July 4, 2014

Harder Blog Tour: Excerpt + Giveaway


Hey Everyone! Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Robin York's newest release, HARDER! Today I have a fantastic excerpt from the book to share with you - and don't forget to enter the giveaway!


Harder (Caroline & West #2)
Author: Robin York
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Release Date: July 1, 2014
Publisher: Bantam (Random House Imprint)

Description:

In Robin York’s provocative new novel, two young ex-lovers find themselves together again in the shadow of tragedy—and an intense, undeniable attraction. 

Caroline still dreams about West. His warm skin, his taut muscles, his hand sliding down her stomach. Then she wakes up and she’s back to reality: West is gone. And before he left, he broke her heart.

Then, out of the blue, West calls in crisis. A tragedy has hit his family—a family that’s already a fractured mess. Caroline knows what she has to do. Without discussion, without stopping to think, she’s on a plane, flying to his side to support him in any way he needs.

They’re together again, but things are totally different. West looks edgy, angry at the world. Caroline doesn’t fit in. She should be back in Iowa, finalizing her civil suit against the ex-boyfriend who posted their explicit pictures on a revenge porn website. But here she is. Deeply into West, wrapped up in him, in love with him. Still.

They fought the odds once. Losing each other was hard. But finding their way back to each other couldn’t be harder. 

Advance praise for HARDER:

“Bursting with chemistry, emotion, and heart, Caroline and West’s story will take your breath away!”—Katy Evans, New York Times bestselling author of the REAL series

“Robin York writes exceptionally real characters in achingly real situations. Harder had a hold on my heart and didn’t let go until the very end.”New York Times bestselling author Cora Carmack

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18630582-harder?ac=1



Advance praise for DEEPER:

“The perfect new adult story . . . West will make you swoon!”New York Times bestselling author Monica Murphy

“Beautifully written and full of swoony tender moments, toe-curling chemistry, and delicious, twisty angst . . . Stop whatever you’re doing and read this book.”—Christina Lauren, author of the Beautiful Bastard series

I start to notice music. Not like I’m hearing music in my head, but like I’m just now tuning in to the music that’s already everywhere, all the time.

The last week of classes before fall break—the week after I destroyed West’s cigarettes, the week I pick Frankie up from school three times, the week I ace two midterms and set the curve on my Latin exam—I hear sad ballads at the coffee shop.

I hear pop songs on the radio.

I hear a low drone of sound that floats down the hall to my room from Krishna’s.

It draws me to his doorway, where I find Bridget sitting crossways on his bed, feet propped up on the backs of his thighs, book in her lap. Krishna lying on his stomach, a book open by his head, a chunky calculator resting by his left hand, his pencil scrawling over a notebook page making notations I can’t understand.

He tunes in to those numbers and symbols, but it’s the music that catches me.

Krishna plays this album a lot. I never noticed before that all the songs are love songs.

I go out for a run with Bridget, long sleeves and long tights on a cold morning as we jog in a rectangle around Putnam’s campus, turning left, left, always to the left. She runs slow for me, because I’m not as good a runner as she is, and because my pace falters every time I hear some new lyric, a fresh tilt to a tune I’ve never paid attention to.

I find myself waving her ahead, Go on, I’ll see you at home, because I need to listen hard, cupping my hands over my earbuds. I’ve just discovered—yes. This one, too. Another love song.

Angry love songs. Plaintive ones. Complaining ones, ecstatic ones, sexy moaning ones, cute ones, smug ones, turbulent bleeding aching disastrous ones.

Everywhere I go.

I stand by the side of the road on a cold morning, frost on the stalks in the ditch beside me, a crow on the telephone pole, a cloudless sky, listening to a woman pleading over a line of throbbing drums, Take me back, take me back, take me back, baby, take me back.

At home, Krishna’s music pulls me down the hall another time.

No Bridget today. They argued about something after dinner, and I haven’t seen her since.

“You okay?” he asks me.

I’m not sure what to tell him.

I’m in love.

Sometimes it feels like a terminal condition. Killing stupidity. Dangerous to my well-being. It makes me do dumb shit like fly to Oregon on a moment’s notice, and shred a hundred cigarettes to nothing.

Krish and Bridget are in love. It makes them do dumb shit like lie to each other about how they feel, pretend not to feel it, fuck and touch and kiss and then run, run, run.

Am I okay?

Is love like this okay?

It doesn’t feel okay. It feels necessary.

In the daytime I hear music, and I start to think that whatever is wrong with me might actually be what’s wrong with everybody.

I start to think it might be normal, because if it’s not, then what does it mean that all the songs are love songs?

What does it mean that I hear them now, everywhere I go?

Robin York grew up at a college, went to college, signed on for some more college, and then married a university professor. She still isn’t sure why it didn’t occur to her to write New Adult sooner. Writing as Ruthie Knox, she is a USA TODAY bestselling author of contemporary romance, including RITA-finalists About Last Night and Room at the Inn. She moonlights as a mother, makes killer salted caramels, and sorts out thorny plot problems while running, hiking, or riding her bike.


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