Today's Kindle and Me's stop for Lauren Hammond's 12 Rounds, hosted by Jessica at Total Bookaholic. We've an excerpt for you today, provided by Lauren. Thank you Lauren, for letting me be part of the tour =)
Audience/Genre : Adult/Contemporary Romance.
Publication : July 31st 2012 by S.B. Addison Books.
Sean (Right-Hook) Reilly knows a few things about himself. One, he's the middle-weight boxing champion of the world with an undefeated record. Two, women find his cocky persona, chiseled biceps, and inked body sexy. Also, the fact that it's known that he doesn't do relationships only adds to his sex appeal. And three, he's Irish, proud of it, and a member of the Braithreachas Don Saol, a branch of the Irish mafia and king pins of the drug cartel taking over the streets of Cleveland.
Connor Doyle(aka Connie) the boss and leader of the Braithreachas Don Saol, has been like a father to Sean, taking him under his wing and teaching him how to survive on the streets after the death of his parents. Sean has never been ungrateful, but has always wanted one thing...
More. More to live for. More to fight for. More to believe in. A chance at a future without drugs or guns. A chance at a future without wondering which day will be his last.
There's only one problem with that. You live by the braithreachas. You die by the braithreachas. And Sean knows whether Connie considers him to be family or not, the only way he'll be leaving the braithreachas is in a body bag.
Hadlee Flax has had a year to overcome her issues. After almost being raped and brutalized, she's putting her best foot forward, seeing a therapist, and has even(with some persuasion from her best friend, Lara) enrolled in self defense classes. And she's doing well moving on with her life until she meets the dark, and conflicted Irish boxing champion of the world, Sean Reilly.
Hadlee is immediately drawn to the gorgeous, cold, and mysterious man who speaks with a slight Irish brogue. She soon learns that there is much more to him than his darkened gaze, cool demeanor, and body covered in tattoos. He's not the type of man she thought he was. And Hadlee finds herself doing something she never thought she would do in the last year...
Falling for a guy.
Falling for Sean Reilly. A man who is on the path to becoming a boxing legend.
One thing Hadlee doesn't know is the other part of Seans' life. His life of drug running, and killing. Or the fact that when he's not boxing he's walking the streets with a gat tucked into the back of his loose jeans, and glancing over his shoulder at every turn.
But it doesn't take Hadlee long to learn that some attractions and relationships can be fatal.
And sometimes...
They just might be worth fighting for.
Excerpt - 12 Rounds.
Hi Readers!
I’d like to thank Kindle and Me so much for having me on the blog today! I hope you all enjoy the excerpt from my NA romance, 12 Rounds!
When I was working the streets, I saw the desperation that I knew was inside of me in the customers’ eyes. You know, the addicts. The cocaine was like a religious temple to the junkies and they needed to pay their respects once a week. Sometimes more. Sometimes I thought that I could see their eyes sparkle when I handed their bag of blow and they handed me a wad of cash. It’s like they had wet dreams about mountains of white powder and they were rolling around in it, tossing it up in the air like snow, laughing gleefully when it floated down from the air and landed on their tongues.
The guilt never came while I was making the sale. It came afterward when realization of what I’d just done hit me. I just contributed to someone’s death for completely selfish purposes. I’d always thought that. I used to go home after a night on the streets and let the guilt completely drown me. I’d lie awake in bed, fighting off sleep, and hate hate hate myself for what and who I had become.
Until one day right before Murph joined the brotherhood he gave me some helpful advice. “You need to stop beating yourself up over this, Sean. You did not make those people addicts. They were addicts before you came along and they’ll still be addicts after you. They have to find it within themselves to make a change for the better if they want to.” Sometimes I think the big lug is smarter than he lets on.
Even though Murph’s advice was so true and sound, part of me still thought about punching Connie in the f’ing face and screaming, What are we? Shouldn’t we be trying to help these people instead of fueling their addiction? Shouldn’t we be trying to clean up the streets to make this city a better place to live?
But I never did. Not because I was afraid of his reaction. Or because I was a young coward. Or afraid of dying even. I never said anything or did anything because I knew, deep down in my gut that the man just didn’t give a damn. And I knew my ranting and raving wouldn’t make a damn bit of a difference.
I hear the door to the four-plex open, but I ignore whoever came in until a soft, feminine voice greets me with, “Hey Sean!”
I snap to attention when I see Hadlee’s roommate, Lara. I nod. “Hey.”
The truth is my mind is too clouded with thoughts of Hadlee and haunting images from my past to have any kind of conversation now. So I stand up slowly, brush past Lara, and say, “Have a good night.”
It all began with a dinosaur, a T-Rex to be exact. He was the main character in my very first short story. Me and T, well, we went places. He is the reason I won my first essay contest at age ten. And he is probably one of the number one reasons, I pursued a career in writing.
Throughout highschool, I was what you would call a rebel. Someone who had convinced herself that she had life figured out at age sixteen. Still, writing was my only safe-haven during that time. I wrote notebooks full of poetry, even writing fellow classmates papers for them.
Unbeknowest to me, creative writing, seemed to be my one, true calling, my passion in life.
At age twenty, I began writing my first novel. After that, everything seemed to fall into place.
I won Best Poets and Poems of 2007, and The Editor's Choice award for my poem, Summer Days.
Also, during that time I wrote or co-wrote fifteen different screenplays, some which earned me finalist spot in various screenplay competitions.
In 2010, I've come full force, with my novel Love Sucks, that was released by Punkin House Press, in August of 2010. On top of Love Sucks, I have six novels that are slated to be released through the next five years. Also, doing some various marketing work for authors and publishers.
I pride myself in telling fellow writers to always follow their dreams. Who knows where I would be if I would have given up.
Sounds like that Mark Wahlberg movie but more street.
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