Showing Up (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798990736115)

Gia Giordano lives by three rules: work hard, be kind, and help others.

But this summer, those principles are about to be pushed to the limit.

A beloved high school guidance counselor, Gia heads to Deer Valley, Utah for a long-overdue vacation with her big, chaotic Italian family-and to celebrate her 40th birthday in style. Confident, funny, and secretly craving a little attention for once, she's planned the ultimate birthday bash to mark the milestone.

But everything comes crashing down when her brother Dominic drops a bombshell: he's getting married. This weekend. In Deer Valley. With the whole family. To a woman, Bridget, whom only half of the family has ever met.

Just like that, Gia's birthday is bumped for a wedding no one knew was happening-and worse, everyone's too excited to notice her heartbreak.

Refusing to fade into the background, Gia rallies her niece and nephews to help secretly reboot her party plans. But the deeper she dives into her mission, the more she finds herself bending the very values she's built her life on. Her well-meaning parents are too busy with wedding chaos to notice the drama unfolding, and her sister Valentina urges her to let it go-maybe a wedding isn't such a bad thing!?

As the celebration Gia dreamed of slips further away, she must decide what matters most: standing her ground, or standing by her family.

From laugh-out-loud moments to tender family truths, the Giordanos will steal your heart-and Gia might just discover that sometimes, the biggest celebrations come in the most unexpected ways.