Title:
Innocents (Dusty #1)
Author:
Mary Elizabeth and Sarah Elizabeth
Release:
July 14, 2014
Synopsis:
The girl with an innocent heart knows all about
bad choices, but has yet to make them for herself. Searching for freedom, she
finds it in the delinquent down the hall.
The troublemaker with summer-sky blue eyes knows he should stay away, but can’t resist the blissful wonder who makes his house a home.
She’s a hopeless romantic. He’s just hopeless.
She’s his reason, but he might not catch her when she falls.
She loves him. He loves her crazy.
This is what happens when a love made of secrets is kept with rules instead of promises
The troublemaker with summer-sky blue eyes knows he should stay away, but can’t resist the blissful wonder who makes his house a home.
She’s a hopeless romantic. He’s just hopeless.
She’s his reason, but he might not catch her when she falls.
She loves him. He loves her crazy.
This is what happens when a love made of secrets is kept with rules instead of promises
Excerpt:
Chapter Ten
Buried
beneath the blankets, I press the phone to my ear. Dusty doesn’t realize I’m
back on, so I listen to him smoke: light, inhale, exhale, sigh, laugh. Hearing
it is almost as good as actually seeing his lips around the end of a joint.
“I’m
back,” I whisper.
"Beautiful,
beautiful, baby Bliss. Baby, baby Bliss." He laughs, taking a hit.
My
dad’s a juvenile court judge. Our dinner table talk usually consists of him
complaining about the kids he sees coming in and out of his courtroom. It’s an epidemic, he says. Children Bliss’ age using drugs. And it
always ends with, Bliss, never give into
peer pressure. It starts with a little grass.
Maybe
it is some kind sweeping epidemic, but weed doesn’t sway Dusty the way my dad
claims it does other people. It soothes him. It makes him funny and honest and
tolerable.
My
dad doesn’t know everything.
"I
thought about you all day,” Dusty says softly, lazily. "I miss your face.
I miss your candy wrappers all over my room. I miss your cold toes on my legs
under the covers."
"Oh,
yeah?" I grip the phone tighter, pressing my knees together. The sound of
his low voice sends chills up and down my arms. I bite my bottom lip and curl
my toes.
“Come
over.” He exhales.
I
roll onto my side and turn my face into the hoodie’s hood, inhaling the faint
sent of vanilla. I’m lit up, full of crazy butterflies and overriding
happiness. This boy makes me smile bright.
"I'll
take my mom's car. I'll come get you." He's only half-kidding. "Say
yes."
"You'll
drive high?"
"I'm
not high." There's a moment of silence before he chokes on his laughter.
"I'm so fucking high."
I
revel in his tone, and his voice, and his silly, half-slurred words while I lie
in the dark pretending he's close.
"I'm
so hungry, Bliss baby. If you were here, I'd probably eat your elbow. I’d eat
your—"
"Dusty,”
I cut him off. “Tell me a secret."
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Mary’s Bio:
Mary
Elizabeth is an up and coming author who finds words in chaos, writing stories
about the skeletons hanging in your closets. Known as The Realist, she is one
half of The Elizabeths—a duo brave enough to never hide the truth. Born and
raised in Southern California, she’s a wife, mother of four beautiful children,
and dog tamer to one enthusiastic Pit Bull and a prissy Chihuahua. She’s a
hairstylist by day but contemporary fiction, new adult author by night. Mary
can often be found finger twirling her hair and chewing on a stick of licorice
while writing and rewriting a sentence over and over until it’s perfect. She
discovered her talent for tale-telling accidentally, but literature is in her
stranglehold. And she’s not letting go until every story is told.
To
follow Mary’s upcoming solo and collaborative projects, she can be found at her
website http://www.maryelizabethlit.com/.
Brought together by their love of storytelling, Mary and
Sarah Elizabeth are a pair of dedicated writers with complementary strengths
who’ve cultivated a literary style that captures a Realist’s brutality with a
Poet’s grace, uncovering the self-seeking side of tenderness and the
undisguised truth of honesty. Inspired by the lyrics of a song, Dusty was born between emails and long
G-chats before a single chapter was ever typed. A short story turned into a
monster, and more than four years and several edits later, the first half of
their collaboration, Innocents, will
be released on July 14, 2014. And its conclusion, Delinquents, is set to release on October 23, 2014.
If you’d like to contact The Elizabeths, they can be located
on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheElizabethsDusty?ref=hl.
Listener,
messenger, secret keeper, Elizabeth, and TrueLove, Sarah works two jobs by day
so that she's able to really work by night. She's written since she was old
enough to hold a marker, and her writing bridges the sacred and profane, from
first love to forbidden, with a longing for truth and a passion for
hearts. She is currently based in Kansas City where her army is comprised
of one little buffalo. Her best friends are girls named Moses and Bunny. Her
hero is a boy named Bishop, and the one she loves has ocean eyes. In addition
to Dusty, Sarah also has a
collaborative novella, Light and
Wine, due to be released on June 8th, and her solo work will be featured in the
anthology Branded, this
August.
Brought together by their love of storytelling, Mary and
Sarah Elizabeth are a pair of dedicated writers with complementary strengths
who’ve cultivated a literary style that captures a Realist’s brutality with a
Poet’s grace, uncovering the self-seeking side of tenderness and the
undisguised truth of honesty. Inspired by the lyrics of a song, Dusty was born between emails and long
G-chats before a single chapter was ever typed. A short story turned into a
monster, and more than four years and several edits later, the first half of
their collaboration, Innocents, will
be released on July 14, 2014. And its conclusion, Delinquents, is set to release on October 23, 2014.
If you’d like to contact The Elizabeths, they can be located
on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheElizabethsDusty?ref=hl.
Mary's Social Media:
Duo’s
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TheElizabethsDusty?ref=hl
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/teamsmella23
Website:
http://www.maryelizabethlit.com/
Sarah's Social Media:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/littlegreyache
Duo’s
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TheElizabethsDusty?ref=hl
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LittleGreyAche
Website:
http://littlegreyache.tumblr.com/
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