Excerpt from Those Pink Mountain Nights by Jen Ferguson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Another cord of wood was due at the house. After tonight, Cam could throw in for the bill. It had been ages since he'd scored this honor, and his bank account was feeling it. Since Berlin started in early December, Joe had been granting it to her, over and over.

Cam erased his call sign on the staff board and triple-checked he hadn't misspelled anything, shifted the letters. As best he could. He'd learned techniques, not in school but from his mom, who had the same difficulties. But like always, after trying hard, Cam had to hope that when he screwed up, someone would point things out nice-like. Joe always did—but he was a great boss who understood what it was like to stand out for things a person couldn't help. Berlin, she didn't abide mistakes, errors, the moments when people showed their soft underbellies.

On Shift:
The Dropout.
The Gray City.
 
And Introducing ...

Clutching the chalk, checking his letters against the note app on his phone for the fourth time, searching for the signs that they were shifting on him, he wondered if Jessie Hampton, their grade's wealthiest student, had what it took to make it at PMP.

Except, it wasn't his grade anymore.

Hadn't been for going on three and a half months.

Even he should be able to find this all a little funny—his mom getting her BA in her forties while her teenage son dropped out of school. It was ironic or something. But, as it turned out, it wasn't at all funny. It was just what it was. That wasn't saying it would always be this way.

Things turned funny all the time.

Excerpted from Those Pink Mountain Nights by Niall Ferguson. Copyright © 2023 by Niall Ferguson. Excerpted by permission of Heartdrum. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.