Publication date: February 19th 2015
Genres: Comedy, New Adult, Romance
Synopsis:
From the moment I saw him – all blue eyes and American pie – I knew I’d never be the same.
Determined to escape the pressure of her impending graduation, Wren Porter chooses to take a semester in Europe. She’s there to study, party, and hide from the question that’s haunting her – What’s next?
At least that’s the plan until one night in Munich when she meets Jax, an American soldier stationed overseas. He’s charming, he’s handsome, and in one small act of kindness he becomes Wren’s own personal hero. Suddenly the two are swept up in a mad romance that will cross countries, break laws, and leave them both breathless.
But Jax has questions about his own future and when reality comes calling their bond is put to the test. Are they only meant to have the nights they shared together in Europe, or could they be so much more?
Could they be the future they’ve both been looking for?
This is the Wonder Excerpt #1
This is the Wonder Excerpt #2
Determined to escape the pressure of her impending graduation, Wren Porter chooses to take a semester in Europe. She’s there to study, party, and hide from the question that’s haunting her – What’s next?
At least that’s the plan until one night in Munich when she meets Jax, an American soldier stationed overseas. He’s charming, he’s handsome, and in one small act of kindness he becomes Wren’s own personal hero. Suddenly the two are swept up in a mad romance that will cross countries, break laws, and leave them both breathless.
But Jax has questions about his own future and when reality comes calling their bond is put to the test. Are they only meant to have the nights they shared together in Europe, or could they be so much more?
Could they be the future they’ve both been looking for?
This is the Wonder Excerpt #1
Outside the pub is dark and cold, the wind coming off the
Thames taking form in a swirling fog that lines the walkway leading to the
bridge. Tall lampposts pepper the trail, their iron bases gothic and thick,
coated in black paint that makes them look menacing and strange. The rain
clings to them, obscuring the large yellow glowing globes at their tops and
giving the world an underwater feeling, a thickness and body to the air.
We walk slowly not speaking much. We pass people who nod and
wish us a good evening and at some point Jax takes my hand in his, pulling me
in to walk so close to him that our bundled up bodies brush against each other
with each step. I like the feeling. Of both him next to me and the clench of
his cold fingers on my skin.
Wordlessly he leads me to the large stone railing that runs
along the river and we stand side by side, our hands still grasped, and we
watch boats traverse up and down the dark waters. It’s getting colder and I
take a half step closer to him, burrowing into his side. He releases my hand
and slowly lifts his arm, wrapping it around my shoulder lightly as though
asking permission. I give it by stepping even closer, tucking in under his arm
and resting my head in the curve between his shoulder and neck.
We stand there like that until my hands begin to go numb and
the boats are few and far between. Until his grip on my shoulder tightens and
his pulse pounds against my temple, wild and erratic. Until I lift my head to
look up into his fathomless blue eyes and my heart misses a beat, then stumbles
forward in double time. Until his face lowers, mine rises, and our lips meet in
a flicker flame moment of heat sparking and burning soft and low in the cold
London air.
The cold pushes us from the streets to our hotel room and I
nervously lay down with him on one of the double beds in our room. I kiss him
slowly, my mouth lingering over his lips and my hands staying still on his
arms, reminding myself and him to take it slow. That this is our first kiss and
I want to savor it. I’m afraid of how far he’ll try to take it. Of that awful
moment when the perfection of where we are slips away from us and a boundary
has to be formed.
But Jax never wanders. He never pushes, and eventually the
kissing turns to holding and I’m in his arms in the dark and he’s pulling a
blanket up over us. He’s brushing his mouth over the top of my head and
whispering goodnight, and I’m lit up like the moon. I’m glowing and hovering
high above the earth, untouchable. Unreachable. Enveloped in the infinite span
of space and time with nothing but the beat of his heart, the pull of his
breaths, to hold me down.
This is the Wonder Excerpt #2
Jax calls and I seriously consider ignoring him, but it’s a
weak move and I’m bigger than that. I don’t run, I don’t hide, and if this is
going to hurt then so be it. That’s life. If I didn’t want to run the risk of
saying goodbye, I never should have said hello.
“When is your flight?” he asks.
His voice is horrible. It’s salt on the wound. It’s deep and
slow, like he’s dragging time out. Laying it down and asking it to be still.
