RELEASE BLITZ
Title: Lucky Scars
Author: Kerry Heavens
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: July 3, 2018
BLURB
Not every love story begins with a fiery explosion of lust.
Some are tiny embers of hope that smoulder slowly until the stars align…
I’d been living in a bubble.
It was meant to protect me from the things in life that hurt.
I could live, I could laugh, but at least I didn’t have to love.
Loving was dangerous and I would never do it again.
It was working just fine, until the bubble burst.
It let in danger.
It let in light.
It let in…him.
Unknowingly I’d been living in the dark, feeling my way.
He filled my world with starlight.
He showed me how to move on to the next level.
He made me feel again.
I thought the wounds from the past would never fully heal,
But perhaps they only heal when the time is right.
Sometimes you just have to thank your lucky scars.
GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36655356-lucky-scars
PURCHASE LINKS
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2LuITmb
iBooks: https://apple.co/2Ht9r4R
EXCERPTS
#1
A game company? That’s… different.”
I sucked in a breath and considered what to say. “Well, I'm pretty passionate about games, I guess…”
He thought about this for a moment. “It's just an unusual career path for—”
“A girl?” I interjected with a definite challenge to my tone.
He closed his eyes in shame and winced. “I didn't mean it like that. It's a pretty unusual career path in general, but yeah, I guess for a…” he cleared his throat, “woman, it seems even more surprising. Most women I know don't give any time to that kind of thing.”
Taking note of the fact that he pointedly corrected me from “girl” to “woman,” I forged ahead. “There are plenty of women into gaming, I'll have you know. But we make game apps. There isn’t any person living in the civilised world, man or woman, who doesn't give some time to playing those on their phone these days, I assure you.”
“So, I'll just put that in my sexist, old-fashioned pipe and smoke it, shall I?” he laughed.
I couldn't help laughing too. At least he wasn't denying his outdated views. “So, what do you do?” I looked him up and down, making sure it was obvious I was appraising his appearance as he had mine. “Let me guess,” I pondered. “You argue like a lawyer, but maybe that’s too cliché. Something in banking perhaps?” I tapped my finger to my chin to show I was thinking. “Hedge-fund Manager?”
Jonathan clutched a hand to his chest. “I’m insulted,” he gasped.
“Why? You look the part. Tailored suit, flashy watch, hair just so.”
He touched the side of his hair in a gesture that said thanks for noticing. Then his face turned serious. “So, because I dress nicely and look after myself, I must be what you obviously deem the lowest-of-the-low in the finance field?”
“And I'm a girl, so I can't be interested in computer games?”
“Touché.”
I grinned. “So, seriously, what do you do?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“I knew it! A hedge-fund lawyer?” I asked with a smirk.
He looked crestfallen. “No, a civil rights lawyer.”
Oh crap. There I was ripping him to shreds for the way he looked, and he’s all noble and shit. I swallowed hard. “Really?”
“No,” he laughed. “Not really.”
I released a sigh of relief.
“I’m an editor.”
I frowned, I didn’t see that coming. “Of a newspaper?”
Jonathan shook his head as he chuckled ruefully and sipped his coffee, leaving me waiting.
“What?” I challenged. “It was a legitimate question.”
“I was just amused by the way you’re determined to think the worst of me, that’s all.”
“I’m not.” I was close to breaking out in a sweat. This was not going at all how I’d hoped it would. “I just asked if you edited a newspaper that’s all.”
“Because in your mind, if I’m not a cliched lawyer, or a lowest-of-the-low hedge-fund manager, that only leaves journalism?”
My cheeks burned with shame and I wanted to disappear. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Jonathan smiled. “I’m teasing you Bea. I’m an executive editor for a small publishing house. It’s nothing exciting, or noble, but I’m not the bad guy you seem to think I am.”
I closed my eyes and cursed myself for even coming today. “Fair enough, you win.” I conceded.
“I think we’re even.” Jonathan laughed heartily, and the tension between us broke again.
#2
With trembling fingers, I tapped at my phone screen, sobbing because I connected the call and then cut it off in my haste. I couldn’t handle technology; I just needed him. I was about to throw in the towel and just sit on the curb and cry when it rang. His stupid face appeared on the screen, and my heart leapt. He knew. He knew I needed him.
Choking at the urgency to hear his voice, I tried again to get my fingers to cooperate, and, finally, they did.
“Hello?” There was pleading in my tone. “Ziggy?
There was a short stretch of silence, and I thought maybe I’d fucked up the call again when suddenly he spoke. “Bea? What’s wrong?”
“Zig—” A sob cut me off.
“Bea, where are you? What’s going on?”
“I need you,” I whispered.
“Tell me where?” he said with a steady determination that filled me with exactly the comfort I needed right then. He was coming. It was going to be ok. I looked up helplessly at my surroundings for a road name I could tell him.
“Um,” I faltered. “I don’t know, I—” Fresh tears ran down my face, and I wiped at them with the back of my hand, only then noticing the blood. “Oh God,” I gasped.
“Bea, please. You’re scaring me. Are you hurt?”
“No,” I assured him quickly. “I just…” I didn’t even know where to start.
“I need to know where you are. Calm down. I’m here. Take a deep breath and try to tell me where I need to go to find you. I’m coming. Okay? Now just tell me where.”
I turned in place, looking for something I knew. I walked these streets every day, and they’d never felt so alien to me. He was the only thing that felt safe right then, but guilt swept over me, and I tried to pull myself together. I must have been freaking him out, and that wasn’t fair. Nothing around me seemed familiar, even though I knew it was; I was so disorientated. I needed to do what he told me and take a breath.
He was coming to get me.
It was ok.
“Dean Street,” I told him as soon as I laid eyes on the street sign, relieved to be tuning back in but feeling so stupid that I was so close to home and couldn’t even focus enough to realise it. “At the Shaftsbury Avenue end, on the corner.”
“I’m coming. Please just tell me you’re okay,” he said desperately into the phone.
AUTHOR BIO
London born indie author, iPhone addict & general ray of sunshine! Kerry writes: sometimes sweet, sometimes not, often funny, always hot, real romance, dirty romcoms and other such smut.
AUTHOR LINKS
Website: http://www.kerryheavens.com
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/psychocinderellas
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorkerryheavens
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kerryheavens
Book+Main Bites: https://bookandmainbites.com/Kerryheavens
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