Monday, December 30, 2013

In with a BANG!

2013 ushered in a year that has been one of the wildest and craziest years of my life.

I have YOU to thank for that! So Thank you! Pop some champagne and celebrate my excitement of releasing THREE books in a year with me. One which hit the Amazon Bestseller List. It's a huge accomplishment and I wouldn't have been able to reach it without the amazing bloggers and readers and fellow authors that I have the privilege of meeting and getting to know!

<3 <3 <3 big time!

And 2014 is beginning with a few exciting first couple of months.

REMEMBERING US is coming!
 

And with the new release, I will be giving away ARCs over the next couple of weeks so make sure you check out my facebook page for more information.

I'm so excited to get Adam and Amy's story into your hands. I hope it makes you laugh, makes you smile, pull your hair, and hopefully - makes you want to throw your ereader a few times. (please don't - otherwise I may feel obligated to replace it;-))

And in March, I'm heading to the Big Apple for my FIRST signing! I can not wait to meet the ladies at the Authors In The City signing, and to meet readers and fans and *wiggles eyebrows* cover models.

It's sure to be an incredibly fun weekend.

And then!? Because this isn't enough!? I'll also be releasing the first book in my new series in late March/Early April. With hopefully, the second book to follow it quickly so there isn't too long of a wait for you :) Daemon, Ryker, Jaden, Finn.....these guys will make you swoon and take you for a ride on the back of their bikes like no other.

So that's it....the first look into my upcoming year. I'll be busy writing, reading, playing with my kiddos and hoping and praying like crazy that our horribly bitter cold winter passes quickly. And in the meantime, we'll be drinking lots of hot chocolate and eating bowlfuls of Skittles.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Remembering Us - Chapter One

Here's a part of Chapter One of Remembering Us.
RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 14, 2014

Hope you enjoy it :)

Warning: It's unedited and subject to change.


My steps are slow and my feet are uncertain.

The edges of the stairway I’m being pulled down are gray and cloudy from the smoke wafting up from the basement dance floor.

Kelsey is pulling me somewhere I don’t want to follow. Why don’t I want to be here? The answer niggles at the edges of my mind but I can’t pull it to the front. It’s just out of my grasp, like always.

A sweaty shoulder bumps me into the wall and my hand is pulled from Kelsey’s. Cold foamy beer splashes out of a red plastic cup and hits my shoulder. Kelsey doesn’t look back to see where I am and the blonde guy who hit me doesn’t stop to ask if I’m okay.

I steady my feet and take another step down. The dance floor is packed with people and the music is so loud the thumping bass rattles my teeth. My eyes scan the dark room - brightened only by the strobe light hanging in the center of the ceiling – looking for someone.

The lump in my throat disappears when I realize he isn’t here. He’s not here and a mixture of relief and disappointment swirls inside of me. I smile and reach Kelsey at the bar. The guy behind it smiles at both of us and hands us our filled plastic cups, but I wave mine away. His name is Zander and he’s in my Statistics class. I laugh at something he says as he and Kelsey leave for the dance floor. The nervousness returns when I’m by myself and my eyes scan the room. I should leave now, before he comes.

But then I see him, and I can’t help but smile. He’s a head taller than everyone else and as he hits the bottom stair he has to duck his head to make it through the doorway. A small section of his black hair falls into his eyes and he flips it back.  As if he knows I’m here, his eyes find me immediately and he smiles, walking toward me.

His smile lights up the room and I am no longer worried. Kelsey is gone, Zander is a distant memory and I don’t know if there’s music still playing.

When Adam is around me – my brain flees and my heart flip-flops. His kisses make me lose my mind and remind me of dark chocolate, full of all those feel-good hormones.

He’s a few feet from me when he reaches his arm out like he wants to hug me. I take a step forward but before my foot hits the ground, I’m bumped to the side. I blink and a tiny blonde is wrapped around Adam. Her legs are around his waist and her arms are around his shoulders. She’s completely latched onto him. He smiles at me. His eyes stay on mine as he kisses her forehead and sets her to her feet.

“Hi, Amy.” The little blonde scowls at me. Adam’s eyes are laughing at me.

This. This is why I didn’t want to be here.

#

 

“So who was the girl?”

I stare at the ceiling, ignoring my therapist’s question. I hate this room. The walls are yellow, but not a happy yellow. More like what I imagine baby poop looks like. And the chairs haven’t been updated since at least the sixties. By the time my sessions are done, the only thing that’s changed is the imprint of the scratchy fabric on the backs of my thighs.

Instead of answering the question, I count the ceiling tiles and multiple the rows. Ironic that I use math at a time like this when it was a math class that got me into all this trouble in the first place.

Reliving all these dreams every week is almost as exhausting as having them in the first place and talking about them isn’t making anything better.

“Adam?” Dr. Jamison has lost interest in my silence, again, and turns to him. She’s about fifty years old and her faded blonde hair that hangs down to her waist is always braided. She wears flowy, multi-colored hippy skirts and mismatched tops every time I see her. Sometimes I want to ask her if she has a joint, just to see what she says.

“Tina,” he says softly. I stare out the window at the playground that sits empty at the park across the street. “It was just Tina.”

“Who’s Tina?”

“She was a friend from home. We grew up next door to each other. She was in town that weekend visiting other friends from our high school that went to school with me. That’s all.”

That’s all. It’s only two words, but they sound so condescending every time I hear them. It tells me that everything I’m either dreaming or remembering is made up or a half-truth of what the real life events actually were. It tells me that I’m being an idiot for believing them over my boyfriend who loves me. Or so I’ve been told. Maybe I’d believe them if I remembered Adam at all.