Today, I am a published novelist.
I dreamed and I worked and I fretted and I worked and I wanted to quit but I didn't quit and I dreamed some more and I fretted some more and I worked and I worked and I worked and here it is: the product of all of that.
I think my eighth grade self, writing in her notebooks and dreaming, would be very proud. I know last year's Raine O'Tierney is proud!
Okay, enough of the self-pats on the back. Let's get down to business. What's this novel I'm yammering about? And where are the GIVEAWAYS we were promised?!
Autumn struggles to keep Great-Pop on this side of death's door. But how can she compete with the beautiful and mysterious Valley—a place of surreal magic where the sun never fully sets? Especially when there's someone familiar in the Valley who will do everything he can to keep Great-Pop from returning to her.
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Exclusive excerpt:
“No,” he said. “You wanted a story I never
told anyone. Well, this is it. It’s a story about friendship.”
“I
thought he was your love?”
“All
good loves start out as friendships, princess,” Great-Pop said, his hands warm
and firm on her back. “Do you want to hear?”
Oh how
she wanted to hear. More than anything she’d ever wanted before. Autumn nodded
quickly.
“I
noticed him at church first.”
Autumn
looked around the yard. The sun was burning out of the sky, leaving a swath of
sunset colors in its wake, and near the edges of the yard where the juniper
bushes grew, tiny bursts of green illuminated the growing darkness as the
fireflies came out to dance.
“He
kept his hair long, which wasn’t the style at the time.”
She
thought again about Joey Sullivan on That Rocks! It was the best show on
television, and all the girls in her grade thought Joey was the cutest. Of
course he was her favorite too. He had a really great smile with a dimple and
really long hair, almost as long as hers. He tied it back in a ponytail.
“And
he dressed really casual for Sunday service. My step-momma—your
great-great-grandmother—used to say that his family was poor trash and that the
bank ought to do us all a favor and take those acres of dust they called a farm
and drive them out of town. Step-Momma was a snob, and we were poor too. But we
weren’t poor like the McMillans, and that made her think she was better than
them.”
It was
the first time she’d ever heard him say anything about his stepmother. She
decided anyone that had anything bad to say about the young man her Great-Pop
loved wasn’t a good person, and she immediately disliked the
great-great-grandmother she’d never known.
“What did he look like,
Great-Pop?”
“Handsome.
Mischievous.”
“What
color was his hair?”
“Brown.”
“And
long,” she repeated for herself. Joey Sullivan had blond hair, so she had to
adjust for that.
“With
bright blue eyes.”
She
fixed that too.
“So
you talked to him at church?” she spurred him anxiously. She wanted more!
Great-Pop moved quietly over to the rust-stained iron
chair next to the bushes. “I met him at the little library. The librarian there
was an old maid named Miss Palmer, and she was mean….”
*~*~GIVEAWAY(S) TIME!!~*~*
Check out my interview over at The Hat Party and comment for your chance to win an e-copy of Most Beautiful Words.
There's a second chance to win an e-copy of Most Beautiful Words if you follow along with my Dreamspinner Press Blog Release Day Party posts from 9 a.m. CDT to 12:30 p.m. CDT today!
And finally, follow the official Most Beautiful Words blog tour around to snag all your chances to enter the rafflecopter for a $25 Amazon gift card
Tour Dates/Stops:
October 10: Angel Martinez | My Fiction Nook | Up All Night, Read All Day | Fallen Angel Reviews
October 13: Amanda C. Stone | Decadent Delights
October 14: Jade Crystal
October 15: LeAnn’s Book Reviews | Velvet Panic
October 16: Full Moon Dreaming | Dawn’s Reading Nook
October 17: Wake Up Your Wild Side | Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
October 20: Parker Williams | Inked Rainbow Reads
October 21: Cate Ashwood | Love Bytes | Book Reviews, Rants, and Raves
October 22: Regular Guys, Hot Romance | Emotion in Motion
October 23: EE Montgomery | MM Good Book Reviews
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Beautiful words from my mother: “Nothing matters to me than seeing you open your eyes again.” I had been in a coma for three months after a car accident.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, how powerful! Makes me teary-eyed just reading it.
DeleteAmazing giveaway. Most beautiful words: "Don't let him put you down." My bf's words against this "someone" that was killing me inside
ReplyDelete