Fade into You

by Amber Smith, Sam Gellar

Overview

When Jessa and Bird join forces to break up their best friends’ toxic relationship, they start to fall for each other in this swoony ’90s romance from bestselling author Amber Smith and Sam Gellar, perfect for fans of She Gets the Girl.

Bird and Jessa don’t have much in common. Bird is an aspiring poet, still finding herself after a transformative summer away at writing camp. Jessa lives for the discovery of new music, using it to block out the dysfunction waiting for her at home. They would never have crossed paths if it weren’t for one shared problem: Their two best friends have started dating, and the relationship is threatening to ruin their senior year.

Tired of coming second to their friends’ romance, the girls come to the only logical conclusion: they have to break their friends up. But the more time Bird and Jessa spend scheming, the more they start to realize they might have more in common than they thought.

Set in the late ’90s in a world full of change as much as possibility, Jessa and Bird relearn what it means to love themselves and receive love in return, and to dream for a future they never imagined.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665966108
Publisher:	Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication date:	11/04/2025
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.60(d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Amber Smith is the New York Times, USA TODAY, and internationally bestselling author of the young adult novels The Way I Used to Be, The Last to Let Go, Something Like Gravity, and The Way I Am Now. An advocate for increased awareness of gendered violence and LGBTQIA+ equality, she writes in the hope that her books can help foster change and spark dialogue. She lives in Ithaca, New York, with her wife and coauthor, Sam Gellar, and their ever-growing family of rescued dogs and cats. You can find her online at AmberSmithAuthor.com.

Sam Gellar kicked off her writing career with a short chapbook of poetry in third grade. In high school, her play Life Versus the Paperback Romance gained national attention and was subsequently performed Off-Broadway, starring Mary-Louise Parker and Lisa Kron. She earned her MFA in creative writing and has penned numerous short stories and screenplays. Fade into You is her first novel. She feeds her creativity and consummate inner nerd with graphic novels and weekly TTRPG gaming. She resides in Ithaca, New York, with her wife and growing gaggle of rescue fur babies. Visit her at SamGellarWrites.com.

Read an Excerpt

Bird BIRD
After midnight, it’s finally quiet here. But there’s no way I’ll fall asleep, not without knowing. For the whole hour drive home from the airport this afternoon, I kept telling myself I didn’t care. I wouldn’t care.

As I unpacked my bags and started my laundry, I wanted that clean break. As I helped Mom make dinner and feed the twins, I accepted it. And as I sat down at the kitchen table, everyone talking over each other, being asked not once but three times by both Mom and Daniel how the summer workshop went—never once being given a chance to answer—I reminded myself that we were being logical. Mature, even.

Except now it’s after midnight and it’s too quiet and all I can think about is how he said he’d write to me when he made it home, even though I told him not to. How she said she wouldn’t write because it would be too hard.

Every creak of the stairs is amplified as I try, silently as possible, to make my way downstairs to the communal family computer. The dinging screeching static of the dial-up screams through the quiet. I hold my breath, hoping the stupid modem hasn’t woken anyone.

Dialing… I sit in silence, the tiny yellow figure suspended, waiting to run across the screen. I look over my shoulder, try to listen. I hear Daniel snoring from my mom’s room—their room. A mattress spring creaking in one of the kids’ bedrooms.

Connecting… I watch the yellow guy hop to the next box. And, finally, Connected.

I’m in.

Then I fumble to turn down the speakers as they blare out, “You’ve got mail.”

“Shhh,” I hiss.

Even though I haven’t checked my email in weeks, I only have three messages in my inbox. None from him. Or her. I try to ignore the sinking feeling this churns up in my stomach. There’s one from my older brother, Charlie; one from my best friend, Kayla; and one from the writing workshop with the subject line: Thank you, staff and students, for a wonderful summer of words and… I open the email, but it’s too long to read right now. I don’t have the attention span—or the heart span—not when I know that across the country, in a different time zone, they both received this same email. I wonder if they thought the same thing I’m thinking: that the summer was filled with a lot more than just words.

