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Book Tropes:

First Love

The Outsider

Fish out of Water

The Meet-Cute

Different Worlds

Parent with new love(multiple new loves)

Sweet Romance

Joey Kaminski has already been to 9 different high schools. She has been a Cougar - twice, Jaguar - twice, Wildcat, Spartan, Rams, Husky, and a Falcon when her and her mom move to 36 Pearl Street in New Haven, Connecticut before the start of her senior year. Joey’s mom is a chronic dater and when she starts dating, boyfriend #10 (she stopped learning their names a long time ago), Joey knows it can only end one way. The difference this time?

She doesn’t want to move. Joey has made an unlikely friend in Pani Mazurek, the feisty and straight-talking Polish grandmother that lives below her and her mom. Another reason not to move? Pani Mazurek’s brown eyed, curly haired grandson. It wasn’t swoon at first sight, but it was close. Then she meets Lauren, his cousin. Lauren is beer drinking, cigarette smoking, cheerleader which a knack for getting into trouble. The three of them form a bound, that makes them inseparable. Expect for when Lauren is grounded, which is always.

Joey never realized how one moment, in this case, one address could change your life. Before she steps foot into her new school for her first day of her senior year, she already knows it will be unlike any school she had started before. But a sudden accident threatens everything Joey has learned about herself and the community she has built around her. 36 Pearl Street tells the story of an unlikely pair. A seventeen-year-old teenager, with an emotionally unstable mom and an 80-year-old World War II survivor and how they each save each other.

“Whoa, that’s a lot of water,” I commented mostly to myself.

“She would rival some of the best doomsday preppers,” Bartek mumbled back. With that he grabbed two gallons of water and waited for me.

“Thank you again for everything.” Pani Mazurek just nodded and returned to her tea. I grabbed my towel off the back of the chair and headed for the door with Bartek following, lugging water.

“I’m really sorry you have to do this,” I commented to him on the stairs.

“It’s okay. I had to get going anyway. I have to finish running some errands and then I have to get ready to take this American girl over to the high school in the afternoon,” he mocked.

“You don’t have to take me over if you’re busy,” I commented feeling myself blush.

“I was kidding, Josephine.”

“Call me Joey, please.” I said opening the door to the apartment. He walked right in and headed for the kitchen. Being Pani Mazurek’s grandson, and knowing his uncle lived in the unit, it was no surprise he knew the layout.

“You can call me Barti,” he said sticking out his hand for an official handshake. “But not in front of my grandmother. She will go ballistic. She has this thing about names,” he commented.

“I’ve noticed,” I responded with a smile.

“Okay, I will be back around two this afternoon. What’s your number? I can just text you,” he asked pulling his phone out of his pocket.

“So, about that, I don’t have a phone,” I said looking down at my feet.

“You’re kidding right? I know I’m a stranger, but you can trust me with your number. I won’t share it.”

“No really, it’s not a joke. I don’t have a phone.”

“Whoa,” he said looking at me with a wide-eyed expression.

“I can just come down to the street at two,” I said, and he nodded somewhat speechless.

“Okay, well see you then Barti.”

“See you then Joey.” With that he walked down the stairs still shaking his head in disbelief. I closed the door and leaned against it for a moment trying to make sense of my morning. We had been in this new place for three days and already I had spoken to more people than I had with the last four places combined.

T.S. Krupa was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Krupa and her younger sister were raised in a Polish household with a blended American culture by her parents Stan and Krys; she is fluent in Polish and frequently travels to visit family abroad.

Growing up in Clinton, Connecticut Krupa attended The Morgan High School. She started playing field hockey in the seventh grade after being cut from the soccer team. She was accepted to Franklin Pierce University (College then), where she continued playing field hockey for four years. She made it almost all ten years of her field hockey career without any injuries only to break her nose playing during her senior year.

After college, Krupa traveled cross-country for a job at Texas Tech University. While there, she earned her Master’s and became a Red Raider (Guns Up!) and college football fan. It was there that she started coaching club lacrosse and found an instant connection with coaching.

The next chapter in her life took Krupa from Texas to be with her then fiancé in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 2009, she finally started work on her childhood goal and began work on her Doctorate of Education from North Carolina State University. Her dissertation topic focuses on ethical decision-making. Krupa graduated with her Ed.D. in May 2014.

She has continued to coach club field hockey and is now in her thirteenth year of coaching club field hockey. Fun Fact: Krupa was part of a 51 hour long field hockey game that at the time set the Guinness Book World record for longest played field hockey game.

Krupa now lives in North Carolina with her husband, daughter and two dogs.