Available April 7, 2015
Genre: Contemporary New Adult
Length: 89,300 words
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
CARRY THE OCEAN
The Roosevelt, Book 1
Synopsis:
Normal is just a setting on the dryer.
High school graduate Jeremey Samson is looking forward to burying his head under the covers and sleeping until it’s time to 
leave for college. Then a tornado named Emmet Washington enters his life. The double major in math and computer science is handsome, forward, wicked smart, interested in dating Jeremey—and he’s autistic.
But Jeremey doesn’t judge him for that. He’s too busy judging himself, as are his parents, who don’t believe in things like clinical depression. When his untreated illness reaches a critical breaking point, Emmet is the white knight who rescues him and brings him along as a roommate to The Roosevelt, a quirky new assisted living facility nearby.
As Jeremey finds his feet at The Roosevelt, Emmet slowly begins to believe he can be loved for the man he is behind the autism. But before he can trust enough to fall head over heels, he must trust his own conviction that friendship is a healing force, and love can overcome any obstacle.
Warning: Contains characters obsessed with trains and counting, positive representations of autism and mental illness, a very dark moment, and Elwood Blues.
On the Spectrum: Carly’s Café
Twice in the novel Carry the Ocean the video “Carly’s Café” is referenced. This is a real video, and Carly is a real person.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmDGvquzn2k
What the video is great at showing is how frustrating it can be for people with autism both to communicate and to filter out what is normal to people on the mean but absolutely overwhelming to them.
Except the thing is, whenever I show this video to people with anxiety, they say this is how they feel too. And truly, anyone for whom the world becomes too much, this is what they experience.
Which tells you there is no normal, is no average. That everyone has struggles. We all have our cafés.
Carly Fleischmann’s father has written a book, and Carly contributed to it as well. She’s on social media and does events, and from what I can gather, intends to take the world by storm and make it her oyster.
I’m pretty sure she’s going to succeed.
Carly’s face is wrong. It doesn’t match the smart, sassy voice she has in her head. It’s this way every day for her, thinking things no one can hear. No one understands how different she feels inside from how she looks on the outside. I understand that. Feeling things I can’t express. Like how much I wanted to explain to Jeremey how Carly and he and I are all normal, that it’s fine, he doesn’t have to be upset. But I couldn’t, so I let Carly show him.
Jeremey cried.
When the video ended, he took the phone from my hand without asking and replayed it. I watched his face this time, trying to read it. It was so complicated, and I couldn’t. I could tell he felt a lot of emotions, but they were too difficult for me to read. Eventually he put the phone down. He shut his eyes, took a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was rough and shaky.
“That’s how I feel. All the time. All the time.”
I wanted to tell him I felt that way too, sometimes. I didn’t know how, though. So I talked about Carly. “She has a book. I have it. You can borrow it. I have it on Kindle and in paperback. Also audio.”
He put his hand on my leg. He started to give a light touch, then remembered and gave a heavy one. It made me feel good he remembered. “Thank you for showing me.”
I rocked a little. “Nobody is normal. Life is hard for everybody, sometimes.”
“Yes, but not everyone understands like you do, Emmet.”
Carry the Ocean
Retailers:
Samhain (ebook & paperback), All Romance Ebooks, Amazon US (ebook, paperback), Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble (Nook & paperback), Google Play, iTunes, Kobo.
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About the author:
Heidi Cullinan has always loved a good love story, provided it has a happy ending. She enjoys writing across many genres but loves above all to write happy, romantic endings for LGBT characters because there just aren’t enough of those stories out there. When Heidi isn’t writing, she enjoys cooking, reading, knitting, listening to music, and watching television with her husband and teenaged daughter. Heidi is a vocal advocate for LGBT rights and is proud to be from the first Midwestern state with full marriage equality. Find out more about Heidi, including her social networks, at www.heidicullinan.com.