Ink Is Thicker Than Water (29 page)
Read Ink Is Thicker Than Water Online
Authors: Amy Spalding
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Love & Romance, #Family, #Alternative Family, #Parents, #Siblings, #teen fiction, #tattoos, #YA Romance, #first love, #tattoo parlor, #Best Friends, #family stories
“You did start off pretty big,” he says, while Mom is getting to work placing the design on Sara’s ankle. I knew she’d go with one of those girl spots. I guess for Sara it is still pretty bad-ass. “Good to see her like this, isn’t it?”
“Both of them,” I say. “Seriously, Russell, I’m sorry I was such a jerk.”
“We’re all jerks sometimes,” he says. “Don’t make it more than it is. I gave my parents way more hell. Crossing my fingers Finn’s like you two and not me.”
“Me, too.” I laugh and walk over to Mom’s station where Sara is grimacing as Mom inks the outline. “It didn’t hurt that much.”
“Ankles are worse, Kell-belle,” Mom says. “Be nice.”
“Are you free after this, Mom?” Sara asks. “We could get dinner.”
“Kellie would have more of an idea than I do. Do you know what a great job she does helping us run the shop?”
“I’m not surprised,” Sara says as I walk over to check Mom’s schedule. The spot is wide open so I ink in,
Dinner with my newly tattooed daughters!
“Kellie’s really good at keeping everything together.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my agent, Kate Schafer Testerman, for signing me many billions of years ago based off of this book and believing in it for the same reasons I did.
Thank you to my editor Stacy Cantor Abrams for helping me whip this sucker into shape. The heavy lifting and the tears were worth it! Lots of thanks to Alycia Tornetta for being truly one of the most helpful people I’ve ever worked with.
I am sure I never would have completed this book without the help and encouragement of friend, critique partner, and generally cool person Meghan Deans. So, you know, thank you for that.
Thanks to all the early readers and supporters.
Ink
was technically my first book, regardless of publication schedule, and letting others into my fictional world was a new and scary thing for me. So thank you to Andrea Robinson-DiNardo, Liz Kies, and Lindsay Ribar. And thank you to critique partners who helped more recently: Sarah Skilton, Christie Baugher, Maurene Goo, Brandy Colbert.
A huge thanks goes to Kevin Fanning for (correctly) correcting me on Kellie’s favorite album by The Beatles. Thanks to Scott Singer, who has a PhD in physics, for telling me what a person might do with a PhD in physics. Thanks to my St. Louis crew for help with the research that was hard to do from long-distance: Jessica Hutchins, Stephanie Myles, David Sullins.
Thanks to my incredibly talented cover photographer and designer Jessie Weinberg, and to model Kristen Williams. Thanks also to Mike Erwin for designing the cover’s tattoo.
Thank you to every tattoo artist who’s inked me.
And, lastly, thanks to my parents for their constant support, for playing the oldies station so much in the car when I was little, and for having (almost) as cool a family business while I was in high school as The Family Ink.
Don’t miss Amy Spalding’s first novel
Available online and in stores now!
Things I know about Reece Malcolm:
- She graduated from New York University.
- She lives in or near Los Angeles.
- Since her first novel was released, she’s been on the New York Times bestseller list every week.
- She likes strong coffee and bourbon.
- She’s my mother.
Devan knows very little about Reece Malcolm, until the day her father dies and she’s shipped off to live with the mother she’s never met. All she has is a list of notebook entries that doesn’t add up to much.
L.A. offers a whole new world to Devan—a performing arts school allows her to pursue her passion for show choir and musicals, a new circle of friends helps to draw her out of her shell, and an intriguing boy opens up possibilities for her first love.
But then the Reece Malcolm list gets a surprising new entry. Now that Devan is so close to having it all, can she handle the possibility of losing everything?
Don’t miss the adorkable
by Leah Rae Miller
On the outside, seventeen-year-old Madelyne Summers looks like your typical blond cheerleader—perky, popular, and dating the star quarterback. But inside, Maddie spends more time agonizing over what will happen in the next issue of her favorite comic book than planning pep rallies with her squad. That she’s a nerd hiding in a popular girl’s body isn’t just unknown, it’s anti-known. And she needs to keep it that way.
Summer is the only time Maddie lets her real self out to play, but when she slips up and the adorkable guy behind the local comic shop’s counter uncovers her secret, she’s busted. Before she can shake a pom-pom, Maddie’s whisked into Logan’s world of comic conventions, live-action role-playing, and first-person-shooter video games. And she loves it. But the more she denies who she really is, the deeper her lies become…and the more she risks losing Logan forever.
There’s more than one way to suffer…
by Kendra C. Highley
After being pushed to excel her entire life, high school basketball star Genna Pierce is finally where she wants to be. University scouts are taking notice, her team is on its way to the state tourney, and Jake Butler, the hot boy she’s daydreamed about since ninth grade, is showing some definite interest. When he asks her out and their relationship takes off, Genna believes things can’t get better.
Then, it’s over.
A freak accident ends her career before it’s even begun. Her parents are fighting more than ever, her friends don’t understand what she’s going through, and she’s not sure who she is without basketball. And while he tries to be there for her, Genna doesn’t understand how Jake could ever want the broken version of the girl he fell for.
Her life in a tailspin, Genna turns to the only solace that eases her pain: Vicodin.
Reality bytes.
by Vivi Barnes
Olivia
He tilts my chin up so my eyes meet his, his thumb brushing lightly across my lips. I close my eyes. I know Z is trouble. I know that being with him is going to get me into trouble. I don’t care.
At least at this moment, I don’t care.
Tossed from foster home to foster home, Olivia’s seen a lot in her sixteen years. She’s hardened, sure, though mostly just wants to fly under the radar until graduation. But her natural ability with computers catches the eye of Z, a mysterious guy at her new school. Soon, Z has brought Liv into his team of hacker elite—break into a few bank accounts, and voila, he drives a motorcycle. Follow his lead, and Olivia might even be able to escape from her oppressive foster parents. As Olivia and Z grow closer, though, so does the watchful eye of Bill Sykes, Z’s boss. And he’s got bigger plans for Liv…
Z
I can picture Liv’s face: wide-eyed, trusting. Her smooth lips that taste like strawberry Fanta.
It was just a kiss. That’s all. She’s just like any other girl.
Except that she’s not.
Thanks to Z, Olivia’s about to get twisted.
Travel forward in time with
by Rachel Harris
Alessandra D’Angeli is in need of an adventure. Tired of her sixteenth-century life in Italy and homesick for her time-traveling cousin, Cat, who visited her for a magical week and dazzled her with tales of the future, Alessandra is lost. Until the stars hear her plea.
One mystical spell later, Alessandra appears on Cat’s Beverly Hills doorstep five hundred years in the future. Surrounded by confusing gadgets, scary transportation, and scandalous clothing, Less is hesitant to live the life of a twenty-first century teen…until she meets the infuriating—and infuriatingly handsome—surfer Austin Michaels. Austin challenges everything she believes in…and introduces her to a world filled with possibility.
With the clock ticking, Less knows she must live every moment of her modern life while she still can. But how will she return to the drab life of her past when the future is what holds everything she’s come to love?