• Age: 10 to 14
• Grade: 5 to 9

Jes desperately needs something solid to hold onto. In Losing Forever, she learned to accept the inevitability of change. But the change is moving at a heartbreaking pace and her world shifts by the day. The date with boy-next-door Sam shows that even the most awkward moment can always get more awkward.

At home, Jes's stepsister, the beautiful and seemingly well-adjusted Angela, is clearly a favorite. When Jes's mother announces she is pregnant and the new baby will need a bedroom, one thing's certain --- it won't be Angela who moves.

There's lots of uncertainty in Jes's life, but the biggest uncertainty of all is love. Everyone has a different opinion on it. Jes's teacher says that love is about reuniting what was once divided --- this from a guy who's going through a divorce. If anything's for sure, it's that love is never predictable, always confusing and may hurt sometimes. But, as Jes begins to see, no one ever gives up on it.

GAYLE FRIESEN is the award-winning author of five novels for young adults, which have garnered critical acclaim in both Canada and the United States. The Valley is her first novel for adults. She lives in Delta, British Columbia, with her husband and two children.

Gayle Friesen's profile page

• Winner, Best Books for Kids and Teens, Canadian Children's Book Centre
• Short-listed, Book of the Year for Children Award, CLA
• Short-listed, Sheila A. Egoff Award, BC Book Prizes Society
• Winner, Best Books for Young Adults, YALSA American Library Association
• Winner, Best Bets Young Adult, Ontario Library Association

For Now

Gayle Friesen excels at plumbing the depths of family relationships, and she does so again in For Now, the follow-up to Losing Forever. For Now picks up the story of Jes and her new blended family as they all cautiously try to establish how this new configuration (i.e., Jes and her mom, her stepfather Cal and his daughter Angela) is going to work. Before they can establish any degree of comfort, Jes’s mom throws a new element into the mix: she and Cal are having a baby. As Jes tries to determine where she fits into this ever-changing picture, she also worries about her father, her best friend Dell (who has inexplicably reunited with her cheating ex-boyfriend Marshall), not to mention her own relationship – whatever it may be – with her friend and next-door neighbour Sam. Friesen’s characters are true-to-life and engaging, and readers will empathize with Jes as she navigates these old and new, sometimes frustrating, but also infinitely rewarding, relationships in her life.

For Now

Jes desperately needs something solid to hold onto in her life. If anything’s for sure, it’s that love is never predictable; it’s always confusing and may hurt sometimes. But, as Jes begins to see, no one ever gives up on it.