Blog Tour: The Flowering Series
FORGET ME NOT
TITLE: Forget Me Not
AUTHOR: Sarah Daltry
COVER DESIGN: Shoutlines Design
RELEASE DATE: July 15, 2013
BLURB:
18+ New Adult contemporary romance with explicit sexual content
This isn't a sweet and innocent coming of age story. If dirty talk, bedroom toys, and threesomes offend you... this is not your book. There are also no billionaires, strippers, or virgins. This is just the story of typical college kids trying to connect to each other.
"No one tells you when you start school just how homesick you will be, or how hard it will be to start life over with no direction and no friends or family. No one says that becoming your own person is terrifying."
Lily had a crush on her brother's best friend, Derek, for years - which led to their steamy night ten months ago in her bedroom. Now, she's off to college and she and Derek are still going strong. However, when school starts, Lily realizes it's hard to maintain a relationship, while also trying to live her own life. She and Derek find themselves falling apart and she has no idea where to turn.
Enter Jack. Everything about him is wrong for Lily and she knows it, but she can't stop herself from being attracted to him. When things implode with Derek, it's Jack who's there to pick up the pieces - and to show Lily an entirely new set of experiences she didn't know she was missing.
Of course, Jack has his own problems and once Lily gets to know him better, she starts to wonder if she can handle all of Jack.
When Derek reappears on the scene, Lily is forced to decide between two guys and herself. Can she find herself without losing the people who matter in the process?
BUY LINKS:
He moves closer and already my body is responding. He smells like cigarettes and leather, two smells I never thought were sexy until now. I want to fall into his body, to be wrapped in his arms, and I fight it. It’s wrong and it makes no sense. I have everything I could ever want. Jack is just a distraction.
“I’m not that kind of girl,” I tell him.
He steps closer still and kisses my neck. His lips are soft, which is unexpected, and it sends a shiver through me. Jack brings me in to his chest. I can feel his heart beating; it’s quickening and it matches mine. I feel his tongue sliding down along my collarbone. There is nothing like this, but I need him to stop. And yet, I never want him to stop. “I’d love to know exactly what kind of girl you are.”
Almost as if they are not my own, my hands slip between his jacket and his shirt. The heat of his skin burns me even through the fabric of his clothes. His lips continue to travel downward, but as they reach the curve of my breasts, something in me wakes up. I tear myself away from him and back up a few inches.
“I have a boyfriend,” I repeat. “I can’t do this.”
“Where is he?” Jack asks. His eyes are burning.
“What?”
“Where is your boyfriend? You’ve mentioned him before, but you run into me a lot for someone who’s so in love.”
LILY OF THE VALLEY
BOOK INFO:
TITLE: Lily of the Valley (Flowering, #1.5)
AUTHOR: Sarah Daltry
COVER DESIGN: Shoutlines Design
RELEASE DATE: 9/25/2013
BLURB:
18+ New Adult contemporary romance for explicit sexual content
This isn't a sweet and innocent coming of age story. If dirty talk, bedroom toys, and threesomes offend you... this is not your book. There are also no billionaires, strippers, or virgins. This is just the story of typical college kids trying to connect to each other.
"No one tells you about pain. They tell you that it hurts, that sometimes it's consuming. What they don't tell you is that it's not the pain that can kill you. It's the uncomfortable numbness that follows, the weakness in your body when you realize your lungs may stop taking in air and you just can't exert enough energy to care. It's the way taste and color and smell fade from the world and all you're left with is a sepia print of misery. That's when the shift starts - the movement from passive to active. I fall asleep, hoping that the morning will bring back the pain. At least the pain is a thing."
Plagued by a dark past, Jack sees college as a way out. Desperate to escape the area where he grew up, the people who know his secrets, and his own family, he deals with his problems through alcohol and meaningless sex.
When he first sees Lily, she's the epitome of everything he hates. Yet something about her makes Jack rethink everything he knows and assumes about other people. Now, with the help of his best friend and lover, Jack has to decide if he wants to pursue something that he knows will only end badly.
Can Lily be one of the few people who can see Jack for who he really is - or will his darkness be too much for her to handle?
BUY LINKS:
At work, though, the people are real. Both the customers and the staff. During the busy times, we get more douchebags, mostly my classmates who probably should be in the library and not eating a hangover away. Mal is also on this morning. He’s a recovering alcoholic, a total asshole to nearly everyone, and an incredibly shitty employee in a lot of ways. But the dude can cook and when I walk in a couple minutes late with no explanation, Mal just shrugs and hands me an order.
“Big parties last night?”
“Huge party. I spent the night reading Dostoevsky.”
“He a scientist?” Mal flips over the largest slab of ham I have ever seen. For all the sort of dive element of this place, the food is still fucking great.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Eh. Never cared for all that mumbo jumbo. Don’t know any of it and I’m doing just fine.”