Charlie’s email is short. No subject.

Hey Bird, Sorry I couldn’t wait to leave till you got back. Had some stuff I needed to take care of on campus but will call with an update on our “research project” soon. Hope you had a fun time at the writing thing.

X Charlie

Kayla’s subject line is just a bunch of exclamation points. I’m not sure I have the heart span for this one either, but I open it anyway.

Birdie—

hi and MAJOR DEVELOPMENT! I THINK DADE IS MY LITERAL SOULMATE I’M DYING. U GET HOME 2MORROW RIGHT?? WILL TELL U EVERYTHING THEN!!!!! Btw so sorry i missed your calls. the rents are being very strict but i got ur letters and the poem and ohmygawd WHAT happened there?!?! Didn’t have a chance to write back but want to hear ALL the juicy details for sure. Gotta go but c u soon! Luv u, kayla

P.S. yes of course i will drive you to your open mic thing

I want to reply in all caps that the details aren’t juicy. They’re painful and scary and confusing… and, okay, maybe a little bit epically life-altering and amazing. Followed by five exclamation points. I want to respond that she likely hadn’t found her literal soulmate, especially because she has had ten literal soulmates since junior year and has barely even exchanged a single word with any of them. But I don’t.

I write back quickly: No worries! We’ll catch up tomorrow. Well, today!

I’m about to sign off when a new message pops up. It’s from him. I really wish it was her, though, because there are things I still need to tell her, even if I never figured out how to say them.

I hate the way my heart stutters as I read his subject line: this is why i never liked haiku / 17 syllables isn’t enough to say what i mean. I open it right away.

miss you already

little bird told me not to

sorry, can’t help it

I start to write back because of that little flutter in my chest telling me, I matter to someone—do anything, anything, to keep this feeling. Turns out I’m happy he wrote even though I told him not to. For a few seconds, anyway. Rereading, I’m not sure I truly understood the difference between alone and lonely until right now. But I’ve learned a lot about words this summer. And I’ve grown addicted to the feeling of not being lonely. I miss it already.

I shut down the computer. Creep back upstairs. In bed again, I pull the covers up to my chin and stare at the ceiling. As my eyes adjust to the dark, the quiet I usually crave echoes all around me, only amplifying the deep empty spaces I feel inside, the ones I’ve been trying so hard to pretend aren’t there.

Editorial Reviews

"An absorbing and unflinching look at queer love in the late 90s. Smith and Gellar have crafted a hopeful, sometimes painful, always empathetic story about two teens falling in love amidst struggle both political and familial. I could not put it down."

 — Kathleen Glasgow, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces and The Glass Girl

** “[A] simultaneously uplifting and unflinching romance.”— Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A perfect romance for teens on the precipice of adulthood."— Booklist

A dark yet hopeful historical novel set in 1999 that explores love, friendship, and mental health....For fans of Jennifer ­Mathieu’s Moxie, an ­overall relatable and universal coming-of-age story. — School Library Journal

“Fade Into You calls back—in vivid detail—the challenges and triumphs of being queer and young in the time of Y2K. Smith and Gellar transport their readers back in time, with all the angst and anger of living complicated lives at a complicated time. Fade Into You is both timely and timeless. A bold and fresh take.”— Gia Gordon, author of The Redemption of Daya Keane

“I loved Fade Into You. It took me back to the cusp of the 2000’s when being queer was less okay than now and family dynamics were built around even bigger societal expectations. Both Jess and Bird are dealing with struggles in friendships and siblings, neither quite knowing how to be completely themselves. Until they meet. And though it’s not a charmed meet cute and there are stumbles along the way, what both girls discover is that it is possible to find that person, the one who accepts and adores you for ALL that you are. With beautiful writing and relatable characters, Amber and Sam have written a distinct dual POV young adult romance that highlights the importance of finding someone who really gets you and still likes you anyway. A love story not to miss.”— Jaye Robin Brown, author of Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit and The Meaning of Birds

From the Publisher