“Day after tomorrow. Early.”
“Can I take you to the airport?”
I close my eyes, so touched and so reluctant. Jax standing
tall and beautiful in the airport watching me walk away to get on the plane –
just the thought of it threatens to bring tears to my eyes.
“Wren?”
“I don’t want to say goodbye to you,” I whisper.
He breathes calmly but it sounds forced. “Let me take you to
the airport tomorrow.”
“I don’t leave until the day after.”
“I’ll come get you tomorrow. We’ll have one more day. Give
me one more day and then I’ll take you to the airport in the morning.”
I hesitate. I want it so badly. I don’t know what he has
planned but I want to find out. I trust him implicitly. I’d follow him to the
ends of the earth and, really, has he steered me wrong yet?
“Don’t say no,” he pleads.
“Yes.”
“Yeah?”
I smile. “Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in the morning. Early. And, Wren?”
“Yeah?”
“You won’t be sorry.”
***
There’s a brittle cold snap to the air the next morning. It
stings my eyes when I step outside and freezes my breath in my lungs. I could
stay inside but I’ve already said my goodbyes and I don’t want to say anymore.
Definitely not this last one.
Just as the first of many fat, fluffy snowflakes begin to
fall around me, Jax’s car comes gliding down the road. He parks in front of me,
throws on his hazards, and gets out to help me load my bags.
“What are you doing standing out here in the cold?” he asks,
lifting two suitcases like they don’t weigh more than I do. “You should have
waited inside.”
“I couldn’t stand to be in there anymore. I’m ready to go.
All of this has been looming ever since finals and I just want it to be over.”
I don’t have a ton of bags. I travel light and all of it fits
into Jax’s trunk and back seat easily. He has a small black duffle bag back
there too and my heart leaps at the thought of spending one last day with him.
One last night in his arms. Under his hands.
By the time we reach Frankfurt the snow is coming down
heavily and the roads are getting dangerous. Jax sees my tension as the
conditions worsen. He knows I can’t handle being on the roads much longer.
“I had a whole day planned,” he explains, his voice barely
rising above the purr of the engine and the crunch of the wheels on the
freezing asphalt. “We were going to go to Cologne. It’s really beautiful. The
entire city was nearly destroyed in World War II and this church is one of the
few buildings that survived the bombings. We were going to have lunch there,
then dinner in Frankfurt.”
“That would have been nice.”
“There are a lot of places I wish I had time to take you
to.”
I smile faintly as I stare out the window at the falling
snow covering everything, the ancient streets and the new buildings. The old world
and the new world being blanketed together as though they’re the same. As
though they’re not separated by hundreds of years, hundreds of lives. Hundreds
of stories that have played out between them, all of them the same but somehow
different. Each one unique in its own right.
Jax and I are nothing new. Our situation is the same as so
many others that happened before us. What makes us different is how we live it.
How we write our story.
How we author our own fairy tale.
I roll my head toward him and smile. “I want to see Moscow
with you.”
He glances at me, surprised. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ve always wanted to visit Russia. I want to do that
with you. Let’s go tomorrow.”
“I thought you had a flight to catch.”
“But if I didn’t, would you go with me?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“So we’ll visit Moscow. Then where?”
“Japan,” he says, no hesitation. “I want to see Japan with
you.”
“All of it?”
“Every square mile.”
“That’ll take a while.”
He looks at me steadily. “We’ve got nothing but time,
right?”
I smile encouragingly. “Right.”
Purchase:
AUTHOR BIO:
"I don't write romances, I write relationships. One is pretty and perfect and all consuming. The other is real."
I was born in Eugene, Oregon and studied English Literature at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) I love writing all kinds of genres from YA Dystopian to New Adult Romance, the common themes between them all being strong character development and a good dose of humor.
My husband, son, and snuggly pitbull are my world.
Author links:
I was born in Eugene, Oregon and studied English Literature at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) I love writing all kinds of genres from YA Dystopian to New Adult Romance, the common themes between them all being strong character development and a good dose of humor.
My husband, son, and snuggly pitbull are my world.
Author links:
Blitz-wide giveaway (INT)
- $20 Amazon giftcard
No comments:
Post a Comment