That’s something else I admire about Mal. By no one’s standards is he doing just fine. He has a tendency to fall off the wagon as soon as he approaches his ten month anniversary – which he has been doing for likely longer than I have been alive. He’s been married and divorced five times. He has three kids who don’t speak to him. Finally, he only eats the food from the café and he lives in a motel out by the prison. Oh – and he works as a short order cook in a shitty café. But in his mind, life is just fine. Sometimes, I think I need to get a hold of whatever it is that keeps him from losing his shit.
We settle into our routine, since there is little Mal and I can talk about. I can’t discuss Raskolnikov’s character traits and Mal simply has nothing to say. So we cook in silence, but it’s comfortable. After everything I have been through, I feel a strange affinity for this place. Even thinking about leaving when I eventually get the hell out of town makes me a little sad. I hate that it makes me sad. I want to leave with no connections, with no strings.
I go to stick an order on the counter for Liz when I see her. Strawberries. She’s with some dude, who is basically what I pictured when she mentioned her boyfriend. Broad, tan, blond, and eating like a fucking pig. I don’t know what they’re talking about and I can’t see her face, but he loves her. It’s immediately recognizable and I hate him for it. I don’t even know why I hate him for it, since at least maybe he’s not as much of a dick as I would have expected. If we had been placing bets, I would have gone with the safe assumption he had something else on the side to make up for having such a sweet and pure girlfriend. I wonder if maybe she isn’t as innocent as she looks. The thought makes me horny again. I don’t get what is so damn attractive about this typical girl, but something makes me want to taste every inch of her skin.
PLAYLIST - http://hypster.com/hypsterPlayer/MPL?media_type=playlist&playlist_id=6720577&us_id=4993560#q9PEPbYLcm8sXB3i.18
STAR OF BETHLEHEM
BOOK INFO:
TITLE: Star of Bethlehem (Flowering holiday novella)
AUTHOR: Sarah Daltry
RELEASE DATE: 11/18/2013
PUBLISHER: SDE Press
BLURB:
Jack isn’t a rock star. He’s not the leader of a MC. He isn’t a billionaire. Lily’s not the daughter of a mob boss, or a stripper, or a virgin with a BDSM fascination. They’re just regular college kids, who somehow found each other in the middle of all the crap and chaos of growing up.
“With you, Jack, it was the first time I ever felt real. It was the first time anyone looked at me and saw substance. It was the first time I wanted to make someone see me.”
Jack and Lily have navigated his past, her desire to move on from her family’s demands of her, his depression, and her loneliness. Now, on New Year’s Eve, they have an entire year laid out ahead of them. First, though, Jack needs to meet Lily’s family, to be welcomed into her life. It’s intimidating, but with a sweater that is way too hot and his grandmother’s ugly car, he arrives at Lily’s gleaming house on a hill, ready to open himself up completely to her.
Inside the perfect, sparkling house, Lily waits for the boy she has come to love. But Lily’s house and family are a lot like her – shiny and pretty on the outside, with a sad emptiness on the interior. Lily wants to give Jack the one thing he has always dreamed of – family and love – but can she keep him from seeing how hollow a lot of the picture perfect life he fantasizes about really is?
This is a novella length work that follows Forget Me Not and Lily of the Valley.
EXCERPT:
I take his hand and pull him down beside me on my bed. I feel so complete in his arms, as if nothing can go wrong when he holds me. It’s all the other stuff. The world, people, pressure. Maybe it’s a little fear that things just ended with Derek. That one day, as quickly as I fell for Jack, I also fell out of love with Derek. I don’t have enough experience to know if that’s normal. What if it happens again?
“What? Tell me,” Jack whispers.
“Have you ever felt like your entire life is some surrealist’s joke? That you think you’re in control of it, while really, you’re probably just…”
“A melting clock?” he finishes and laughs. I look at him, disappointed that I can’t explain it, but also relieved that he doesn’t care.
“All the fucking time,” he says. “I know you’re scared. I know I’m scared. But I seem to remember you telling me that I should remember what matters. I made you a promise, princess. Yes, your house intimidates me. Your life intimidates me. Hell, loving you intimidates me. But I’m in this. I’m here. Present. Entirely. I’m looking only forward. And all I see is you.”
“Take the damn book,” I tell him. “I just wanted to show you that I have faith in us. It was a conscious decision to give you something that was a very special gift to me, to tell you that I trust you with it, because I trust you to be there. Long term.”
He takes me in his arms and kisses me. I decide I won’t stop him if he goes further, but he doesn’t. Our bodies crackle with the energy between us, but as much as the sex thrills me, Jack does so much more for my mind than his body could even do. I can’t believe how alive I feel when he’s near me. Perhaps it’s selfish. Perhaps it’s desperate. But I want him here in my life; I want him with me, because I love being this aware.
