The Personal Touch

In Caroline B. Cooney’s classic tale of friendship and first love, a teenage girl discovers that the boy who’s always made her life a misery has suddenly morphed into a tall, gorgeous stranger

Sunny Compton lives in the third-oldest house in Sea’s Edge. She loves life in this timeless New England resort town—until the summer people descend, like the Lansberrys, whose son, Tim (whose name Sunny considers an acronym for “Terrible Infuriating Monster”), exists to make everyone’s life miserable. Now it’s April 30, and Sunny has exactly thirty days to find a job before the monster’s return.

But something happened between last year and now. The scrawny, freckled kid who ran over her mother’s roses with his father’s car has become this completelyother person. When did Tim get so tall? Wasn’t he totally uncoordinated last summer? And he’s so gallant and well mannered. Worst of all, Sunny’s been secretly hoping for a handsome boy to sweep her off her feet. And she’s gotten . . . Tim.

A book filled with the joy, wonder, and anguish of first love, The Personal Touch is about finding that special someone in a place—and a person—you never expected . . . and the thrill of those endless summer nights that will never come again.