospital don’t know how to help Peaches get better.
It’s up to G-baby to put things right. She knows Peaches can be strong again if she can only see that their family’s love for her really is like sky.
LOVE LIKE SKY by Leslie Youngblood
Excerpts for Blog Tour
Page 19 – 21 (369 words)
“Do you think Daddy still loves us?”
Now I felt really guilty for talking about Daddy to Mama.
“You just asked me that a little while ago.”
“No, I didn’t. I asked did you still love Daddy. That ain’t the same.”
“Well, the answer is the same. Of course Daddy still loves us.”
“How I know you’re not lying?”
“What Mama say about that word?”
“Sorry . . . You might been fibbin’ or telling a story. Like you were telling Tangie that Mama had braids, ’member?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Mama don’t like her hair braided because she said they pull her brains out.”
“She don’t say that.”
“Well, something like that.”
“I’m trying to get Tangie to like us, so I was fibbin’ to be nice. That’s okay sometimes.”
“Like when someone gives us a Christmas present we don’t like and we have to say we do?”
“Yeah, that’s close. But I don’t have to fib about Daddy. We talked to him a few days ago, right?”
“It was eight. I counted backwards.”
I sighed. “Okay, eight. That’s not that long.”
“Yeah. But he got a new wife.”
“I know. We were flower girls, just like at Mama’s wedding. That means he loves us, too.”
She took a deep breath. “What if he runs out of love? You know, give it all away to her and don’t have none left for us?”
“That won’t happen, Peaches.”
“How you know?”
“’Cause love don’t run out like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like gasoline. Love ain’t like that.”
“How is it then?” she asked, turning on her stomach to face me.
I’d been working on that question since she asked me the first time, and I still was tuning up my answer.
“Well?” Peaches nudged.
“It’s like sky. If you keep driving and driving, gas will run out, right?”
“That’s why we gotta go to the gas station.” She flung her covers back and jumped into my bed.
“Yep. But have you ever seen the sky run out? No matter how far we go?”
“No, when we look up, there it is.”
“Well, that’s the kind of love Daddy and Mama have for us, Peaches—love like sky.”
“It never ends?”
“Never.”
Leslie C. Youngblood received an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. A former assistant professor of creative writing at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, she has lectured at Mississippi State University, UNC-Greensboro, and the University of Ghana at Legon. She began her undergraduate degree at Morris Brown College and completed her bachelor’s at Georgia State University. After graduation, she served as a columnist and assistant editor for Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine.
She’s been awarded a host of writing honors including a 2014 Yaddo’s Elizabeth Ames Residency, the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Prize, a Hurston Wright Fellowship, and the Room of Her Own Foundation’s 2009 Orlando Short Story Prize. She received funding to attend the Norman Mailer Writers’ Colony in 2011. Her short story, “Poor Girls’ Palace,” was published in the winter 2009 edition of the Indiana Review, as well as Kwelijournal, 2014.
In 2010 she won the Go On Girl! Book Club Aspiring Writer Award. In 2016 she landed a two-book publishing deal with Disney-Hyperion for her Middle-Grade novel, LOVE LIKE SKY (Nov.6). She often teaches creative writing classes at Rochester, New York’s literary center, Writers & Books.
Born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and raised in Rochester, New York, she’s fortunate to have a family of natural storytellers and a circle of supportive and family and friends.
Website | Twitter | Instagram |Facebook | Goodreads
3 winners will receive a finished copy of LOVE LIKE SKY, US Only.
Week One:
11/5/2018- BookHounds YA– Excerpt
11/6/2018- Beagles & Books– Review
11/7/2018- YA Books Central– Excerpt
11/8/2018- Do You Dog-ear?– Review
11/9/2018- Here’s to Happy Endings– Review
Week Two:
11/12/2018- Adventures Thru Wonderland– Review
11/13/2018- Texan Holly Reads– Review
11/14/2018- Utopia State of Mind– Review
11/15/2018- Novel Novice– Excerpt
11/16/2018- Such a Novel Idea– Review
I am so excited for Leslie Youngblood and this novel! Not only do I think it’ll make a great read for my nine year old daughter, but I believe that I’d enjoy it as well. I’m so happy to have come across this book on Twitter. And to find that the author also attended UNC-Greensboro is the icing on the cake! Congrats Queen!
Love Like Sky is going to touch the lives of hurting, scared children, and give them comfort and hope for better days. I am thrilled to have such a great book to have on my shelves and to give to my local libraries.