Spotlight & Giveaway: Stranger Things Have Happened by Kasie West

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Kasie West’s new release: Stranger Things Have Happened

Can fake dating lead to real love? In Kasie West’s next sexy adult romcom two people must decide where the lie ends and the chemistry begins.

Sutton knows she needs therapy. After all, she’s managing her newly opened restaurant remotely while taking care of her ungrateful sick mother. Plus, her boyfriend of two years just dumped her over the phone. But does therapy with a handsome stranger, who she has to pretend to be engaged to, in order to help her friend’s struggling relationship count? Probably not. Then why did she just agree to go? Because she’s had a few too many drinks? Because this stranger, Elijah, is smug and annoying and really, really handsome? Because she feels guilty that she abandoned her best friend, Tara, after high school and this might just make up for it? Whatever the reason, she has committed to this unhinged plan.

What the hell is Sutton doing?

Helping Tara prove a point: a good therapist can tell the difference between real love and fake love. That’s what she’s doing. But as they attend their sessions, Sutton and Elijah only seem to be proving one thing—the lines between pretend desire and real desire are very blurry. This true connection forming between them is threatening to unravel everything Sutton thought she knew about family, friendship, and her own heart.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Stranger Things Have Happened 

From Stranger Things Have Happened by Kasie West. Copyright © 2026 by the author, and reprinted with permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

CHAPTER 1

“Are you breaking up with me?” My voice was laced with incredulity. Not anger or sadness or heartache. Just pure shock, disbelief. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and spun a full circle, sure I’d find him standing by his car with a wide smile on his face, ready to tell me it was just a joke.

Nate wasn’t there. Instead, his voice in my ear said, “Yes, Sutton, I am.”

“Over the phone? You couldn’t drive here and say this to my face?” That sounded like a threat. I hadn’t meant for it to, but he was supposed to be here. I hadn’t seen him in two weeks. We were going to go on a date, relax, laugh. I needed to laugh. I had gotten us a hotel room, called in a caretaker for my mom.

“Now you’re going to tell me how I’m allowed to break up with you?” Nate asked.

I bristled. “I’m not telling you how to break up with me. It’s just common sense.”

“You’re more than four hours away. This had to be a phone call.”

Apparently, I, and our two-year relationship, weren’t worth a four-hour drive. “Was there anything else you wanted to say, or does a phone call five minutes before you were supposed to be here cover it?”

“I should’ve known this would be how you’d handle it.”

“How’s that?”

“Like you’re conducting a business meeting, going over an agenda. Very lackluster.”

My entire body tensed at the word he deliberately used. It was a quote from the food critic in the Los Angeles Times about my recently opened restaurant. I had the longer version memorized: Good food, well run, but lackluster atmosphere and dining experience. I feared that was as much a description of me as it was of my restaurant. Review of Sutton Scott by any boyfriend she had ever dated: Good heart, organized, but boring as hell. Lackluster in my restaurant was fixable. In myself, probably a lost cause.

But Nate was the one who was breaking up with me, so why did he have to deliver such a low blow? “Now who’s the one trying to dictate how this should play out?” I asked.

“I never dictated anything in our relationship, Sutton.”

“I guess that’s why you’re breaking up with me.”

“I’m breaking up with you because I am number four in your life. After your business, after your mother who doesn’t even want you there, after your apartment.”

It was a nice apartment. I wasn’t going to leave it to move into a bigger place with him after only two years. I had the best rent in the city and a brick fireplace.

“Are you really telling me you didn’t see this coming?” he asked.

I really hadn’t. Had I not been eleven months into opening a restaurant with my best friend that I was now trying to help run from three hundred miles away. Had I not been taking care of my mother who, after a major car accident, had both a serious concussion and a shattered tibia but who still insisted she didn’t want me here. Maybe then, I might have seen some signs. But I figured the distance between us was a result of our busy schedules … and the literal distance between us. It obviously wasn’t.

A couple brushed by me on the sidewalk, hand in hand.

“Are we done here?” I asked.

“Done,” he said, and without another word, the phone went dead.

I was twenty steps from the front door of the fancy steakhouse where we were supposed to meet, but my legs felt like rubber, standing there in my high heels. I had gone all out for him: put on a slinky black dress, slicked my long waves into a high pony, painted on lipstick, shaved everything … twice!

My eyes stung, but I bit the inside of my cheeks, not allowing any emotion to rise to the surface.

The closest door to me was a cowboy-themed bar. I didn’t care about themes at the moment. I stepped inside, needing a drink. Fast.

