Jennifer Westlake’s new young adult novel, Sand Moon, explores that dreamy time between high school and the rest of your life. Local readers will appreciate the subtle references to local beach towns like Gulfport and Treasure Island. Jennifer Westlake
The summer after senior year in high school is a time of endless exciting possibilities. And one sort of scary reality: that you just might – sort of – be an adult now. In the midst of these many ch-ch-ch-changes, local author Jennifer Westlake sets her charming coming-of-age novel, Sand Moon (self-published, 2023).
Losing Yourself, Finding Yourself
The story centers on newly graduated Andie, whose boss at the local news station — fresh from her latest wellness retreat — has given her a challenging assignment: Find yourself, then write all about it.
Andie’s quest takes her to the dreamy beach town of Sand Moon. There, from her adorable seaside cottage, she meets a lovely townie called Eric and a spunky cottage-neighbor, Bella, who is in the process of inheriting her parents’ ice cream business. With her new friends, Andie discovers the joys of dancing into the night, sleeping on the beach, and eating ice cream on literally everything. Until adulthood, in the form of her mother’s demand that she enroll in a faraway college, comes knocking.
Beach Life
If it all sounds a little dreamy — a month-long beach junket for a cub reporter, a world where daily ice-cream-for-breakfast never makes you fat — it is. Readers with a taste for gritty reality may not vibe with this confectionary young adult fiction. But anyone (ahem, present company included) who grew up with summer beach trips, where “the beach” was an extraordinary blank canvas on which new friendships, summer romance, and long, sweet days could all be imagined in vibrant pastels… anyone like that will be charmed with the world the novel evokes.
Westlake is no stranger to the beach. During her time at Boca Ciega High School, she can remember frequent JROTC jogs to Gulfport Beach, and almost daily trips to Treasure Island with her dad. The town of Sand Moon, with its artsy, eccentric characters and sun worshipping culture, is inspired by the two places.
She also remembers her own long journey toward self-discovery. Diagnosed with interstitial cystitis shortly after graduating from high school, she spent her early adulthood balancing a variety of jobs with college, attempting to find her true path while keeping up with medical bills. Exploring this transitional time in life through writing — working on the draft that would eventually become Sand Moon — was a therapeutic exercise.
“So many of the books I really enjoy take place during that timeframe,” she notes.
Content Warning: Ice Cream
Westlake, whose career includes some years as a middle school educator, is especially excited to be working in the young adult space.
“Young adult writing gives readers something to bond about,” she says, recalling instant connections with people who share her passion for particular series or characters.
She admits that there is a lot of pressure for young adult authors to include sex, drugs, and cursing in their worlds — things, publishers say, that make the stories “relevant” for young readers. But she didn’t want this for Sand Moon, which certainly presents feelings of young love and attraction, but spends more time on the emotional complexity of relationships than on sexual intimacy. The characters’ relationships feel close and poignant just the same. Like lyrics from your favorite song, blasted on a car stereo, as you and your friends fly down the road on a summer night.
One thing Sand Moon does present in excess is ice cream. Characters eat it in multiple servings for dessert, on pancakes for breakfast, or just when they need to stop and think. It’s a treat Westlake associates closely with the beach and with the feeling of happiness and fulfillment that Andie seeks.
“I just really love ice cream!” she laughs.
And though she may become the first author ever censored by the FDA, Sand Moon is delicious to the last, sweet lick.