I speak against his cheek, while his hands slowly explore my body. It’s sensual but not sexual. He’s studying me like a work of art. “I don’t want to fall out of love with you. I thought Derek was all I ever wanted. I don’t want to be in the same place with you a year from now.”
“You won’t be,” he tells me.
“How do you know?” He kisses along my face, brushing his lips against my cheek, my forehead, my nose, but never reaching my mouth. “I don’t know how. But I do.”
I love that he can put aside his doubts to ease my own. I know Jack’s had so much trouble in his life, and the fact that he can comfort me, when my problems are so petty and stupid in the scheme of things, is one more thing I love so much.
“I know I’m shallow. But I don’t want to be, Jack.”
“You’re not shallow. You’re not empty. Anything you think of yourself – it’s crazy. If you want to talk about surreal, it’s the fact that you think you’re less than something. Maybe you didn’t get shit on the same way I did in high school, but clearly, people have underestimated you. They missed out on you. And you have every right to be hurt. But, Lily? No one will ever hurt you again.”
I smile. “Thanks. I’m sorry I’m being so moody. It’s probably hormones or something. I think I’m just frustrated.”
“Yeah?” He laughs. “Well… I mean… I can help you relieve some of that.”
He’s on top of me and I don’t care that it wasn’t exactly what I meant. I don’t care that someone could walk in. Someone probably will walk in, since eventually they’ll come looking, but I don’t care at all. I want to belong to Jack, and I don’t know any other way to do so.
PLAYLIST - http://hypster.com/hypsterPlayer/MPL?media_type=playlist&playlist_id=6781076&us_id=4993560
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sarah Daltry writes erotica and romance that ranges from sweet to steamy. She moves around a lot and has trouble committing to things. Forget Me Not is her second full length novel, although she also has several story collections and two novellas available. Her other novel, Bitter Fruits, was available shortly, but is now in the contract phase with a major publisher. When Sarah isn’t writing, she tends to waste a lot of time checking Facebook for pictures of cats, shooting virtual zombies, and simply staring out the window.
AUTHORS SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
Authors Favorite Books:
The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte Dandelion
Wine – Ray Bradbury
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Clockwork Angel – Cassandra Clare
Lola and the Boy Next Door – Stephanie Perkins
Days of Blood and Starlight – Laini Taylor
Red Moon – MA Grant
Authors Favorite Book Boyfriends:
Jake Barnes – The Sun Also Rises
Holden Caulfield – The Catcher in the Rye
Heathcliff – Wuthering Heights
Rochester – Jane Eyre
Will – Clockwork Angel
Etienne – Anna and the French Kiss
Hamlet – Hamlet
Ian – The Host
Bru – Summer Sisters
Samuel – The Lovely Bones
Author’s Favorite Bad Boys:
1. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights
2. Jake Barnes from The Sun Also Rises
3. Will from Infernal Devices
4. Lord Byron
5. The Scarecrow in Batman Begins
6. Lucifer from Supernatural
7. Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice
8. James Dean
9. Damon from Vampire Diaries
10. V from V for Vendetta
Interview with Sarah:
• What inspired you to write your book? I had written a short story about Derek and Lily and their first time called “Her Brother’s Best Friend.” It was just supposed to be a short erotic story. But it sold well, so I thought about writing more about the two of them. However, as I started writing Forget Me Not, the story would not work for me. Until I found Jack. And then the novel was over and there was just so much more to his story, so Lily of the Valley was born.
• How did you come up with the title? Forget Me Not and Lily of the Valley are both flowers, and the series is called Flowering. The reason is that it is about love, sexuality, and growing up – sort of blossoming into the person you will be. Forget Me Not also addresses the idea of leaving your life behind and moving on. And Lily is the main female character, so hence Lily of the Valley.
• Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp? People are complicated, as are relationships. The things we think we want sometimes turn out not to be what we want. In addition, the people we think we understand may surprise us. We can’t assume anything about love or each other. They are too complex.
• What books have most influenced your life most? The Catcher in the Rye, because it was the first time I understood that other people felt like me and it also said it was okay to be different. And The Sun Also Rises, because there can be beauty in suffering.
• If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor? Hemingway. I know he’s dead, but he knew how to write true.
• What are your current projects? I am writing Scandal, a contemporary romance about a teacher and an actor who find each other after they are both ruined by rumors, and I am waiting to release Bitter Fruits, a New Adult paranormal/urban fantasy romance in December through the publisher. I am also working on Immortal Star, the second book in that series.
• What was the hardest part of writing your book? Jack’s experiences and emotions are really closely tied to my own and it was hard to write some of his scenes.
• If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you? Aubrey Plaza. She has the same type of biting sarcasm that I do.
• If you had six months with no obligations or financial constraints, what would you do with the time? Travel the world and write.
• What kind of people do you dislike? Anyone who is cruel to other people or creatures. People who assume their own reality is the only reality. And people who don’t read.
Thank you so much for being part of the tour - TONYA
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