A neon decoration of a man tipping his wide-brimmed hat over and over glowed on the far wall as I headed to the long bar. I took the closest empty seat, a low-backed barstool, beside two guys who seemed too preppy for the surroundings—both in pastel polos and too-tight jeans. The bartender, a woman wearing a leather vest and a studded belt, approached me right away. Maybe she sensed the urgency in my expression, or maybe nobody else needed her at the moment.

“You look like you should be next door” was how she greeted me, her eyes traveling over my attire.

“I should be,” I said, but didn’t elaborate.

“What can I get you?”

“Something strong,” I said.

Her eyebrows popped up. She pulled a shot glass from beneath the counter and filled it with vodka. I downed it, cringing at the burn before nodding for another.

She obliged. “That bad, huh?”

“Not a great day.”

“You’re not from around here, are you?” she asked, filling my glass again.

“Actually,” I said with an ironic laugh. “I grew up here. Five miles east. My mom still lives here. I came back…” I stopped myself. My mom didn’t need her business spread around. She didn’t need everyone to know she’d gotten in a serious accident two weeks ago that resulted in surgery, persistent concussion symptoms, and an unknown recovery time. Hell, maybe the whole town already knew. They probably did. And yet still, I finished with “To see her.” I downed my second shot.

“Enjoy your visit,” she said, raising the bottle to pour me another.

I held up my hand. “How about a beer? Do you have anything local?”

She nodded and left to fill that order.

“You said no then?” asked one of the preppy guys next to me. Not to me. To the other guy. They were both very attractive. The one closest to me in a boy-next-door way, with soft brown curls and a friendly demeanor. The other had thick, dark hair, perfectly clear olive skin, and full lips. He wasn’t the boy next door. He was very … pretty. But in a villain sort of way.

“I said, why would I go to therapy if there’s nothing wrong with me?” Maybe he wasn’t as boy next door as he looked.

I almost snorted. That vodka was going to my head quicker than I anticipated. I probably should’ve eaten something first. I couldn’t remember when or what I’d eaten today. A granola bar? Ten hours ago?

Maybe I did snort because Mr. I’m Perfect Therefore Don’t Need Therapy gave me a sideways glance. I lowered my head, staring into my empty shot glass.

“Exactly,” Villain Pretty Boy said.

“Let me guess, you’re a pro therapy person,” Mr. Perfect said.

It took me several beats to realize he was talking to me. Had I snorted again?

“What? Not my business,” I said.

“No, please, you’re obviously listening.”

“I just think everyone can benefit from therapy is all.”

He sighed. “You see, that’s my problem. If you think everyone needs it, then it’s not exactly a remedy for anything, is it?”

“I didn’t say everyone needed it. I said everyone could benefit from it.”

“That’s how they get you. They create this narrative that the world would be better with therapy. It’s a gimmick, a scam.”

“Who is they?” I asked, turning on my barstool to face him more fully, just as the bartender slid a glass full of amber liquid in front of me, the white foam on top nearly sloshing over the edge.

“The therapists,” he answered.

“Obviously,” Villain Pretty Boy said. There was a teasing gleam in his eye, and I couldn’t tell if it was because he was humoring his friend or because he, too, found the idea of therapy laughable.

“Who wants you to go to therapy?” I asked. “Your mom?”

This time Villain Pretty Boy outright laughed.

Mr. Perfect scowled. “No, my fiancée. Couples therapy, before we get married.”

“And this is too hard of an ask for you?” I said, my voice full of sarcasm. If this guy couldn’t accomplish this straightforward request, what other things would he attempt to avoid in their marriage? She needed to run. Or maybe that was my recent breakup speaking. I was feeling extra bitter right now.

“I could do it,” he said. “Humor her. But the way a marriage starts is going to dictate the entirety of it.”

“So you do get the point then,” I said.

Excerpt. ©Kasie West. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.

Giveaway: St. Martin’s Publishing Group is giving away five finished copies of STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED by Kasie West. Open to US residents only.

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Meet the Author:

Kasie West is the author of more than fifteen (and counting) young adult novels. Her books have been named ALA-YALSA Quick Picks, Junior Library Guild Selections, and ALA-YALSA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Kasie is also the author of We Met Like This, her adult debut. When she’s not writing, she’s binge-watching television, devouring books, or taking care of her growing collection of houseplants. Kasie lives with her family in central California.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250349168?tag=macmillan-20
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/stranger-things-have-happened-a-novel-kasie-west/eb3bfd057b0f38c8?ean=9781250349163&next=t&next=t&affiliate=3214