Welcome to my stop on the Play With Me blog tour! Today I have a great excerpt from the book to share with you and don't forget to scroll to the bottom of the post to enter the giveaway!
Play With Me will be FREE on Kindle for the entire month of October, so be sure to grab your copy now!
Play With Me (Grover Beach Team #1)
Author: Piper Shelly
Genre: YA Romance
Release Date: December 9, 2012
Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes and Noble
Description:
A short, sweet novella.
Ryan Hunter's parties are legend. And tonight she's going to be there.
Liza Matthews anticipates the return of her best friend and only love since kindergarten from soccer camp. But when Tony finally shows up, his mind is more focused on another girl. And worse, she's a soccer player. Fighting for the attention Liza craves, she's just a hairbreadth away from making a very stupid decision. But when extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, she's prepared to play ball to get her man.
The tryouts are hell, the first match ends bloody, and the morning after the selection party she wakes up in the worst place possible—in the arms of the captain of the soccer team. The hottest guy in school. Ryan Hunter.
Ryan Hunter's parties are legend. And tonight she's going to be there.
Liza Matthews anticipates the return of her best friend and only love since kindergarten from soccer camp. But when Tony finally shows up, his mind is more focused on another girl. And worse, she's a soccer player. Fighting for the attention Liza craves, she's just a hairbreadth away from making a very stupid decision. But when extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, she's prepared to play ball to get her man.
The tryouts are hell, the first match ends bloody, and the morning after the selection party she wakes up in the worst place possible—in the arms of the captain of the soccer team. The hottest guy in school. Ryan Hunter.
By now I was pretty good at recognizing Hunter’s black hair.
He held the cue low over the green felt, aiming the tip at the white ball. Some colored balls fanned out on the table too, but as it looked he went for the black eight.
“Come on, Ryan, give a friend a chance. You can’t hole the ball just yet.”
I pivoted to the left to see who was pleading with Hunter. I didn’t know the tall boy’s name, but the look on his face was hilarious. One would think his life depended on Ryan’s hit or fail.
“What’s your problem, Justin?” Still working on positioning the cue perfectly, Hunter grinned. “Afraid, your Mama’s going to find out you’re playing for money?”
Just then I noticed the stack of dollar bills at the edge of the table. They seemed to have a sum of about one hundred bucks in the pot. My jaw dropped. Fifty from each? I didn’t get half as much pocket money in one month.
“My Mama doesn’t give a damn. But I really, really need this Spiderman comic. It’s an original,” Justin whined.
I felt really bad for him. Intrigued how the game would end, I moved around the edge of the wall and stood face to face with Hunter across the room. Narrowed eyes and knitted brows gave away his tension. The cue moved backward just a couple of inches. He’d shoot any moment.
But then his dark eyes looked up…and remained fixed on me. His body froze, only his chest moved with each breath. Heads turned in my direction. My heart drummed a little faster, and with all the attention, my cheeks warmed uncomfortably.
I grimaced. “Is something wrong?”
Ryan didn’t answer, but Justin victory-punched the air as he rushed to my side. He laid his arm around my shoulders, grinning like a loon. “You just saved my life, hun.”
“Ah…yes.” With a grimace, my gaze switched back to Hunter. “And how so?”
He started grinning, too, but didn’t seem as happy as the guy next to me. More like, he knew crap was about to fall.
“He can’t play when someone is watching him,” Justin almost sang into my ear. “Totally screws up then.”
“But you all are watching him,” I pointed out.
At the back of the room, someone laughed. “Yeah, but we’re not girls.”
Chuckling, Hunter straightened and chalked the tip of his cue, lips tight, eyes set on me. Although my being there obviously amused him, I didn’t want to trouble him, especially where money had a hand in the pie.
“Sorry,” I croaked. “I’ll leave you guys alone then.”
“Uh-uh, no way, hun!” Justin’s arm remained firm around my shoulders. “You’re my insurance to get that comic book. You stay.”
His antics made me laugh, even though I felt like a traitor.
Ryan, who hadn’t said one word in all that time, slid his tongue over his bottom lip, then the left corner of his mouth tilted up. He took a deep breath and leaned over the table once more. Everyone kept silent. Justin crossed his fingers next to my face, no doubt praying for Hunter’s miss.
