Women's Fiction
![Tehlor Kay Mejia - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B07QHK1L72.jpg)
Sammy Espinoza's Last Review: A Novel
"A sexy, funny, sweet story about second chances and found family . . . I fell in love with Ridley Falls and everyone in it."-Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers
A music critic stuck in a spiral of epic proportions targets her teenage crush for a career comeback and a chance at revenge. What could possibly go wrong?
Sammy Espinoza's life is a raging dumpster fire. Her desperate attempt to win back her singer ex-girlfriend has landed her in hot water at work, and she has one last chance before her editor cuts her column. Luckily, Sammy has a plan to redeem herself, but it won't be easy.
Rumor has it that Max Ryan, the former rock god, is secretly recording his first-ever solo album years after he dramatically quit performing. And it just so happens that he and Sammy have history: Right before Max got his big break, he and Sammy spent an unforgettable night together.
Exclusive access to Max's new music would guarantee Sammy's professional comeback and, even better, give her the opportunity to serve some long-awaited revenge for his traumatic ghosting.
But Max lives in Ridley Falls, Washington, and Sammy has history there as well: a family that never wanted her and a million unanswered questions. Going back would mean confronting it all-but what else does she have to lose?
A music critic stuck in a spiral of epic proportions targets her teenage crush for a career comeback and a chance at revenge. What could possibly go wrong?
Sammy Espinoza's life is a raging dumpster fire. Her desperate attempt to win back her singer ex-girlfriend has landed her in hot water at work, and she has one last chance before her editor cuts her column. Luckily, Sammy has a plan to redeem herself, but it won't be easy.
Rumor has it that Max Ryan, the former rock god, is secretly recording his first-ever solo album years after he dramatically quit performing. And it just so happens that he and Sammy have history: Right before Max got his big break, he and Sammy spent an unforgettable night together.
Exclusive access to Max's new music would guarantee Sammy's professional comeback and, even better, give her the opportunity to serve some long-awaited revenge for his traumatic ghosting.
But Max lives in Ridley Falls, Washington, and Sammy has history there as well: a family that never wanted her and a million unanswered questions. Going back would mean confronting it all-but what else does she have to lose?
Editorial Reviews
1
People like to say you can't go home again, but for me that's more a literal statement than a figurative one. Because I never had a home to come back to.
When you spend your childhood following your mother in her search for a great love-or at least for an apartment you won't get evicted from-you end up a bit of a wanderer.
It never bothered me much until recently, when life decided to sucker punch me and then keep on wailing.
For starters, I broke my rule about dating musicians again. Karma really hates it when I do that. A fact she proved categorically when my indie-rock goddess girlfriend Juniper Street delivered the killing blow to our seventeen-month relationship onstage in a song literally titled "Goodbye, Sammy."
Of course, the emotional damage wasn't the extent of it. Because I had to go and break another one of my rules. This time it was the one about not using my well-respected music column (written under the pen name Verity Page) or its thousands of subscribers to lie about said musician's mediocre band in print. In many pieces spanning the entire last month of our doomed relationship.
I thought it might save me and Juniper, but instead it lost me my job. (Well, nearly anyway. More on that later.)
For anyone counting, that's two major life pillars down in the space of a weekend-and I'm not even done.
I started thinking about what people do when their twenties are not what they dreamed them to be. About sleeping in a bed you've outgrown. Letting your parents cook for you when everything is falling down around you.
That's when I first had the bright idea to travel to Ridley Falls, Washington. Population seventeen, or something. The closest place to home I've ever really had. The place I lived with a family friend for a year when I was nine because my mom's boyfriend of the moment didn't like kids.
The place where my parents grew up, and at least one set of my estranged grandparents still lived.
Only when I called Dina Rae, my flighty mother, to run this plan past her did she "accidentally" let slip that my father's father had died the year before and no one bothered to tell me. And she only mentioned it after she had tried to talk me out of visiting "that hellhole" in three other ways.
Knowing my mom, she had been hoping this news would activate my too-complicated bail-out chute. The one I inherited from her. Instead, it led to the biggest fight we've ever had. One where I told her she had a lot of nerve trying to control my perception of the world when it had taken me four days to even get her on the phone.
Worst of all, it only strengthened my resolve to do the opposite of what she wanted. And in that moment, the opposite of what she wanted ...
People like to say you can't go home again, but for me that's more a literal statement than a figurative one. Because I never had a home to come back to.
When you spend your childhood following your mother in her search for a great love-or at least for an apartment you won't get evicted from-you end up a bit of a wanderer.
It never bothered me much until recently, when life decided to sucker punch me and then keep on wailing.
