First, I just want to say that I appreciate the outpouring of support from my friends and family in helping me promote the book! I just want to remind you that it's a first draft and I'm hoping to use your reviews and feedback to help me revise it and find a publisher! Secondly, I want to say that even though I could have used another week to get it more polished, I picked the date 9/18/13 to release the book for a reason. It's the two year anniversary of my friend Chris' daughter Brooklyn's death, which is what inspired me to write this book. When I picked the date I thought I'd be moving to Delaware AFTER the release, not before! I don't recommend trying to finish a book and move in the same two week period, just for the record!
All that said, here's an excerpt from near the end of the book!
Kat
parked on the square and the three ladies began to hurry into the
restaurant just as the sky was starting to open up and hurl huge
drops of rain down upon them. Jennifer paused while her companions
slipped inside the shelter. November
rain,
Jennifer thought, hearing the Guns N Roses song pop into her head
accompanied by images from the video which had been played to death
on MTV in the summer of 1992.
Visions
of the guests running and the cake being toppled over in the sudden
downpour, Axl Rose beating a glossy black grand piano into submission
and Slash shredding the guitar in a dusty, barren churchyard flooded
into her mind.
That
video starts with a wedding in a church and ends with a funeral in a
church, she
reflected. I
had that CD back in the day. That song came out right after we
graduated. She
thought about her Sony discman and her vast collection of CDs and how
thrilled she was to finally have a car with a CD player instead of a
tape deck. And
now CDs are almost totally antiquated, much like VHS tapes. A life
measured by outdated media devices,
she thought. It’s
a sad reality in this day and age.
Many
times in her life she had thought she was living in the past or
future, finding it a challenge to stay connected to the present. She
was always anticipating something or remembering something. But in
this moment, on a sidewalk quickly becoming wet with rain, watching
her companions slip into the potpourri-infused tea room, the scent
wafting out toward her as the door clicked shut, she felt the present
wrap its arms around her like a newly minted friend. She felt the
embrace start to slide up her body from her feet on the sidewalk to
her arms lifted in the air. She felt herself absorbing the essence of
her hometown: the square with its looming courthouse and World War II
era German “buzz bomb” perched atop a sturdy limestone V, the
square with its eccentric little shops and eateries, the square
bedecked with Christmas lights radiating out from the courthouse in
all directions. She felt completely immersed in the moment as she
spun around in the falling rain. She threw back her head and let the
raindrops crash against her face, dripping down into her hair and
flying off in the wind which was beginning to pick up and swirl
around her. Everything felt alive and real to her in a way it hadn’t
in a long time.
I’ve
got to figure out a way to live,
she thought more lucidly than she had thought anything in a very long
time. A
way to go on.
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