PEACE LOVE BOOKS : Ramblings of a Book Dork: Beside Your Heart Excerpt, Playlist & 2 Giveaways

Title: Beside Your Heart

Author: Mary Whitney

Genre: New Adult Romance

Publish Date: June 17, 2013

Event organized by: Literati Literature Lovers

Blurb ~ Late one night Nicki Johnson plays with emotional fire and Googles her high school love, only to find his name splashed across the British gossip columns. Back in his native England, Adam Kincaid is successful and dating a woman from an aristocratic family like his own. With a career in politics, Nicki’s no slouch, but she knows Adam is living a world away from her life. Yet there was a time he was no farther than the next locker. Nicki will never forget their year together in high school—the year of her sister’s death, the year her mother checked out. Adam helped Nicki through suffocating grief, and she led him through a coming of age. Was it just high school, or was it something more?

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Excerpt

I knew that I should say no, that a walk under the stars with Adam was a really, really unhealthy thing to do, especially without all of my wits. But I was just too drunk to not do something that I really wanted to. With no willpower at all, I nodded at Adam. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

As I kept my balance heading out of the kitchen, I realized it wasn’t going to be a romantic stroll. By the time we started walking, I already felt really sick—sick from alcohol and sick from risking my heart. We didn’t talk much, which was good because I needed to concentrate on not puking in front of him. We were only a couple of blocks away from my house when I had to stop.

“Uh, I need to sit down.” Without hearing an answer from him, I plopped down on the curb. I put my head between my legs and concentrated on breathing in and out.

He snickered and sat down beside me. “It’s okay. It happens to all of us.”

Seconds later, I felt his hand gently stroking my hair. It felt amazing. No one had touched me in so long, and I so badly wanted him to. But what was he doing, and why was he doing it? It was pure torture. I wanted to turn to face him, but I didn’t know what would happen if I did.

Instead, I breathed in deeply, lifted my head, and turned away from him. Maybe if I was drunk and didn’t look at him, I could ask the question I had wanted to ask for weeks. Maybe I could get an answer. “Adam, why are you always so nice to me?”

He stopped touching my hair for a moment but left his hand on my back. “Well, I want to be your friend. I like you, and…I wish you were happier.”

I still couldn’t look at him. What he’d just said would be confusing even if I weren’t wasted. But because I was drunk, I could at least say the truth. “You’re being too nice.”

“Really? How so?” he asked with his hand still on my back.

Why was he dragging this out of me? I swiveled around. “You have a girlfriend.”

Mary Whitney Author Bio

Even before she graduated from law school, Mary knew she wasn't cut out to be a real lawyer. Drawn to politics, she's spent her career as an organizer, lobbyist, and nonprofit executive. Nothing piques her interest more than a good political scandal or romance, and when she stumbled upon writing, she put the two together. A born Midwesterner, naturalized Texan, and transient resident of Washington, D.C., Mary now lives in Northern California with her two daughters and real lawyer husband.

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