Welcome to my stop on the Only the Good Die Young by KK Hendin Blog Tour!
I have a wonderful excerpt to share with you today. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy!
Synopsis:
The first year of college is supposed to be about parties, parties, and getting the hell out of Texas. Instead, Milcah Daniels is spending her eighteenth year in and out of Houston’s hospitals. Her hair is falling out, they’ve cut off her boobs, and if she makes it to nineteen, she’ll consider it a personal miracle.
Breast cancer really has a way of messing with a girl’s social calendar.
When Milcah’s temporarily discharged from the hospital, she’s determined to get a tattoo for every medical procedure she’s had. Her quest leads her to Skin Stories, a new tattoo parlor a block from her apartment. And to it’s infuriatingly sexy artist, Callum Scott.
Callum is everything Milcah wants, and everything she shouldn’t have now. A new relationship when the official prognosis is one to five years is a terrible idea. But Callum doesn’t know about the breast cancer, and Milcah’s not running to tell him.
But when the doctor says things are actually looking positive, her entire life turns upside down. How is she supposed to start living again when she’s finally learned to accept her death?
Excerpt:
He glances back down at the paper. “Do you know what this means?”
“Dude, I’m going to have it permanently inked to my skin,” I say. “Of course I know what it means.”
“You’d be surprised how many people don’t know what they’re getting tattooed on,” he replies. “They’ll get random words in the foreign language of their choice tattooed because they think it looks pretty, and they have no idea what it actually says.” He snickers. “Or the assholes who insist spelling a word in their tattoo wrong, even when you point out to them that the spelling they want to use is not right, and that you’re and your are two different things.”
He’s a closet grammar freak, and my ridiculous and embarrassing crush intensifies. I clear my throat a tiny bit and refocus on the conversation. “Well, you don’t have to worry. I know what it means.”
“Does Mar have your email address?” he asks.
“Who?”
“The girl in the front.”
“No…”
“Well, I can email you the different fonts so you can pick one before setting up the actual appointment,” he says, looking completely casual about asking me for my email address.
God, Milcah. It’s for business. There’s nothing personal about it. Which is awkward, since my email address is still the same as it was when I made it in the sixth grade. I scribble it onto a paper and shove it towards him. “Thanks,” I say, trying to keep my voice sounding normal.
Why am I acting so freakin’ bizarre?
He folds the paper and tucks it into the pocket of his faded jeans. “Great. Hopefully I’ll have them for you tomorrow or the next day.”
I don’t have to go see Dr. B again for another two weeks. I still have time.
“Thanks,” I say, twisting my hands together and feeling awkward.
“I guess I’ll be seeing you around,” Callum says, flashing me a smile.
“Yeah.” I turn around and leave his office before I say anything stupid.
Mar, the girl in the front, smiles at me as I walk toward the door. “Do you need to schedule a follow-up now?” she asks, leaning against the desk.
I am inexplicably jealous of the fact that she gets to spend so much time in the same building as Callum, and I wonder what the hell has happened to my brain. Apparently, when they removed my boobs, they removed my common sense, too.
“Not yet,” I say, determined to be extra nice to her because the insane part of me wants to hate her. “But I’ll give you a call when everything’s figured out.”
“Great,” she says. “Have a great day.”
“You too,” I say, and walk out of the tattoo parlor, only slightly perplexed how nothing in the tattoo parlor was what I thought it would be.
Buy Links:
Giveaway:
About the author:
KK Hendin’s real life ambition is to become a pink fluffy unicorn who dances with rainbows. But the schooling for that is all sorts of complicated, so until that gets sorted out, she’ll just write. Preferably things with angst and love. And things that require chocolate. She’s the author of the NA contemporaries HEART BREATHS and ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG.
She spends way too much time on Twitter, where she can be found at @kkhendin, and rambles on occasion over at www.kkhendinwrites.blogspot.
Links:
Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Author Goodreads | Only the Good Die Young Goodreads
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Four Loves
Nazarea Andrews is an avid reader and tends to write the stories she wants to read. She loves chocolate and coffee almost as much as she loves books, but not quite as much as she loves her kids. She lives in south Georgia with her husband, daughters, and overgrown dog.
Three-and-a-Half Loves
I come by romance honestly, having spent several years writing adult romance and entering romance contests through Romance Writers of America–including finaling twice in the prestigious Golden Heart contest and winning once. But despite these and other contest wins, my first published novel came not in adult romance, but as a writer of YA historical fiction (you can read all about my Elizabethan spy girls stories, the Maids of Honor, here.)
Five Loves
Elora Ramirez lives in Austin, Texas with her chef-husband. At the age of four, she taught herself how to read and write, cutting her teeth on books like Dr. Seuss and writing anywhere she could find the space–including her Fisher Price kitchen set, the pages of picture books and Highlights Magazine. Since then, she’s grown to love the way words feel as they swell within her bones. Writing holy and broken is her calling, and pushing back the darkness and pursuing beauty through story is her purpose. She embraces the power of story and teaches women from all parts of the world how to embrace theirs. She has a knack of calling things out , the truth and the detail, the subversive threads that make a life a story. She loves hip-hop, wishes she lived by the beach and cannot write without copious amounts of coffee, chocolate, music, and her husband’s lavender liqueur.
Four Loves
Kristen shares a birthday with Steven Tyler and Diana Ross. She spends each day striving to be half as fabulous as they are. She’s worn many hats, none as flattering as her cowboy hat: banker, retail manager, fledgling web designer, world’s worst cocktail waitress, panty slinger, now makeup artist and aspiring author. She loves sunshine, live music, the middle of nowhere, and finding new things to put in her house. Kristen is represented by Pam van Hylckama Vlieg of Foreword Literary.