Local Author Alert: The Hard Kind of Promise by Gina Willner-Pardo

Best Friends Forever... Sarah promised Marjorie when they were five years old that they would be best friends forever. But that was before seventh grade, when everything changed—everything except Marjorie. While Sarah wants to meet new people and try new things, Marjorie still likes doing the same things they always did. It seems the more time the two girls spend together, the more time Sarah wants to spend apart. How did a promise that was so easy to make become so hard to keep?

With beautifully drawn characters and vivid details, this incisive novel portrays middle school in all its complexity—both the promise of what is to come and the pain of what must be left behind.

Conflicted by staying true to her promise while trying to figure out what she wants for herself, Sarah suffers through a series of uncomfortable situations that pit her budding desires to sing and make new friends against loyalty to her fading friendship with Marjorie. Willner-Pardo captures Sarah's torment well...Scenes with Sarah's practical mom and salty Grandpa offer some comic relief, as do those showcasing Marjorie's fierce individualism.  -- Kirkus

THE HARD KIND OF PROMISE by Gina Willner-Pardo is brand new. If you like middle grade stories about real kids and their friendships, with all the drama, sometimes-cruelty and sometimes-hilarity that go with... this is a book for you. PROMISE will be a hit with fans of authors like Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and Kate Messner.

Gina has written 15+ books for children and lives in the SF Bay Area.