Let Me Drive

Book excerpt: In Sidney St. James newest novel, you might say it was time to put the relationship of the characters down as… 'it's complicated.' Many people say that love comes in many shapes and sizes. Love in this Young Adult Romance is no exception. This beloved genre has today gotten a reputation for a certain messy shape… the love triangle. Take our characters in LET ME DRIVE. Claire Banning loves Billy Joe Briscoe. Sammy Pryor, the best friend of Billy Briscoe, loves Claire Banning. Billy Joe Briscoe loves Jennifer Welch, a star actress on stage at the Paramount Theater on Congress Avenue in downtown Austin, Texas. The problem continues when Jennifer Welch falls in love with Matt Jenkins, and Claire Banning hates Jennifer Welch. Our story will demonstrate that love is complicated, and what's even more complex is falling in love with someone who is already in love with someone else, leaving the characters in a fix. Just when we thought how messy a love triangle can get, it becomes even far more complex and gets, even more, messier when there's a fifth entrant to the equation, Randy Keller. Falling heads over heels into a love triangle can be a noticeable indicator of a complicated romance. Some of our characters get into one while some unknowingly find themselves involved in one. Has all of this explained why we say that the relationships of all of our characters are complicated… almost from the very beginning? There's a fine line drawn in the dirt between love and hate. Beware of the literary whiplash. By the time you have read to the end of this young adult romance, you will see that competition and desire are a dangerous, deliciously entertaining mix. The setting for this story occupies a time in the early 1960s in Austin, Texas. Claire Banning explains her love situation best, saying, "You can't decide how much you love people. It just happens." What she tries to find out is that even when the mind forgets, the heart remembers. Many love triangle stories made it to the silver screen. Some are Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman and Peter Gallagher in "While You Were Sleeping" made in 1995. Another is "The Apartment" made in 1965 starring Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon, and Fred MacMurray. Oh, and yes, let's not forget "Titanic" made in 1997 starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Billy Zane. Oh, I can go on and on… Simply said, there's a place in Romance genres for romances and love triangles. "LET ME DRIVE" might stand the test of time as it will keep you guessing to the very last ten pages 'what boy gets the girl.'