For starters, I broke my rule about dating musicians again. Karma really hates it when I do that. A fact she proved categorically when my indie-rock goddess girlfriend Juniper Street delivered the killing blow to our seventeen-month relationship onstage in a song literally titled "Goodbye, Sammy."
Of course, the emotional damage wasn't the extent of it. Because I had to go and break another one of my rules. This time it was the one about not using my well-respected music column (written under the pen name Verity Page) or its thousands of subscribers to lie about said musician's mediocre band in print. In many pieces spanning the entire last month of our doomed relationship.
I thought it might save me and Juniper, but instead it lost me my job. (Well, nearly anyway. More on that later.)
For anyone counting, that's two major life pillars down in the space of a weekend-and I'm not even done.
I started thinking about what people do when their twenties are not what they dreamed them to be. About sleeping in a bed you've outgrown. Letting your parents cook for you when everything is falling down around you.
That's when I first had the bright idea to travel to Ridley Falls, Washington. Population seventeen, or something. The closest place to home I've ever really had. The place I lived with a family friend for a year when I was nine because my mom's boyfriend of the moment didn't like kids.
The place where my parents grew up, and at least one set of my estranged grandparents still lived.
Only when I called Dina Rae, my flighty mother, to run this plan past her did she "accidentally" let slip that my father's father had died the year before and no one bothered to tell me. And she only mentioned it after she had tried to talk me out of visiting "that hellhole" in three other ways.
Knowing my mom, she had been hoping this news would activate my too-complicated bail-out chute. The one I inherited from her. Instead, it led to the biggest fight we've ever had. One where I told her she had a lot of nerve trying to control my perception of the world when it had taken me four days to even get her on the phone.
Worst of all, it only strengthened my resolve to do the opposite of what she wanted. And in that moment, the opposite of what she wanted ...
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
People like to say you can't go home again, but for me that's more a literal statement than a figurative one. Because I never had a home to come back to.
When you spend your childhood following your mother in her search for a great love-or at least for an apartment you won't get evicted from-you end up a bit of a wanderer.
It never bothered me much until recently, when life decided to sucker punch me and then keep on wailing.
For starters, I broke my rule about dating musicians again. Karma really hates it when I do that. A fact she proved categorically when my indie-rock goddess girlfriend Juniper Street delivered the killing blow to our seventeen-month relationship onstage in a song literally titled "Goodbye, Sammy."
Of course, the emotional damage wasn't the extent of it. Because I had to go and break another one of my rules. This time it was the one about not using my well-respected music column (written under the pen name Verity Page) or its thousands of subscribers to lie about said musician's mediocre band in print. In many pieces spanning the entire last month of our doomed relationship.
I thought it might save me and Juniper, but instead it lost me my job. (Well, nearly anyway. More on that later.)
For anyone counting, that's two major life pillars down in the space of a weekend-and I'm not even done.
I started thinking about what people do when their twenties are not what they dreamed them to be. About sleeping in a bed you've outgrown. Letting your parents cook for you when everything is falling down around you.
That's when I first had the bright idea to travel to Ridley Falls, Washington. Population seventeen, or something. The closest place to home I've ever really had. The place I lived with a family friend for a year when I was nine because my mom's boyfriend of the moment didn't like kids.
The place where my parents grew up, and at least one set of my estranged grandparents still lived.
Only when I called Dina Rae, my flighty mother, to run this plan past her did she "accidentally" let slip that my father's father had died the year before and no one bothered to tell me. And she only mentioned it after she had tried to talk me out of visiting "that hellhole" in three other ways.
Knowing my mom, she had been hoping this news would activate my too-complicated bail-out chute. The one I inherited from her. Instead, it led to the biggest fight we've ever had. One where I told her she had a lot of nerve trying to control my perception of the world when it had taken me four days to even get her on the phone.
Worst of all, it only strengthened my resolve to do the opposite of what she wanted. And in that moment, the opposite of what she wanted was me in Ridley Falls, as soon as possible.
What better place to heal, right? I asked myself during an admittedly wine-soaked pity party a few days later. To nurse my wounds and stick it to my flaky mom and remember the joy that can be found in the simple act of living small-or whatever the big-city rom-com heroines say.
In my defense, I came up with a lot of awful plans to heal and/or reinvent myself in my post-breakup wallowing period. This one might have stayed at the bottom of the empty bottle with the rest if it hadn't been for the article I read that night-less than five hundred words on a site without a stellar reputation for journalistic integrity.
I personally hold that article responsible for the email I sent my boss (a woman whose approval I have been desperately chasing for nearly a decade) at 12:14 in the morning. In said email, I promised I could fix everything. My column. My disastrous love life. The relationship with my mother I was starting to fear I'd outgrown.
