Operation Pucker Up

A girl and her friends enact a scheme to get her first kiss over with before she has to lock lips on stage for the school play in this charming middle grade rom-com in the spirit of Meg Cabot—now with a fresh new look!

Prince Charming wakes Snow White with a kiss. My world came crashing down with two words. A kiss?!

Grace Shaw just scored the coveted lead in her school play, Snow White, alongside James Lowe—her hot, popular Prince Charming. There’s just one problem: they kiss at the end. And Grace has never been kissed before. Which means that Grace’s role sounds more like her worst nightmare than a dream come true.

So, Grace’s two best friends propose Operation Pucker Up—a plan for Grace to score a kiss before opening night so she doesn’t make a fool of herself in front of an audience. As if Grace isn’t having a hard enough time, her estranged father suddenly reappears after leaving six months earlier. Her mom and sister welcome Dad back with open arms, but Grace can’t simply forgive and forget.

With opening night fast approaching, Operation Pucker Up reaching ridiculous levels, and family drama teeming behind the scenes, Grace is beginning to think all this love stuff is way too complicated. Will she find a way to have her happily ever after—and seal it with a kiss—both onstage and off?

One of Rachele Alpine’s first jobs was at a library, but it didn’t last long, because all she did was hide in the third-floor stacks and read. Now she’s a little more careful about when and where she indulges her reading habit. Rachele is a high school English teacher by day, a wife and mother by night, and a writer during any time she can find in between. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio, where she writes middle grade and young adult novels. Visit her at RacheleAlpine.com.