Truly Madly Amy by Kerry Wilkinson
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary fiction
Read: 16th July 2022
Audio links:
UK
UK
Published: 21st July 2022
DESCRIPTION:
We all remember that one magical summer that changed our lives.
For Joe, it’s 1999. School is over, and with zero idea of what he’s meant to do for the rest of his life, he’s reluctantly accepted a job at the local summer camp. Anything to drown out the sharp grief of missing his dad and move on from what school calls his ‘anger problems’. But getting screamed at by hyperactive ten-year-olds is almost enough to make him quit on day one.
Almost.
Then he sees Amy Ashworth for the very first time, her black hair shining in the sun – and learns that nothing hits harder than first love.
She’s the only person he knows who reads for fun, or who’s seen Titanic fourteen times. But there’s another side to Amy. Soon, she’s the only person he’s ever been to a wild house party with, or kissed under the twinkling stars. It’s the happiest Joe has ever been… until the terrible day when what’s left of his family fractures into a million pieces.
Caught up in Amy’s whirlwind, Joe can’t bring himself to tell the truth about his life. Would his dad have wanted him to fight for the girl he loves, or protect his family, no matter what?
Only one thing is certain: this is the summer Joe will grow up. But when he looks back decades later, will he be ashamed of his choices? And will Amy still be by his side?
Heart-warming, hilarious, nostalgic, and bittersweet, Truly, Madly, Amy explores first loves, last chances, and the summers that shape us. Perfect for fans of David Nicholls, Mike Gayle, and anyone who remembers the carefree days of being just sixteen, when the world was full of possibility.
EXTRACT:
I was hoping the parachute didn’t spring open when I first met Amy Ashworth.
It was heavier than I thought, packed tight into an oversized rucksack. The sort of thing people wear when they’ve spent too much money in an outdoors shop. They end up taking gentle, flat walks through the woods, weighed down by more gear than they’d need if they were trekking across the Arctic.
Or, more obviously, the type of thing someone wears before jumping out of a plane.
I lugged the bag down from the shelf and almost dropped it when the tent flap opened and in walked a girl. I didn’t know her name then but it was easy enough to recognise her as one of the counsellors. Everyone our age at Camp Sycamore was a counsellor of some sort and, on that first day, that first morning, she was as bemused and wide-eyed as the rest of us. Our matching white camp T-shirts, with the green tree logo, were all clean at the start, free from the mud and sweat that would come soon enough.
The girl flipped her long black hair away from her face and blinked out of the sun into the gloomy interior of the supply tent.
‘That looks heavy,’ she said.
I heaved the parachute bag up onto a table and it thundered down with a whump that echoed around the small space.
‘It’s not too bad,’ I replied, gasping, which made her laugh right away.
I’ve wondered in the years since if that’s where it began. You hear people talk about losing themselves in someone else’s eyes, or smell, or touch – but it was that laugh. That, once I’d heard it, there was no going back.
‘You sound like my dad,’ she said, before slipping into a mock man’s voice. ‘Oh, it’s not the weight, it’s the shape. It’s not heavy, just awkward.’ Back into her own voice. ‘Then he puts his back out and that’s it for the next month.’
The enclosed space inside the tent had rows of shelves pressed to the edges, with boxes, bags and cans rammed up against one another. The shelves ran the entire way around and, with the table as well, there wasn’t much room for a person, let alone two.
She scanned the shelves for a moment, craning around me, and then chewed the corner of her mouth.
‘Bandages…’ she said, before focusing in on me. Her accent reminded me a bit of the women who sit outside the tea shops in town. The ones who hold their teacup handles between thumb and index finger, with their little fingers sticking out. There was a hint of their poshness to her but something else, too. As if she was never more than a word or two away from laughing, or making a joke.
‘If you were a bandage, where would you be?’ she added.
‘Medical bay?’
The girl nodded along. ‘That’s where I’ve just come from. No bandages there.’
‘Wouldn’t that be the best place for them?’
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Kerry Wilkinson has had No.1 crime bestsellers in the UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa and Singapore. He has also written two top-20 thrillers in the United States. His book, Ten Birthdays, won the RNA award for Young Adult Novel of the Year in 2018 and Close To You won the International Thriller Award for best ebook in 2020.
As well as his million-selling Jessica Daniel series, Kerry has written the Silver Blackthorn trilogy - a fantasy-adventure serial for young adults - a second crime series featuring private investigator Andrew Hunter, plus numerous standalone novels. He has been published around the world in more than a dozen languages.
Originally from the county of Somerset, Kerry spent way too long living in the north of England, picking up words like 'barm' and 'ginnel'.
When he's short of ideas, he rides his bike, hikes up something, or bakes cakes. When he's not, he writes it all down.
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