Welcome Home, Caroline Kline

A debut novel sparkling with wit and insight about a young woman whose reluctant return to her Jersey Shore hometown gives her the second chance she didn’t know she needed.

Caroline Kline isn’t ready to strike out.

In New York City, newly single Caroline is stumbling her way through the recent implosion of her life. After a surprise breakup leaves her with no job, no apartment, and no backup plan, she’s unsure of what to do next. That is, until Caroline’s father, Leo, injures himself in a bad fall and asks her to move home to the Jersey Shore suburb she’d always been desperate to escape. But Leo doesn’t want his daughter to be his caretaker; he needs her to replace him as third baseman in his local men’s softball league. This isn’t just any season, Leo claims. This is the year they have a real shot at the World Series, the pride and joy of Glen Brook, New Jersey.

Caroline agrees to move home, concerned that Leo is hiding a more serious health condition than he’s willing to admit. As the first female player in a league full of old-school men, she’s up against more than a few challenges. And when a night gone wrong lands her in the path of her hometown crush--and first love--Caroline struggles to reconcile the life she thought she’d have with the life she might actually want.

Sharply observed and full of humor and heart, Welcome Home, Caroline Kline is a touching tribute to the many unconventional paths that victory, and recovery, can take.

Courtney Preiss was raised in New Jersey and graduated from Emerson College with a BFA in Writing. Her short fiction and essays have been published in Hobart, American Short Fiction, and The Austin Review, and have been named as Best of the Net finalists and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She also writes cultural pieces for the feminist Jewish publication, Hey Alma. By day she’s the creative director at a cultural marketing agency, and was a founding member of TimesUp. After stints in Boston, Los Angeles, and a decade in Brooklyn, she now lives in Asbury Park, NJ.