Cake Time [Paperback]

Winner of the 2015 Red Hen Press Fiction Award.

A new Novel-in-Stories thatNew York Timesbestselling author Jillian Lauren calls a delicious indulgence.

Daring yet aimless, smart but slightly strange,Cake Time?s young female protagonist keeps making slippery choices, sliding into the dangerous space where curiosity melds with fear and desires turn into dirty messes. In ?How Not to Have an Abortion,? the teenaged narrator looks for a ride from the clinic between her AP exams. In ?Easy Target,? the now-college-grad agrees to go to a swingers party with a handsome stranger. A decade later, in ?Glow,? she is suddenly confronted by the disturbing and thrilling fact of her lover?s secret daughter. Ultimately, this unflinching novel-in-stories grapples with urgent, timeless questions: why intelligent girls make terrible choices, where to negotiate a private self in an increasingly public world, and how to love madly without losing a sense of self.

?Cake Timeis a delicious indulgence. Treat yourself to its dark, seductive intimacies and savor the gritty sugar of its unsentimental humor.??Jillian Lauren,New York Timesbestselling author ofSome Girls: My Life in a Harem, andEverything You Ever Wanted

?Siel Ju?sCake Timeis sharply observed and wonderfully contemporary: these complex, flawed, and real characters live in our current world, with all its confusions and opportunity to connect?or disconnect. It?s about the perils and pleasures of intimacy, and its heroine feels as alive as you and I. A compelling and unflinching debut.??Edan Lepucki, author ofCalifornia

?Siel Ju?sCake Timeis an astonishing debut. Ju?s novel-in-stories is unsettling and fierce and full of loneliness, sadness, and humor. Her voice is so alive, and her candor?particularly about men and sex?is keenly astute, intimate, and startling. The prosl3œ