The Unsinkable Greta James

Chapter One



Greta is standing at the window of a hotel in West Hollywood when her brother calls for the third time that day. Across the street, there s a billboard with a sleek white yacht surrounded by turquoise water, an ad for a new kind of beer, and something about it ­that feeling of being adrift ­makes it easier to say no when she finally picks up the phone.

Come on, Asher says. It s only a week.

A week on a boat.

It s a ship, he corrects.

It s the last thing I need right now, Greta says, turning from the window, where the light outside is dreamy and pink. She s just come from a photo shoot for the cover of her second album, which has been pushed to July. If it were up to Greta, she would ve moved it back even further, but apparently, that s no longer an option. Instead, she d been summoned to Los Angeles to spend three days in a warehouse surrounded by flashing cameras and frowning studio execs in suits and sneakers, the pressure to get this right all over their faces.

It s been two months since she last performed live ­not since the week after her mother died, when she fell apart onstage ­but everything else has continued to march ahead, the business part of things still grinding forward mostly without her.

On the desk, next to the hotel stationery, there s a plate of chocolates with a note from the hotel manager that says, We re so happy you re with us. Automatically, Greta thinks of her mom, who no longer is, whose absence feels so breathtakingly final that even this is enough to make her heart drop.

Why don t you go? she says to Asher, trying to imagine spending all that time on a boat with her dad. The Alaskan cruise had been her mother s idea. It was all she talked about for nearly a year, right up until March, when an artery ruptured in her head and the whole world seemed to stop.

Jennifer E. Smith is the author of nine books for young adults, including The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight and Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between, both of which have been adapted for film. She earned a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and her work has been translated into thirty-three languages. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

Beautiful, moving, hopeful: I loved this book from beginning to end, and will be thinking about it for a long time. It s a total triumph. Emily Stone, author of Always, In December

Warm, funny, and bursting with heart, [it s] exactly the book you want to read: a pitch-perfect story about the ways we recover love in the strangest of places. Rebecca Serle, New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years

Filled with music, passion, and love of all kinds . . . a fast-paced, emotional novel and an unforgettable exploration of family and the choices we make that shape our lives. Jill Santopolo, New York Times bestselling author of Everything After

I burst into tears at the end of Jennifer E. Smith s gorgeous, heartfelt The Unsinkable Greta James tears of surprised happiness. I loved traveling to Alaska with the wild and tender Greta, and found her escape an addictive journey. I will miss her and her music now that I ve turned the final beautiful page. Amanda Eyre Ward, New York Times bestselling author of The Lifeguards

Thoughtful and tender and true . . . perfectly captures the messiness of loving and being loved . . . Smith has written a gripping relationship story that s also a perceptive exploration of what it means to dream. I devoured it. Janelle Brown, New York Times bestselling author of I ll Be You

This novel is unabashedly sentimental in the best possible way. It s about how family can misunderstand us, grief can undo us, and our dreams can save us. It s a total delight, as transporting and diverting as the Alaskan cruise Greta herself is on in these pages. Christine Pride, co-author of We Are Not Like Them

Smith has crafted a story about mothers and daughters, fathers and children, grief, happiness, and healing and also about the music industry, hard work, dreams, and relationships both old and new. . . . Readers of Evvie Drake Starts Over will enjoy this book. A well-told story