Release Day Blitz & Giveaway
Crushing
Summer
by
C.M. Stunich
 |
Release Date: November 7, 2013
Genre: New Adult Romance |
~ Synopsis ~
I'm a girl. I met a boy. Why can't it stay that
simple?Here, in this town, summer doesn't just mean tiny bikinis and sunglasses, white toothed grins and lounging at the beach. It means pain. And loss. And false promises.
It means liars pretending to be saints, friends
pretending to be enemies, rivals pretending to be lovers.
For me, it means being crushed. The Crush,
actually. The one they all want simply because they were told to. It means
being surrounded by beautiful faces and gorgeous bodies, sweet words and
sizzling kisses.
It means being wanted and despised.
My name is Chloe Summer, and I'm afraid that if
I'm not careful, this summer could be my last.
~ Links to Buy
~
~ Excerpt ~
“Hey, what's your last name?” I asked suddenly,
remembering the need I felt earlier to have it, like this would seem more real
somehow if I got that information.
“Alice,” he replied and then dug around in
his pocket for a second. I thought he was going for a smoke, but when he
pulled out his hand, he had a seashell lying in his palm. It was a small,
pink conch, about the size of a dime. I'd never seen one that little
before. When I reached out to touch it, Casper folded his fingers around
the shell. I glanced up at him. “This is for you,” he told me.
“But first, I want to hear your last name.” My pulse began to
thunder in my head and my mouth went dry. I couldn't explain the feeling,
but there it was again, that magnetic heat that was always between us, warming
the cold evening air and lighting up the sky with fireworks. It felt
exactly the way people always claimed first love will feel – wild, electric,
uncontrollable. Now, I didn't exactly think I was in love, not yet, but
there was the possibility of love, and it was as beautiful as the roiling sea.
“Summer.”
Casper grinned and opened his fingers, waiting with his palm outstretched
and his eyes locked onto mine. “It suits you,” he said, and I smiled.
My hand came up and the tips of my own fingers slid across his moist
flesh, testing, teasing, learning. Each whorl of my fingertips felt like
a ridge, crashing against the lines of Casper's hand until my heart was pumping
so fast I thought it would burst from my chest. If I wasn't careful, I'd
end up dropping dead and getting buried in one of the old graves.
I put the shell in my
lap and clasped my hands around it.
"Casper,” I began, knowing I couldn't put
this off any longer. I hated to break the moment, but I could hear the
shouting and cheering coming from the drive-in and knew it was only a matter of
time before he figured out there was something odd going on. “I know we
just met and this might sound a little weird, but there's something you should
know about this town.” His raised his thin brows and sat back, draping
his arms over the back of the bench.
“Do you sacrifice kittens on the full
moon? Because if so, I'm totally out. I won't sacrifice kittens.
Goats, maybe. But not kittens.” I tried to smile back at the
joke, but thinking of The Assignment was akin to strapping weights on either
side of my mouth. The corners of my lips pulled down into a frown.
"Tonight is
Assignment Night.” Casper remained still, listening, not at all nervous
about what I was going to say. He didn't think it was going to be bad or
that it was going to affect him, but I knew it would. Somehow, I just
knew.
“Like, for classes or something?”
"Like, for the
summer. All summer. Tonight, all the students, ages thirteen to
eighteen, will be assigned a title. Most of them will stay Students, but
a select lucky and unlucky few will be … Something else.” Casper
gave me a look that said I was totally and completely nuts. Again, I
attempted a smile, but this one fell even flatter than the first. I
resorted to keeping my eyes on the sea and letting my fidgety hands spin the
conch around in circles. “You know all the stereotypes people think about
when they talk about high school? Jocks? Losers? Party boys?
Goths?” Casper pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and
slipped it between his lips.
“Yeah, sure, okay.”
“Well … on Assignment
Night, tonight, people get nominated by their peers for certain … positions,
and then they have to act them out until the Friday before Labor Day.
Every day until that day, at midnight, they have to be who everyone
wants them to be, for good or bad. And everyone else, the Students, they
have to play along.”
“Um, you're kidding right? Is this
some kind of game?” My faux smiled turned into a grimace.
“I wish it were.
If it were just a game, it'd be fun, right? But it's not. I
mean, I used to think it was, but not anymore. People get hurt playing
this game.” I paused, not necessarily for dramatic effect, but there it
was. “They get killed. Sometimes. By accident.”
“You're serious?”
Casper asked, sitting up, looking alarmed. “Why, how?” I nibbled my
lower lip for a second, trying to decide how to explain this.
“There are certain …
roles you don't really want to play. Like Outcast. Or even Crush.
Last year's Crush was killed in an accident … She couldn't handle
the attention and she ran off in the middle of the night. They say she
slipped on the edge of the cliff and … ” I didn't have to finish my
sentence. Casper was smart; he'd figure it out. It was so clichéd,
but still tragic. When Tatiana's body had washed up onshore, it had been
barely recognizable. She had no eyes, no face at all really, and her
hands … I shook the memory off.
“Can you opt out or whatever?” I
glanced over at Casper. His green eyes were wide and his cigarette remained
unlit.
“I guess. I mean, I am this year. We are.
It's not normal, but if we're not there, we can't sign up.” I
shrugged and watched as the shaking got worse. Casper's face blanched and
his lips got tight.
“My sister. Julie. Let's say,
she went to the drive-in. I mean, let's just pretend for a second that
she was sitting in my car.” I stared at Casper with a baffled expression
my face. They wouldn't … would they? No. No, I knew better.
They would. They most certainly would. That whole mob
mentality thing is true. When everybody got together for The Assignment,
they got weird.
“If she were there,” I began, feeling afraid for a girl
I'd never met. “Then she'd be in big trouble.”
~ About the Author ~
C.M. Stunich was raised under a cover of fog in
the area known simply as Eureka, CA. A mysterious place, this strange, arboreal
land nursed Caitlin's (yes, that's her name!) desire to write strange fiction
novels about wicked monsters, magical trains, and Nemean Lions (Google it!).
She currently enjoys drag queens, having too many cats, and tribal bellydance.
Always a fan of the indie scene and 'sticking it
to the man,' Ms. Stunich decided to take the road less traveled and forgo the
traditional publishing route. You can be assured though that she received
several rejections as to ensure her proper place in the world of writers before
taking up a friend's offer to start a publishing company. Sarian Royal was
born, and Ms. Stunich's books slowly transformed from mere baking chocolate to
full blown tortes with hand sculpted fondant flowers.
C.M. is a writer obsessed with delivering the
very best and scours her mind on a regular basis to select the most unusual
stories for the outside world.
Ms. Stunich can be reached via e-mail or by post
and loves to hear from her readers. Ms. Stunich also wrote this biography and
has no idea why she decided to refer to herself in the third person.
~ Connect with
C.M. Stunich ~
~ A Rafflecopter Giveaway ~
a Rafflecopter giveaway
No comments:
Post a Comment