Join us to celebrate the launch of Misa Sugiura's richly crafted, critically acclaimed contemporary coming-of-age novel, This Time Will Be Different, about family, community, and the importance of writing your own history.

 Katsuyamas never quit—but seventeen-year-old CJ doesn’t even know where to start. 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. Then 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. Soon a rift threatens to splinter CJ’s family, friends, and their entire Northern California community; and for the first time, CJ has found something she wants to fight for.

Misa Sugiura's ancestors include a poet, a priestess, a samurai, and a stowaway. She lived in Japan for three years before moving to Silicon Valley and becoming a high school English teacher. She is the author of the Asian Pacific American Award-winning It's Not Like It's a Secret.

Misa will be chatting with Stacey Lee, author of Under a Painted Sky, Outrun the Moon, The Secret of a Heart Note, and the upcoming The Downstairs Girl.