I wish I hadn't included all of that in the email, but more than that I wish Esme hadn't agreed. Hadn't let me charge a Greyhound ticket to my company card and sent me off on a no-other-expenses-paid odyssey to the absolute middle of nowhere.
You have two weeks, she'd written. This is your last chance, Sammy.
Like I said, it's been a ride.
I step off the Greyhound in Ridley Falls with a kink in my neck and a storm cloud over my head. The guy next to me on the way here from Seattle was a talker. And not just the polite conversation type, but the here's-the-tortured-story-of-my-failed-marriage-do-you-have-any-advice? type.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time I've spent a bus ride with someone's tragic life story. I attract oversharers like a front man attracts girls with daddy issues. I used to think it was what made me a good journalist-this ability to draw deeply personal information out of the most reluctant stone. But I'...
People like to say you can't go home again, but for me that's more a literal statement than a figurative one. Because I never had a home to come back to.
When you spend your childhood following your mother in her search for a great love-or at least for an apartment you won't get evicted from-you end up a bit of a wanderer.
It never bothered me much until recently, when life decided to sucker punch me and then keep on wailing.
For starters, I broke my rule about dating musicians again. Karma really hates it when I do that. A fact she proved categorically when my indie-rock goddess girlfriend Juniper Street delivered the killing blow to our seventeen-month relationship onstage in a song literally titled "Goodbye, Sammy."
Of course, the emotional damage wasn't the extent of it. Because I had to go and break another one of my rules. This time it was the one about not using my well-respected music column (written under the pen name Verity Page) or its thousands of subscribers to lie about said musician's mediocre band in print. In many pieces spanning the entire last month of our doomed relationship.
I thought it might save me and Juniper, but instead it lost me my job. (Well, nearly anyway. More on that later.)
For anyone counting, that's two major life pillars down in the space of a weekend-and I'm not even done.
I started thinking about what people do when their twenties are not what they dreamed them to be. About sleeping in a bed you've outgrown. Letting your parents cook for you when everything is falling down around you.
That's when I first had the bright idea to travel to Ridley Falls, Washington. Population seventeen, or something. The closest place to home I've ever really had. The place I lived with a family friend for a year when I was nine because my mom's boyfriend of the moment didn't like kids.
The place where my parents grew up, and at least one set of my estranged grandparents still lived.
Only when I called Dina Rae, my flighty mother, to run this plan past her did she "accidentally" let slip that my father's father had died the year before and no one bothered to tell me. And she only mentioned it after she had tried to talk me out of visiting "that hellhole" in three other ways.
Knowing my mom, she had been hoping this news would activate my too-complicated bail-out chute. The one I inherited from her. Instead, it led to the biggest fight we've ever had. One where I told her she had a lot of nerve trying to control my perception of the world when it had taken me four days to even get her on the phone.
Worst of all, it only strengthened my resolve to do the opposite of what she wanted. And in that moment, the opposite of what she wanted was me in Ridley Falls, as soon as possible.
What better place to heal, right? I asked myself during an admittedly wine-soaked pity party a few days later. To nurse my wounds and stick it to my flaky mom and remember the joy that can be found in the simple act of living small-or whatever the big-city rom-com heroines say.
In my defense, I came up with a lot of awful plans to heal and/or reinvent myself in my post-breakup wallowing period. This one might have stayed at the bottom of the empty bottle with the rest if it hadn't been for the article I read that night-less than five hundred words on a site without a stellar reputation for journalistic integrity.
I personally hold that article responsible for the email I sent my boss (a woman whose approval I have been desperately chasing for nearly a decade) at 12:14 in the morning. In said email, I promised I could fix everything. My column. My disastrous love life. The relationship with my mother I was starting to fear I'd outgrown.
I wish I hadn't included all of that in the email, but more than that I wish Esme hadn't agreed. Hadn't let me charge a Greyhound ticket to my company card and sent me off on a no-other-expenses-paid odyssey to the absolute middle of nowhere.
You have two weeks, she'd written. This is your last chance, Sammy.
Like I said, it's been a ride.
I step off the Greyhound in Ridley Falls with a kink in my neck and a storm cloud over my head. The guy next to me on the way here from Seattle was a talker. And not just the polite conversation type, but the here's-the-tortured-story-of-my-failed-marriage-do-you-have-any-advice? type.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time I've spent a bus ride with someone's tragic life story. I attract oversharers like a front man attracts girls with daddy issues. I used to think it was what made me a good journalist-this ability to draw deeply personal information out of the most reluctant stone. But I'...
