I’m so excited to be revealing the cover for contemporary f/f romance I Kissed a Girl by Jennet Alexander on the site today! It releases from Sourcebooks on August 3, 2021, and sounds cute as heck, with a cover to match! Here’s the story:
Is a happy ending finally in sight for Hollywood’s favorite scream queen?
Lilah Silver’s a young actress who dreams of climbing out of B-list stardom. She’s been cast as the “final girl” in what could be her breakout performance…but if she wants to prove herself to everyone who ever doubted her, she’s going to need major help along the way.
Noa Birnbaum may be a brilliant makeup artist and special effects whiz-kid, but cracking into the union is more difficult than she imagined. Keeping everyone happy is a full-time job, and she’s already run ragged. And yet when the beautiful star she’s been secretly crushing on admits to fears of her own, Noa vows to do everything in her power to help Lilah shine like never before.
Long hours? Exhausting work? No problem. Together they can take the world by storm…but can the connection forged over long hours in the makeup chair ever hope to survive the glare of the spotlight?
And here’s the adorable cover, designed by Dawn Adams and illustrated by Colleen Reinhart!
Preorder it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | Books-A-Million
But wait, there’s more! We’ve also got an excerpt so you can meet Noa and Lilah ASAP!
***
Noa leaned in again, filling in one of Lilah’s brows with a pencil. Perched on the edge of the table, Lilah sitting below her in a lower chair, Noa didn’t notice her necklace dislodging itself from between her breasts until she felt the gentle tug on the chain and the brush of fingers against her collarbone.
Stifling a little yelp, Noa sat back, worried that she’d invaded Lilah’s space more than she should have—only it was the little six-pointed star on the delicate silver chain that Lilah balanced on her fingertips.
“Sorry,” Lilah apologized, casting her eyes up to meet Noa’s gaze through her dark-tinted lashes. “You’re Jewish? I guessed, when we were introduced, but so many people around here use stage names that I wasn’t sure if it was okay to ask.”
A faint and familiar chill prickled the back of Noa’s neck and she forced it back. There was no reason at all to be worried about what Lilah might think. There was no danger here. Noa couldn’t possibly be the first Jewish person she knew—not in a city like LA, not in an industry like theirs. Unless that was why Lilah had been cool and standoffish, and it wasn’t about Noa’s stupid runaway mouth at all…
All of those half-formed thoughts ricocheted through her head in the instant between Lilah’s question and when Noa had to answer, and when she nodded, it was a little more guarded than before. “Yeah. ‘Noa’ is a girl’s name in Hebrew.” Okay, that was fine. No recoil, only a growing smile that Noa wasn’t sure how to parse. It did give her the chance to go on the attack before Lilah could do or say anything awful. “So’s yours, for the record. It means—”
Lilah nodded. “Night. I know. I used my Hebrew name for my stage name. It was easier to pick something that was already kind of familiar.”
Which led to Noa’s next major derail of the day. Would she ever find some kind of solid ground to plant herself on around this girl? “You’re Jewish? It doesn’t say that on your IMD—” She snapped her mouth shut before she could finish the sentence.
“If you say ‘funny, you don’t look it,’ I may just kick you in the teeth,” Lilah joked, her body very still and a hint of a familiar sort of wariness threading itself through her voice now that Noa knew enough to listen for it.
“Not a chance,” Noa promised. “For some strange reason no one ever tells me that,” she added with a flash of a grin and a wink. “Polish red?”
Lilah nodded. “And Russian blond.” She was thawing all around the edges now, her wariness gone and replaced with an almost shy smile. Noa’s heart dipped down into her stomach and twirled around her chest, leaving her dizzy.
“Do you keep?”
Lilah’s cheeks flushed and she glanced away. “Sort of? Not Shabbat or anything. There weren’t any synagogues in the town where I grew up. There’s one in Petosky, but that’s like half an hour away and we didn’t really go except for big events. My family does Passover, somewhat,” Lilah offered up with a little laugh. “My dad really likes matzah as a snack, so he buys it year-round. Except for that week.”
“Only a little backwards.” There wouldn’t be any judgment coming from her—there were at least five hundred of the 613 commandments that Noa ignored on a regular basis. (Maybe more, depending on how you interpreted the one about gossip.)
Lilah ducked her head and laughed again. “Only a little! But it works for him.” The little gesture broke through the shell of perfection, but the glow of her aura never dimmed. She was very human, suddenly approachable, and when she met Noa’s eyes again, Noa felt a pull start somewhere in her midsection. Ah, crap.
“Lilah!”
Lilah turned at the sound of her name and the moment—if it had been a moment at all—was gone. “Here!”
“We’re ready for you. Time for last looks, wardrobe, and makeup, and then we’re on to scene fourteen.”
“Back to the salt mines,” Lilah joked, rising to her feet. She made a little pirouette and fluttered her eyelashes at Noa, completely unaware of the effect she was having on Noa’s blood pressure. “Do I have your approval?”
Noa swallowed hard and found her voice. “Yes, yes you do. Your makeup, I mean.” She scrambled to pull up the continuity photo as an excuse to take her eyes off Lilah and regroup. “Looks good,” she said briskly, and gave her a thumbs-up.
Lilah sketched off a salute, paused to let the wardrobe assistant tweak her shirt hem and the hairdresser to replace a bobby pin, then headed for her next mark.
Noa let out a long, slow breath and tried to force her adrenaline to stand down. Her skin still tingled where Lilah’s fingers had brushed against her, and she swore she could smell the sweet remnants of Lilah’s shampoo. Stupid Denise and her stupid reassignments. Noa would have been safe if she’d been able to keep a little bit of distance between them, but now? A few more days like this one and she was going to spontaneously combust. All they’d find of her by the end of week three would be a little pile of ashes in the shape of a girl, topped with a silver star.
***
Jennet Alexander has been a game designer, a teacher, a singer, a Riot Grrrl, a terrible guitar player, and an adequate crew tech and department head for both stage and screen. She grew up queer in the heart of a large Jewish community in Toronto, Canada, and now lives in a much smaller one with her partner, two kids, and two cats. Most of her wardrobe is still black. Noa and Lilah is her first rom-com.
You can follow Jennet on Twitter at @jennetalexander, and find updates at her website, www.jennetalexander.com.