If you are approved to read on NetGalley, Half a Chance and other Scholastic February-release books are now available there. *gulp*

It is also in the January Arrow Scholastic Book Club flyer, and available everywhere else at the end of February. It's been a hard winter already, so by the end of February, it may be nice to have a little summer!



Here's a little behind-the-scenes secret from that book: the New Hampshire lake and town in the story are made up, but for those of you familiar with NH, I set it near Jefferson. I mention some real places, including the movie theater in Conway, the shops of North Conway, and two of my characters climb Cherry Mountain. I climbed that one day with my daughter and brought my notebook, and this is the view from the top. In this photo, Mt. Washington is the second peak from the left. That day was so clear that we could see the weather towers spiking up from the summit. And about 3/4 of the way across those far-off, blue mountains is the sharp dip of Crawford Notch.



You can see Crawford Notch more easily in this photo. It's the blue "V" in the middle.



The mountains reminded me of ocean waves, and here's a line I wrote in my notebook that day that made it into the book: "From the top of Cherry Mountain, there are mountains in all directions, rippling like a rolling sea, wave upon wave."

On the hike, we saw lots of footprints of animals, but the only actual animals we saw were birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and this little guy that we almost missed. He made it into the book, too.