Monday, April 11, 2016

Dear Nobody Spotlight: Excerpt & Giveaway

Today we have a spotlight for Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose, edited by Gillian McCain and Legs McNeilDear Nobody came out on April 1st. Here's what it's all about:


Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose, edited by Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil
Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon
The words and drawings of Mary Rose present a gritty, powerful, no-holds-barred true experience of a teen girl so desperate to be loved, so eager to fit in that she'll go to extremes that could cost her her life.
This is not a story about addiction. Or sexual promiscuity. Or cystic fibrosis. It's the story of a young woman with a powerful will to live, who more than anything wants to be heard...and loved.
This compelling, emotional account ensures her voice will not be forgotten.






Here's our excerpt from Dear Nobody:
Dear Nobody,
Tonight I got arrested. I hate saying that, but it happens. I had a 40 ounce beer in my hand and one in my book bag and I smelled like it. I was walking with my two friends, when this cop pulls up and goes, “Is something wrong?” We all said nothing was wrong, but then the cop pointed to me and said, “Why does she look so sad?” I made up some bullshit about how my boyfriend and I just broke up, but by then he had already seen the 40 ounce I was hiding in my coat. They arrested me, but not my two friends, because they had no alcohol on them. My mom picked me up at the police station— and on the way back home we got into a fight over the time when I was twelve and she had pot in her car. A lot, too. So I just got out of the car and tried to walk my drunken ass home, but it turns out I was walking in the wrong direction. I could’ve walked from Reading to Pottstown; that’s over twenty miles. Shit, I bet I would’ve kept walking, if I hadn’t seen this mall I knew, and was like, “Oh shit, what now?” I turned around and went to a store I saw closing up. It was after ten. Actually, I had been making pretty good time. I’m glad that I’m in fairly good shape right now, because I would never have made it if I was sick. So I had time to think things through. When I got back to Reading, I let this cop car see me, because it was past curfew and I wanted a ride home. Also, I had a feeling I wouldn’t get fined; I figured there was no way, after all this shit— that anything else that fucked up could happen to me. The cop came into my house and talked with my mom and me. He said he wanted me to grow up to be happy and healthy, and that he wanted me to introduce him to my kids some day, and that he wanted to see me live to grow old. First off, I’ll never have kids. And secondly, I’ll never get old. It’s hard to grow old when you’re dead.
If you're intrigued, fill out the Rafflecopter form below and enter to win one of two copies of Dear Nobody! Open to US & Canada; giveaway ends on April 30th.




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday, April 04, 2016

Excerpt & Giveaway with Robin Reul (My Kind of Crazy Spotlight)

Today we have Robin Reul here for an excerpt and a giveaway! This post is part of the spotlight tour for My Kind of Crazy.

My Kind of Crazy comes out tomorrow, April 5th! Here's what it's all about:

My Kind of Crazy by Robin Reul
Add to Goodreads | Purchase from Amazon
Despite the best of intentions, seventeen-year old, wisecracking Hank Kirby can’t quite seem to catch a break. It’s not that he means to screw things up all the time, it just happens. A lot. Case in point: his attempt to ask out the girl he likes literally goes up in flames when he spells “Prom” in sparklers on her lawn…and nearly burns down her house.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Peyton Breedlove, a brooding loner and budding pyromaniac, witnesses the whole thing. Much to Hank’s dismay, Peyton takes an interest in him—and his “work.” The two are thrust into an unusual friendship, but their boundaries are tested when Hank learns that Peyton is hiding some dark secrets, secrets that may change everything he thought he knew about Peyton.




Here's the excerpt from My Kind of Crazy:
So here’s the thing. It’s not like I woke up this morning and said, “Hey, I think I’ll light the 100-year-old Eastern Red Cedar tree in front of Amanda Carlisle’s house on fire today.” Because I don’t know about you, but when I wake up, my mind doesn’t go straight to arson. Honestly, the first thing I focus on is how fast I can get from my room to the bathroom without my dad’s girlfriend, Monica, trying to chat me up while I’m awkwardly standing there in my boxers.
I’d read online that how you ask a girl to Prom can completely make or break a guy’s chances. I wanted to do something special that Amanda would never forget. Apparently it worked, just not the way I intended. ‘Use sparklers to spell out PROM’ the article on the Internet said. There was even a picture with them all lit up on the ground. Totally idiot proof.
I snuck into her yard like a ninja under the cover of darkness and tried to jam the sparklers in her lawn, but the soil was hard and unyielding. I looked around, desperate, and then I spied a nice soft patch of mulch underneath the cedar tree near the side of her yard. It was perfect, and the sparkler slid in easily. A few minutes later, I had them all lined up just like I’d seen in the picture, and once they were lit, yelled, “Amanda!” I actually had to call out twice because she didn’t hear me the first time. Then she came to the window and gazed down as the sparklers fizzled down to the ground and--boom!
Turns out that was fresh pine mulch underneath that cedar. Pine trees produce turpentine, so I might as well have lit those sparklers in a pool of gasoline for how quickly the mulch caught fire.
I didn’t know what to do, so I ran. Which is why I’m now hiding behind a bush across the street in her neighbor’s yard. This is definitely going down in history as the most epic promposal fail ever. And then, as if things couldn’t get more catastrophic, they do.
Baseball is practically a religion where I live in South Coast Massachusetts. People take their Red Sox pretty seriously, and the die-hards decorate their trees with red and blue streamers every season in a show of support. The Carlisles are no exception. And it doesn’t take long for the flames to catch and race the length of those ribbons into the dry branches above.
From where I’m crouched down, I have a perfect view of the Carlisle house. I can see Amanda’s eyes widen and her jaw drop open as she observes the quickly escalating situation in her yard. She pulls away from the window, I’m guessing to call the fire department. We should probably talk about Prom some other time.
With things clearly going south, I do what any sensible person would do: I get the hell out of there. Of course, a sensible person wouldn’t have put sparklers in a pile of fresh mulch directly under a highly flammable tree. Hindsight is 20/20.
So in the most casual way possible, I hook my backpack - which is loaded with empty sparkler boxes - over my shoulders, hop on my bike, and pedal away from the scene at what I hope passes for a normal speed. Cool as a cucumber, that’s me.
I reason for a brief moment that, perhaps, Amanda didn’t actually see me there. Even if she did, she doesn’t know me all that well so she might not recognize me. I am wearing black jeans, and my Batman hoodie conceals my medium-length, stick straight brown hair, so I am sort of camouflaged. Not to mention, those flames were pretty distracting.
The fire station is about five streets away, near the library. I start to worry that the firemen won’t get there fast enough and Amanda’s whole house might burn down. I know I’m a lame-ass chicken shit for hightailing it out of there, but the last thing I need is Dad on my case for something else. As far as he’s concerned, I can’t do much right. I would like to say he’s just being an asshole, but lately I’ve been wondering if he’s onto something.
I consider turning around and heading back to Amanda’s, which would be the right thing to do, but I swear I’m about to piss myself with fear so I pedal faster, listening for the sounds of approaching police sirens. For good measure, I jerk my bike off the main road, cutting through the back alleys toward home.
If you're intrigued, fill out the Rafflecopter form below and enter to win one of two copies of My Kind of Crazy! Open to US & Canada; giveaway ends on April 30th.




a Rafflecopter giveaway

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