Most women have at least one close woman friend, that girl you can share anything with, who will highlight your hair for you or take you to a nerve-wracking doctor’s appointment. She’ll listen to you complain about your love life, your skin, your job or school, your kids or parents. She’ll support you no matter what. Some women have whole crowds of friends like that, though I’ve only ever had the one true bestie. It just depends on your personality type, I suppose.
The lead character in my new release, Eruption, has one best friend/college roommate. The two of them seem like opposites on the surface, but Violet likes Mia’s eccentricity, and Mia likes Violet’s normalcy and steadiness. They’ve both been burned by people they’ve trusted before, so they take nothing for granted with each other.
In this excerpt, we see Mia helping Violet get ready for her first date with a guy she’s been crushing on for a year.
EXCERPT
Mia and I dug through my wardrobe on Saturday, a day of perfect football weather. Chilly temps on the walk to cafeteria “brunch” morphed to blindingly sunny and warm by noon. Mia and I had totally different taste in everything, which meant I couldn’t pull off her ruffled mini skirt and black leather jacket look. She understood me, though, and we settled on a pair of skinny jeans, a yellow sleeveless top with black trim (school colors!), and my sporty flip-flops with floral straps. I slathered sunscreen on my shoulders and arms while Mia searched her collection of hair clips.
My brown hair rested a tad below my shoulders. I finger combed a sloppy part down the middle most days and usually had at least one side tucked behind my ear. I tried not to pull it up all the time ’cuz the bulk made the top of my head look too wide. Mom said my face was heart-shaped which I interpreted to mean my chin was too narrow for my forehead.
Mia twisted the front pieces of my hair back and secured it with a bobby pin so it didn’t blow into my lip-gloss if a breeze kicked up at the stadium. (I’d rejected a rhinestone clip and a daisy barrette.) “You sure you won’t wear some eyeliner?” she asked for the third time. “I could make your eyes look big as pool balls if you’d let me.”
“Just the look I’m going for,” I said, picturing one of those big-eyed puppies that adorned every greeting card a few years ago. “This is a football game, not the prom.” I already felt overdone with one coat of black/brown mascara.
“If one wants to be treated like an aristocrat, one must dress like an aristocrat,” she said in a voice like the Queen of England’s.
“I’m a Copperhead, not Princess Kate.”
“Whatever.” She sulked. “Ooh, ten ’til one. I’m outta here.”
“You don’t have to leave.” The panic I’d been fighting since daybreak changed my breathing to hitching gasps. Boone Ramer. Here. To get me. Soon. I thought I might puke up my ham and cheese omelet.
The best roomie ever grabbed my shoulders to show me my reflection in the mirror screwed into our dorm room wall. “You got this thing, sister. His Hotness obviously likes you, and you’ve been ready to have his babies for a year. Be you. Except lose the expression of terror.”
I nodded and smiled and practiced not looking like a deer in the headlights.
Mia grabbed her jingly neck lanyard and skipped through the open door.
END OF EXCERPT
These two will go through plenty together in this book—including Mia’s only half joking encouragement for Violet to jump Boon’s bones—and they’ll experience plenty more growing pains in the series.
Eruption Blurb
I’m in the middle of the perfect college semester, hundreds of miles from Mom, with an awesome roomie and my freshman crush finally becoming a sophomore reality—Hotness! I’m figuring out calculus, I’ve got both hands on the handlebars and the wind of freedom in my hair. What on earth could slow my roll?
How about if the Yellowstone volcano erupts for the first time in 630,000 years, spewing a continuous load of ash (crap) all over North America? Think that’ll put a kink in my bicycle chain?
Make that kinks, plural, because here’s a scientific fact I’ll bet you didn’t know. Nothing ruins the perfect semester like a super caldera. Now that I’ve made you smarter today, maybe you can tell me how to keep my life cruising in the right direction—no to Mom, yes to roomie, double yes to Hotness!—during a global disaster?
My lame name is Violet and, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m not hanging from the side of a cinder cone on the last page of this trauma, but there’s definitely more to come. Unless, of course, humans become extinct and then there’s not. Duh.
Eruption is available for preorder, released on September 13, and will be on sale for 99 cents until September 27.
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MRHAIRO
I’m giving away some cute swag with the book cover and Yellowblown™ series logo charms made into necklaces, bracelets, and bookmarks. Sign up for my newsletter at www.jillhughey.com/contact for a chance to win one of your choice!
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