BESIDE YOUR HEART
By
Mary Whitney
BLURB:
"It's an emotional story that will take the
reader back to those feelings that made the late teen years such a powerful
time."
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?
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?
Excerpt
“No British literature. Isn’t this
supposed to be an English class?” Adam asked.
“Uh.” My ancestors would’ve been proud
of the jolt of American patriotism that hit me.
“There was a revolution two hundred years ago. We write our own books
now.”
He leaned back in his seat with a smile.
“I think I heard about that.”
“We still share the same language.”
“Sometimes I’m not too sure.”
“I bet not.” I could imagine what he
thought of a Texas accent.
He picked up the list of books again. “What about Catcher in the Rye?”
“I read it a long time
ago when I was, like, eleven.” I laughed a little
as I
remembered how I’d first come to read it.
“Is there something funny about that?”
“Yeah.
My father had suggested I read it then. The
book is the classic coming-of-age story. Clearly, he wasn’t really thinking
about whether or not it was appropriate for
an eleven-year-old.”
“Really? Why?”
“Well, for one thing, the main character
is a guy who swears a lot.”
“I suppose I swear a lot.” He cracked a
sly smile. “At least compared to you Yankees.”
“Yankees? You’re in the South.” I
laughed.
“What else is inappropriate about the
book? Now I’m interested. It can’t only be a few swear words.”
“No, it’s not just that. It’s…” I
hesitated for a moment as I realized I was about to bring up the topic of sex
with Adam Kincaid. What the hell, I
thought. I should be matter-of-fact about it. He had a girlfriend and would
never want anything with me. I could hide I thought he was hot, so I shrugged.
“Holden, the main character…he’s a little sexually frustrated.”
His eyes twinkled, and it felt as if my
words hung in the air. I wanted to squirm in my seat. ‘Sexually frustrated’—like me checking out Adam Kincaid.
His proper upbringing showed again as he
sidestepped the issue, yet he smirked. “That sounds like an adventurous book to
be on an American high school syllabus.”
“Like I said—it’s considered an American
classic.” I laughed. “I guess some things are sacred.”
“But of course.” The gleam appeared in
his eye again, and he turned toward me in his seat. “Teenage sexual frustration
is sort of a rite of passage, if you will.”
There went the good-English-boy manners
out the window. His tone, the look in his eye, his body language—was he
flirting with or taunting me? I decided the former was impossible, and if the
latter, I wasn’t going to back down. With two parents who were lawyers, debate
was a family routine.
“A rite of passage? More like a
biological fact, isn’t it?” I asked, casually clicking my pen. I raised a brow.
“Especially for guys.”
“You’re right about that,” he said with
a grin.
AUTHOR
INFORMATION:
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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