I never thought a single shot could get an entire room this tense. Including me. Ryan cleared his throat, his gaze moving back and forth between me and the white ball. Suddenly he dropped his forehead to the edge of the table and laughed. “Take your money, Just. I give up.”
The room cheered as though the unthinkable just happened. Justin pressed a kiss to my cheek and hurried to grab the bills. I stood rooted to the spot, staring at Ryan, who now braced his palms on the pool table and hung his head. But when he looked up, there was this flash of amusement in his eyes again.
“I’m so sorry,” I mouthed, not even trying to raise my voice over the other guys’ celebration.
“You are banned from this room,” he mouthed back, a smirk on his lips. Then he walked around the table, slowly, measuring me with each step he took. I pressed a little harder against the wall, welcoming the coolness seeping through my top.
He stopped right in front of me, the cue in one hand, the other placed against the wall next to my head. “You just cost me fifty bucks,” he drawled with a smile.
The quick-and-dirty:
I’m a cool girl with a passion for writing.
The genres you’ll find me hanging out at are contemporary and paranormal YA, but I’m also snooping into some adult paranormal right now. All of them romances…of course.
The nitty-gritty:
I’m an Austrian lass—totally uncomplicated and up to anything fun.
I grew up in Vienna, not by free will but because my parents decided to move there when I was only 4 years old. I. Hated. The. City. Everything about it. So right after graduation I moved back to Upper Austria, where I settled down with a nice husband and an awesome laptop.
I’ve been a storyteller all my life. Already in kindergarten, I came up with the most exotic fantasies and tales. My teacher would call me a liar. I call it the cornerstone of my writing career.
People always told me you can’t make a living with being an author. So when my first novella PLAY WITH ME came out and shot straight to the stars within the first week, I was totally dumbstruck. Took me a while to realize what was happening, LOL.
And the personal stuff:
At the (awesome) age of seventeen, I met the love of my life. But he was a playboy, and I was so not going to be his next trophy. It took him another four years of fighting for me until I finally decided to give that “couple-thing” with him a shot. I’m now married to this man. ;-)
We have an eleven-year-old son, and together we travel a lot…although I sometimes wish the trips were shorter because I can’t wait to get back to my laptop and my many stories. Unless we’re in Disneyland. No stress to go home then…
If you still want to know more about me, my FAQ page is the right address for you. ;-)
http://pipershelly.com/faq/
I’m a cool girl with a passion for writing.
The genres you’ll find me hanging out at are contemporary and paranormal YA, but I’m also snooping into some adult paranormal right now. All of them romances…of course.
The nitty-gritty:
I’m an Austrian lass—totally uncomplicated and up to anything fun.
I grew up in Vienna, not by free will but because my parents decided to move there when I was only 4 years old. I. Hated. The. City. Everything about it. So right after graduation I moved back to Upper Austria, where I settled down with a nice husband and an awesome laptop.
I’ve been a storyteller all my life. Already in kindergarten, I came up with the most exotic fantasies and tales. My teacher would call me a liar. I call it the cornerstone of my writing career.
People always told me you can’t make a living with being an author. So when my first novella PLAY WITH ME came out and shot straight to the stars within the first week, I was totally dumbstruck. Took me a while to realize what was happening, LOL.
And the personal stuff:
At the (awesome) age of seventeen, I met the love of my life. But he was a playboy, and I was so not going to be his next trophy. It took him another four years of fighting for me until I finally decided to give that “couple-thing” with him a shot. I’m now married to this man. ;-)
We have an eleven-year-old son, and together we travel a lot…although I sometimes wish the trips were shorter because I can’t wait to get back to my laptop and my many stories. Unless we’re in Disneyland. No stress to go home then…
If you still want to know more about me, my FAQ page is the right address for you. ;-)
http://pipershelly.com/faq/
Author Links:
Website: http://pipershelly.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorpiper
Grand Prize: A boxed set of PLAY WITH ME and RYAN HUNTER. One book, both stories inside. (Open Internationally)
I read the novella awhile ago and I think that the story better suits a novel. It's has the potential to be so good but just not the space. I felt like I would better connect with the characters if Shelley had the time to delve deeper. Still I thought it was a good story by novella standards :)
ReplyDeleteAly @ My Heart Hearts Books