This Time Will Be Different

Ages 13 And Up, Grades 8 And Up

For fans of Jenny Han, Morgan Matson, and Sandhya Menon, critically acclaimed author Misa Sugiura delivers a richly crafted contemporary YA novel about family, community, and the importance of writing your own history.

Katsuyamas never quit—but seventeen-year-old CJ doesn’t even know how to get started. She’s never lived up to her mom’s type A ambition, and she’s perfectly happy just helping her aunt, Hannah, at their family’s flower shop.She doesn’t buy into Hannah’s romantic ideas about flowers and their hidden meanings, but when it comes to arranging the perfect bouquet, CJ discovers a knack she never knew she had. A skill she might even be proud of.But when her mom decides to sell the shop—to the family who swindled CJ’s grandparents when thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during WWII—a rift threatens to splinter her family, friends, and their entire Northern California community. And for the first time, CJ feels like she’s found something she wants to fight for. Misa Sugiura’s first novel, It’s Not Like It’s a Secret, earned the Asian Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature, and her second novel brings readers a new and thoughtfully rendered story about community and personal history, family and identity, and the ways we bridge the gaps between them.

About the Author

Misa Sugiura’s ancestors include a poet, a priestess, a samurai, and a stowaway. She grew up in Northfield, Illinois, went to college on the East Coast, and lived in Japan for three years before moving to Silicon Valley and becoming a high school English teacher. She is also the author of It’s Not Like It’s a Secret. Misa lives under a giant oak tree with her husband, two sons, two cats, and a gray-banded king snake.