Early Praise:
"Tweet Cute delivers in every possible way: a perfect enemies-to-lovers romance, a whip-smart plotline, and endearingly real characters. I devoured it.” - Francesca Zappia, author of Eliza and Her Monsters"Sweet and fun! An adorable debut that updates a classic romantic trope with a buzzy twist." - Jenn Bennett, author of Alex, Approximately and Serious Moonlight
“A witty rom-com reinvention for the Twitter age, Tweet Cute pairs delicious online rivalry with deeply relatable insights on family pressure and growing up. This fresh, funny read had us hitting ‘favorite’ from page one.” - Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, authors of Always Never Yours and If I’m Being Honest
Jacket
Copy:
Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic
overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling
apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming — mainly thanks to
Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running
Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account.
Enter Jack, class
clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck
out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his
family’s deli. His relationship with the
business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big
League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do
whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.
All’s fair in love and cheese — that
is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they
know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet
battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life — on an anonymous
chat app Jack built.
As their relationship deepens and
their online shenanigans escalate — people on the internet
are shipping them?? — their battle gets more and more personal,
until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most
unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.
JACK
“Look.”
I glance into the classroom, where Ethan is thoroughly distracted by Stephen
and no longer keeping an eye on us. “I may have . . . overreacted.”
Pepper
shakes her head. “I told you. I get it. It’s your family.”
“Yeah.
But it’s also—well, to be honest, this has been kind of good for business.”
Pepper’s
brow furrows, that one little crease returning. “What, the tweets?”
“Yeah.”
I scratch the back of my neck, sheepish. “Actually, we had a line out the door
yesterday. It was kind of intense.”
“That’s
. . . that’s good, right?”
The
tone of my voice is clearly not matching up with the words I’m saying, but if
I’m being honest, I’m still wary of this whole overnight business boom. And if
I’m being honest, I’m even more wary of Pepper. If this really is as much of a
family business as she claims it is—to the point where she’s helping run the
Twitter handle, when even I know enough about corporate Twitter accounts to
know entire teams of experienced people get paid to do that—then she might have
had more of a hand in this whole recipe theft thing than she’s letting on.
The
fact of the matter is, I can’t trust her. To the point of not knowing whether I
can even trust her knowing how our business is doing, or just how badly we need
it.
“Yeah,
um, I guess.” I try to make it sound noncommittal. My acting skills, much like
my breakfast-packing skills, leave much to be desired.
“So
. . .”
“So.”
Pepper
presses her lips into a thin line, a question in her eyes.
“So,
I guess—if your mom really wants you to keep tweeting . . .”
“Wait.
Yesterday you were pissed. Two minutes ago you were pissed.”
“I
am pissed. You stole from us,”
I reiterate. “You stole from an eighty-five-year-old woman.”
“I
didn’t—”
“Yeah,
yeah, but still. You’re them, and I’m . . . her. It’s like a choose your fighter situation, and we just
happen to be the ones up to bat.”
“So
you’re saying—you don’t not want me to keep
this up?”
“The
way I see it, you don’t have to make your mom mad, and we get a few more
customers in the door too.”
Pepper
takes a breath like she’s going to say something, like she’s going to correct
me, but after a moment, she lets it go. Her face can’t quite settle on an
expression, toeing the line between dread and relief.
“You’re
sure?”
I
answer by opening the container she handed me. The smell that immediately wafts
out of it should honestly be illegal; it stops kids I’ve never even spoken to
in their tracks.
“Are
you a witch?” I ask, reaching in and taking a bite of one. It’s like Monster
Cake, the Sequel—freaking Christmas in my mouth. I already want more before
I’ve even managed to chew. My eyes close as if I’m experiencing an actual drug
high—and maybe I am, because I forget myself entirely and say, “This might even
be better than our Kitchen Sink Macaroons.”
“Kitchen
Sink Macaroons?”
Eyes
open again. Yikes. Note to self:
dessert is the greatest weapon in Pepper’s arsenal. I swallow my bite so I can
answer her.
“It’s
kind of well-known, at least in the East Village. It even got in some Hub Seed
roundup once. I’d tell you to try some, but you might steal the recipe, so.”
Pepper
smiles, then—actually smiles, instead of the little smirk she usually does.
It’s not startling, but what it does to me in that moment kind of is.
Before
I can examine the unfamiliar lurch in my stomach, the bell rings and knocks the
smile right off her face. I follow just behind her, wondering why it suddenly
seems too hot in here, like they cranked the air up for December instead of
October. I dismiss it by the time I get to my desk—probably just all the
Twitter drama and the glory of So Sorry Blondies getting to my head.
“One
rule,” she says, as we sit in the last two desks in the back of the room.
I
raise my eyebrows at her.
“We
don’t take any of it personally.” She leans forward on her desk, leveling with
me, her bangs falling into her face. “No more getting mad at each other. Cheese
and state.”
“What
happens on Twitter stays on Twitter,” I say with a nod of agreement. “Okay,
then, second rule: no kid gloves.”
Mrs.
Fairchild is giving that stern look over the room that never quite successfully
quiets anyone down. Pepper frowns, waiting for me to elaborate.
“I
mean—no going easy on each other. If we’re going to play at this, we’re both
going to give it our A game, okay? No holding back because we’re . . .”
Friends, I almost say. No,
I’m going to say. But then—
“I’d
appreciate it if even one of you acknowledged the bell with your silence,” Mrs.
Fairchild grumbles.
I
turn to Pepper, expecting to find her snapping to attention the way she always
does when an adult comes within a hundred feet of disciplining her. But her
eyes are still intent on me, like she is sizing something up—like she’s looking
forward to something I haven’t anticipated yet.
“All
right. No taking it personally. And no holding back.”
She
holds her hand out for me to shake again, under the desk so Mrs. Fairchild
won’t see it. I smile and shake my head, wondering how someone can be so
aggressively seventeen and seventy-five at the same time, and then I take it.
Her hand is warm and small in mine, but her grip is surprisingly firm, with a
pressure that almost feels like she’s still got her fingers wrapped around mine
even after we let go.
I
turn back to the whiteboard, a ghost of a smirk on my face. “Let the games
begin.”
REVIEW
I received an e-ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this book! It was like watching a romcom movie but set in the YA age group. Family business, delis and restaurants and also a growing love between the main characters kept me with this story which had equal parts of love, friendship and cuteness.
Jack's and Pepper's POV showed two different people who struggle trying to keep their families together and also are competitive. And since this is the 21st century every digital 'battle' led into a viral Twitter war, something you wouldn't see in a movie of the 90os.
This could also be a cute Netflix series and I'm sure you'll enjoy it!
I really enjoyed this book! It was like watching a romcom movie but set in the YA age group. Family business, delis and restaurants and also a growing love between the main characters kept me with this story which had equal parts of love, friendship and cuteness.
Jack's and Pepper's POV showed two different people who struggle trying to keep their families together and also are competitive. And since this is the 21st century every digital 'battle' led into a viral Twitter war, something you wouldn't see in a movie of the 90os.
This could also be a cute Netflix series and I'm sure you'll enjoy it!
About the author:
Emma Lord is a digital
media editor and writer living in New York City, where she spends whatever time
she isn’t writing either running or belting show tunes in community theater.
She graduated from the University of Virginia with a major in psychology and a
minor in how to tilt your computer screen so nobody will notice you updating
your fan fiction from the back row. She was raised on glitter, grilled cheese,
and a whole lot of love. Her sun sign is Hufflepuff, but she is a Gryffindor
rising. TWEET CUTE is her debut novel. You can find her geeking out online at
@dilemmalord on Twitter.
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