Book Info:
Title: Blue Rose, a Flowering novel
Author: Sarah Daltry
Release Date: 2/1/2014
Publisher: SDE Press
Cover Design:
Shoutlines Design
“Four. My life has been shaped by four people. Four men, to be
more specific. My father, my stepfather, my best friend, and my boyfriend. The
first two shaped it in horrible ways, but what I am, who I am, is all because
of four men.”
Alana Reardon has secrets. Some of them are too dark to tell,
but everyone already thinks they know anyhow. At 20, she takes too many pills,
hides the parts of her that she hates, and willingly becomes the person that
they think she is. A slut. A whore. Trash.
There have only been two guys who ever saw Alana as more: Jack,
the guy she can’t get over, and Dave, the one who never got over her.
With the help of therapy, facing her past, and the inevitable
ways that life changes without your permission, can Alana learn to stop blaming
herself? Can she allow love into her life? Is she ready to move on?
Warning: This book deals with topics of abuse and may trigger
reactions in people who have experienced those things in their own lives.
Coming Soon
Sarah
Daltry writes about the regular people who populate our lives. She's written
works in various genres - romance, erotica, fantasy, horror. Genre isn't as
important as telling a story about people and how their lives unfold. Sarah
tends to focus on YA/NA characters but she's been known to shake it up. Most of
her stories are about relationships - romantic, familial, friendly - because
love and empathy are the foundation of life. It doesn't matter if the story is
set in contemporary NY, historical Britain, or a fantasy world in the future -
human beings are most interesting in the ways they interact with others. This
is the principle behind all of Sarah's stories.
Website: http://sarahdaltry.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SarahDaltry
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/sarahdaltry/boards/
Later that day, at lunch, I had just found a seat by the
window when he sat across from me. I was used to sitting alone. He didn’t say
anything, and he had nothing to eat. He looked up at me, though, after a few
minutes, and his eyes did it again. I hated my body, hated the way I looked,
hated that somehow I owed my body and my looks to everyone else. But when Jack
looked at me, I wanted to let someone touch me. I wanted him to hold me. He
felt like safety.
It didn’t even make sense. He was just a broken kid, like
me. He always wore the same threadbare hoodie. Most days, it covered his head.
He was cute, but awkward. His hair was too long and usually greasy. His Chucks
were a little too big, so they looked a little like clown shoes. Yet those
gorgeous eyes were all I cared about. I hadn’t considered guys at all. I didn’t
find them attractive, and I certainly couldn’t see the appeal of sex or of
intimacy. With Jack, though, the thought of him near me didn’t make me
nauseous.
“Do you want my orange?” I asked him.
“Are you sure?”
It wasn’t a groundbreaking question. But it was how I knew
that what I naturally felt for Jack was right. Because no one had ever asked me
that. No one had asked if I minded, if I was sure, if something was okay. They
just took things.
“Yeah.”
He took it and I handed him my knife. It was flimsy plastic
and wouldn’t even pierce the rind, so I took the orange back and peeled it with
my fingernails. Jack just watched me and, when I handed him the orange, now
peeled, he smiled. His upper lip curled more than it should have and he looked
silly, smiling at an orange. But he drew the same smile from me.
“Thank you,” he said, and he pulled two slices free from the
whole and handed them back to me. I didn’t eat them right away. I just watched
him eat his part. He was messy and he ended up covering himself in the juices.
He unzipped his hoodie after the orange squirted down the front. Underneath, he
was wearing a washed out blue T-shirt with a train on it. He looked ten.
“Nice shirt,” I teased.
He looked down. “I live with my grandmother. She has no
concept of clothes.”
“It’s cute.”
He smiled again and it was less awkward this time. “Do you
live with your grandmother, too?”
I was wearing a huge black sweater over baggy black pants.
“No. I just… I don’t like people looking at me.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
He didn’t tell me that I was too pretty to dress the way I
did; he didn’t say my body was too good to hide. He just went back to eating
his orange, letting the juice spill all over the train shirt. We were fourteen,
but I already knew Jack would always be the only thing that mattered in my
future.
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