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Click here to register to attend in-store: https://www.malaprops.com/node/53151. Join us in person at Malaprop’s for this event with Jeff Zentner, presenting his adult fiction debut novel, Colton Gentry's Third Act. Stephanie Perkins will join him. The event is free but registration is required to reserve your seat.
A stirring redemption story of second and even third chances, this novel is a testament that it’s never too late for a career change or an entirely new direction in life. Colton Gentry has finally made it big. He is opening for a country megastar, and he’s married to one of the hottest acts in music. But the recent loss of his best friend from a tragic mass shooting is still weighing on him. Right as he’s about to perform, the combination of grief and alcohol leads to irreversible consequences.
A heart-warming read set in a honeysuckle-scented Southern backdrop, COLTON GENTRY’S THIRD ACT is a love song to the ache of a first love, the joys of discovering that in life there is always another chance, some damn good southern cooking, and an endearing mess of an old dog.
The novel follows the stages of Colton’s life, starting with his senior year of high school when an injury ruins his chances of playing football, to his time coming up with his best friend Duane as hungry musicians in Nashville, and eventually moving into the present when he’s dealing with the aftermath of his public breakdown. After the implosion of his life and marriage and left with few choices or funds, Colton retreats to his rural Kentucky hometown. He’s resigned himself to has-been-dom, until a chance encounter gives him a second shot at life: a job working in the kitchen with Luann, his first love, who has undergone her own reinvention and opened a wildly successful restaurant that is putting his hometown on the map. Luann never forgot the day Colton broke her heart but despite her initial hesitation, she hires him as a sous chef. From catching footballs and strumming guitars, Colton’s latest evolution involves learning how to sharpen knives, julienning carrots, and perfecting his Hot Chicken recipe. And in the close quarters of the kitchen, as the heat starts to simmer between Colton and Luann, they begin to wonder whether their relationship can also have another act.
Jeff Zentner is the author of New York Times Notable Books The Serpent King and In the Wild Light, as well as Goodbye Days and Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee. Among other honors, he has won the ALA’s William C. Morris Award, the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award twice, the Muriel Becker Award, and the International Literacy Association Award, been long-listed twice for the Carnegie Medal, and been a two-time Southern Book Prize finalist. Before becoming a writer, he was a musician who recorded with Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, and Debbie Harry. He lives in Nashville.
Stephanie Perkins is a New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of books for teenagers and for adults with teenage hearts. Her work has been published in over twenty-five territories, and her novel There’s Someone Inside Your House was adapted into a major motion picture for Netflix.
Stephanie was born in South Carolina, raised in Arizona, and attended universities in California and Georgia. Since 2004, she has lived in the mountains of North Carolina.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
55 Haywood St, Asheville, NC, United States, North Carolina 28801