The Gap Year

Named a "Best Summer Read" by Good Housekeeping, Town & Country, and BookReporter, a witty and wise novel about the empty nest, a pitch perfect portrayal of a mother and daughter on the verge of a seismic change. Cam Lightsey is a lactation consultant extraordinaire, a divorcÉe still secretly carrying a torch for the ex who dumped her, and a suburban misfit who's given up her rebel dreams so her only child can get a good education. Then there's Aubrey Lightsey: tired of being the dutiful, grade-grubbing band geek, ready to explode from wanting her "real" life to begin, trying to figure out love with boys weaned on Internet porn. When Aubrey meets Tyler Moldenhauer, football idolsex god with a dangerous past, the fuse is lit. Late-bloomer Aubrey metastasizes into Cam's worst silent, sullen teen nightmare, a girl with zero interest in college. Worse, on the sly Aubrey's in touch with her father, who left when she was two to join a celebrity-ridden cult. As the novel unfoldswith humor, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and penetrating insights about love in the twenty-first centurythe dreams of daughter, mother, and father chart an inevitable, but perhaps not fatal, collision…

Sarah Bird lives with her family in Austin, Texas, where she performs her own material regularly at the Hyde Park Theatre. She is the author of six previous novels, including The Flamenco Academy and The Yokota Officers Club.