How to Make a Wish

By Ashley Herring Blake

Grace, tough and wise, has nearly given up on wishes, thanks to a childhood spent with her unpredictable, larger-than-life mother. But this summer, Grace meets Eva, a girl who believes in dreams, despite her own difficult circumstances. 
      One fateful evening, Eva climbs through a window in Grace’s room, setting off a chain of stolen nights on the beach. When Eva tells Grace that she likes girls, Grace’s world opens up and she begins to believe in happiness again.
      How to Make a Wish is an emotionally charged portrait of a mother and daughter’s relationship and a heartfelt story about two girls who find each other at the exact right time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: May 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781328698957

Ashley Herring Blake

Ashley Herring Blake used to write songs and now she writes books, including Suffer Love and How to Make a Wish. She reads them a lot too and has been known to stare wistfully at her bookshelves. She lives in Nashville, TN with her husband and two sons. www.ashleyherringblake.com Twitter: @ashleyhblake Instagram: @ashleyhblake

Reviews for How to Make a Wish

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

teen fiction (LGBTQ interest).
I liked this ok, but had other things I wanted to read instead.

[edgoldberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Grace’s mother is unstable. After Grace’s dad died, when she was two years old, her mother, Maggie, has gone through a series of boy friends, they’ve moved numerous times, she drinks heavily and ‘borrows’ money from whoever she is living with. When Grace returns to Cape Katie after two weeks at a music workshop in Boston, she finds Maggie has (1) moved in with Pete, the lighthouse keeper, (2) Pete’s son and her new housemate is Julian, Grace’s ex-boyfriend who posted their sextexts on Tumblr after their breakup and (3) her mother has sold her piano…the one Grace is supposed to practice on for her upcoming audition for music school.After storming out of the house, Grace walks to the beach for some solitude. Instead she finds a girl sitting by the water, shoulders heaving as if she’s crying. Unsure whether to skirt around her and leave her in peace or make sure she’s OK, Grace takes the latter course and meets Eva for the first time.Eva, as it turns out, is living with Grace’s best friend Luca and his mother, Emmy. Eva is the daughter of Emmy’s best friend who recently died and Emmy is Eva’s guardian. Luca and Emmy are also Grace’s solid ground in the midst of her familial storms.How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake, tackles a few serious issues, including what is a teenage daughter’s responsibility for her mother’s erratic behavior, who comes first, a daughter’s future or a mother’s present, and can a girl brought up in an unstable environment know how to truly love someone?Blake does a great job of contrasting Luca’s happy family with Grace’s messed up one. She makes the budding relationship between Eva and Grace very realistic, with all the pitfalls and uncertainties inherent in a new relationship. She describes Grace’s dreams of being a concert pianist and the heartbreak when she thinks she may never achieve her goal. And Grace’s ambivalence about staying with her mother or leaving her is heartbreaking.An all around good book!