Twisted Summer Blog Tour: Excerpt & Giveaway

Twisted Summer
Author: Lucy V. Morgan
Release Date: April 2013
Genre: YA/New Adult Contemporary Romance

Buy Links: Amazon

Description:

A dark New Adult romance

You have to understand that we never meant for it to happen. We knew it was stupid. We knew it was wrong.

Eighteen-year-old Danni Warren has big plans for her last summer before college: a cool job, a concert she wouldn’t miss for the world, and spending time with her beautiful girlfriend, Esme. But after one hell of an argument, Danni’s mother packs her off to stay with her estranged step-uncle, Gabe, in his lodge on the English coast. So begins a weekend of the worst punishment imaginable: no phone signal.

With his sun kissed good looks and sarcastic manner, twenty-nine-year-old Gabe Asher isn’t anything like Danni expected. She wants to hate him—he’s her punishment for standing up to her mother—but between surfing lessons and beach hikes, Gabe and Danni grow close. Maybe too close.

Now Danni’s questioning everything: old family secrets, her future, her strained relationship with Esme. One sun stained afternoon, Gabe and Danni go too far. And then everything else falls apart… 

Chapter One

I wished I’d never opened my mouth.
“Seriously, Mum.” I prodded her in the shoulder from the back seat of the car. “We can turn around any time you like. I was joking. I didn’t mean it—”
She waved me off, and it wasn’t exactly gentle. “No, no. You said it: you’d rather live in the middle of nowhere than spend another minute in our poxy little house. So that’s what you’ll do for a weekend. Then we’ll see if you still feel the same way.” She huffed and puffed like an indignant rhinoceros. “Don’t put this on me, Danielle. I’ve had enough of your backchat.”
My middle finger was rising when my phone went off. I flipped it open. “Boyah.”
“Danni. Just got your message. What the frick is going on?” Esmé’s voice dragged with disappointment and my heart sank into my belly. We’d bickered enough these past few weeks—this was the last thing I needed.
“I’m sorry. It’s all crap. I can’t go see Dexter’s Noose on Saturday.”
“But I got those tickets specially for your birthday. You’re going to miss—”
“I know, baby.” I glared at my mum in the car mirror and she rolled her eyes in return. “It’s not my fault. I had this stupid argument with Mum and now she’s making me spend the weekend with my weirdo uncle.” “He’s not your uncle,” Mum snapped.
“What? Why?” Esmé tutted. “Did you slag off her cooking again?”
“Something like that.”
“But it’s only Thursday, and you’re eighteen now. You can do whatever the hell you want—”
“Her house, her rules, blah sucky blah.”
Esmé sighed. “I didn’t even know you had an uncle.”
“Yeah, well…step uncle. I haven’t seen him since I was, like, the size of a midget.
He lives in some crappy cabin on the coast.”
“The coast?” she exclaimed. “Where are you?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Devon.”
“Devon? Dan. That’s like a hundred miles from here.” She sniffled a bit. “I can’t believe I don’t get to see you all weekend.”
“I know…but I’ll be back on Monday, I promise. We’ve got the whole summer. I’ll make the concert up to you.” I toyed with a streak of my dark hair. “I love you.”
Esmé made that little heh noise which meant she was biting her lip. “I love you too, pixie.”
Then she hung up, and I found my middle finger wasn’t quite as twitchy.
“Are you happy now?” I said to Mum. “Esmé’s really upset.”
She shrugged. “Not my fault.”
No, not her fault at all that I was headed farther and farther from civilization with
every mile. Out on the narrow A-roads, the shapes of overhanging trees swallowed us in shadowy gulps. When the sun shot sporadically through the branches, it flashed against the windscreen and turned the inside of the car into a yellow blur. My phone signal was waning, I felt hot and sticky, and frankly, was in indecent need of an ice cream. I finally got up the guts to express how much I hated sharing our house with Malcolm the Moron, and this was what I got in return? Great start to my summer. Everything about it sucked.
“Gabe’s going to meet us at the bottom of his track,” said Mum. “He reckons I won’t get this piece of junk up there.”
His house really was out in the sticks. “He’s got running water there, right?”
“Why would you need running water? Beach on your doorstep…you can wipe your bum on bits of seaweed…”
“Ha bloody ha.” I blinked. “Please tell me you’re joking.” She smirked at me in the mirror and I put my face in my hands.
Twenty minutes later, we pulled out of the woodland and onto a tiny road. Mum’s little Nissan had barely navigated a few twists and turns when a tall figure came into view, waving an arm inward: this way.
“Is that Uncle Gabe?” I squinted at him in disbelief.
“For the last time, Danni—he’s not your uncle.”
“But he’s your brother—”
“Step brother. Lucky me.” She huffed to herself again. Mum had family drama that she never talked about, and it had never really occurred to me to care before so long as they still put money in my Christmas cards (which was really crass of me, actually, wasn’t it? But I never noticed until recently. Maybe Mum had a point about my attitude. Still). The only time we really saw family anymore was our yearly holiday in Wales— which not-uncle Gabe had never attended.
The only memory I had of him was from when I was six. He’d come home from university with some friends, and I was seriously peeved that they were taking up all of Grandma’s garden with their barbecue because I wanted to make mud pies for Ziggy the grasshopper. No amount of stamping my feet or screaming hysterically would move them, and when they offered me one of their stupid hotdogs, I may have fed it to the cat.
Then the cat was sick all over Gabe’s bed at about three in the morning. He hopped and cursed in the hallway, his shoulder-length braids matted with chunks of feline vomit. He was huge and gangly, and I remember giggling to Grandma that he looked like a scarecrow.
Not now.
Gone were the braids and the awkwardly thin jaw; he’d filled out and his cheekbones jutted at model-fine angles. He’d cut his dark blond hair into a short, flicky style, and his tanned skin glowed; I half expected him to toss his head back and wink, like the star of a sunscreen ad. His faded T-shirt and surfer shorts made him look younger than I’d expected. No aging hippy here.
I prayed he wasn’t the sort who tried too hard to be cool.

Lucy writes sharp contemporary fiction, usually with a liberal splatter of filth. She is a Lyrical Press author and a screenwriter.

Her upcoming new adult novel, TWISTED SUMMER, is a gutsy take on forbidden love starring an even gutsier heroine. 

 

Her contemporary series, encompassing CHAIRMAN OF THE WHORED and THE WHORED'S PRAYER, features slick London lawyers with a penchant for sensual violence. It's definitely on the darker side. BEAUTIFUL MESS, her current release, is a snarky, sexy friends-to-lovers romp. 

 

Lucy is currently working on new novels, and is developing a paranormal television series with producers (think The Vampire Diaries meets The 4400). 

 

She is still trying to kick her dirty Pepsi habit.

 

www.lucyvmorgan.com | twitter.com/lucyvmorgan

 

*The prize pack includes A beach bag by pro surf brand Brakeburn, Korres Cherry Lip Gloss, Signed print copy of Twisted Summer, and Luxury chocolate bars from Choccacino Devon.

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