Cake Time

Winner of the 2015 Red Hen Press Fiction Award.

A new Novel-in-Stories that New York Times bestselling 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.

About the Author
Ju, Siel: - Siel is a writer in Los Angeles. Her novel-in-stories, Cake Time, is the winner of the 2015 Red Hen Press Fiction Manuscript Award. Siel is also the author of two poetry chapbooks. Her stories and poems appear in ZYZZYVA, The Missouri Review (Poem of the Week), The Los Angeles Review, Denver Quarterly, and other places. Siel is the recipient of a residency from The Anderson Center at Tower View and Vermont Studio Center; she holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. Find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @sielju.