The Summer of No Regrets Blog Tour: Excerpt & Giveaway

 

Welcome to my stop on the official blog tour for The Summer of No Regrets! I have an exclusive excerpt for you from the book and don't forget to scroll to the bottom to enter into the tour wide giveaway! To follow the rest of the tour, click on the banner above or HERE.

 

The Summer of No Regrets 
Author: Katherine Grace Bond
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance
Release Date: May 1, 2012
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Description:

This was the summer that would change my life.
 
No more being what everyone expected. No more doing what everyone else wanted.
 
So when Luke came into my life, I decided to keep him a secret. Maybe he as a dead-ringer for notorious Hollywood bad boy Trent Yves. 

And it was possible that everything he told me was a lie. And yes, I was probably asking for trouble. But all I saw was Luke--sweet, funny, caring--someone who would let me be the real me.
 
But which was the real him?

An Unexpected Visitor (pp. 27-29)

In this scene Luke has wandered on to Brigitta’s property and doesn’t know she is watching him from her treehouse in a tree she’s named Eve. Suddenly, a creature emerges from behind the tree Brigitta calls Adam.
And then I saw her. She emerged from behind Adam, all in one motion: tawny gold fur, white muzzle outlined in black. “Cougar!” I heard myself scream.
She was probably seven feet long from nose to tail. I don't know why I decided she was female; I'd never seen a cougar outside of Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. Cougars don't let people see them unless they want to be seen. Dad says they can track a person for miles and he'll never know.
Luke fell backwards, catching himself on his hands. The cougar's ears lowered as she locked eyes with him. She was terrifyingly beautiful: strong and sleek. Luke froze.
My knuckles were white on the railing. “Get big!” I yelled. “Stand up!”
He must have wondered where the disembodied voice was coming from, but he didn't dare look away from the cat. He got to his feet and began backing away from her. I could see that he'd soon be trapped against the bushes. I had to think like a cougar; Luke certainly wasn't going to.
I clambered down the ladder; the cougar didn't even look at me. I had nothing to fight her with. I tore off my Nonni coat, not sure how that was going to help. All I could hear in my ears was my own hollering. I had no time to consider whether I was crazy.
Luke was yelling “get away!” At the cougar or at me, I couldn't tell, but I raced forward and began whacking at the cat with my coat. (Yes, I realize now, I was crazy.) The cougar shook her head, like the coat was an annoying insect. She laid her ears flat and opened her mouth. Four huge canines gleamed in the morning light. Her muscular shoulders rippled as she moved toward us and a hiss like a rattlesnake came from her throat.
Luke was breathing hard. “Holy shit,” he said. The cougar circled. She was fixed on Luke. I scooped up a handful of dirt, rocks, fir cones and threw it at her face, but she didn't even flinch. I kept swinging my coat.
Luke grabbed a broken tree limb and thrust it at her. She snarled. My coat caught on a branch and she swiped at it with a plate-sized paw. I felt naked without my coat. Undefended. I'd die here with Luke. Really die. Not like in the stories I made up. Focus, I told myself. Breathe and focus.
I read an article about a woman killed by a cougar in Colorado. The cat had sunk its teeth into her head and neck and peeled her scalp back. That's how they'd find us: scalped, covered in leaves with all our vital organs eaten out. I wished I knew less about animals.
Luke swung the tree limb in front of us. The cougar stayed in a crouch, her tail twitching, her eyes locked with his. I became a two-legged rock-thrower. “Oh, God!” I kept screaming, “O-god-o-god-o-god-o-god-o-god!” I yelled myself hoarse and went on yelling. I was drenched in sweat. We backed, one step at a time, across the clearing, past Eve. The cat followed us step for step, tail low, icy golden eyes staring Luke down.
Then, as if she'd suddenly thought of something better to do, the cougar relaxed. Her canines disappeared and her tongue came out to lick her nose. And then she turned and walked into the trees. Stopping for a brief moment, she looked back at us as if to say, “Not this time.” As quickly as she had appeared, she disappeared.
I collapsed against Eve. I was shaking and couldn't stop. Luke's face was covered in dirt and maybe tears. I'd prayed never to see him again, but now it didn't matter.
He held his hand out to me. I took it. “Thanks,” he croaked and pulled me to him. He wrapped his arms around me. He was shaking, too. We stood that way for a long time. I smelled
the wet wool of his sweater. He put his chin on my hair as if we'd always known each other. I felt the fear drain out of both of us. Devon had never, ever held me like that. No one had.
Luke stepped back and looked at me, his hands still on my arms. Then he stepped into the clearing and picked up my Nonni coat from where the cougar had tossed it. Three huge rips ran down the back of it. I shivered and he put it around me. “Here's your hero cloak,” he said.
His eyes were so blue I thought I'd fall into them and drown. I wanted to touch his jaw where it curved down to a strong chin streaked with dirt. His lips were wide and kissable. He smiled.
And then, in the middle of the most romantic moment of my life so far, I opened my mouth and said, “You do look like Trent Yves.”

Katherine Grace Bond is the author of THE SUMMER OF NO REGRETS (Sourcebooks, 2012) and of the bestselling LEGEND OF THE VALENTINE (Zondervan, 2002), a story of the civil rights movement. She often finds herself in the woods escaping from giant cats and shadowy figures in cloaks. The creator of TEENWrite acting/writing workshops, where participants come as their characters, she lives with her husband in a dimension populated by younger people, some of whom resemble her.

Website
  

 You can purchase The Summer of No Regrets at the following Retailers:

    

If you liked The Summer of No Regrets, you will like Luke’s Journal, where Luke gets to have his say. Where did he go the times he disappeared? What was he really going through at home? The book is available as a .99 download from July 18-29. 

 (4) Winners will receive a Copy of The Summer of No Regrets by Katherine Grace Bond!

 

(1) Winner will receive a Surprise ART Poster and Bookmark by James Vallesteros.
(5) Winners will receive a Surprise ART Bookmark by James Vallesteros.
 

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