BooksChatter: ☀☄♫ℚ Till Death Us Do Part

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Till Death Us Do Part, a Romantic Suspense by Cristina Slough (29 December 2015, Limitless Publishing, 359 pages).

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis, trailer, music playlist, teasers and excerpt below, as well as a promotional Q&A with author Cristina Slough.
Read the first three chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

Till Death Us Do Part is currently on sale for only .99!

Cristina Slough will be awarding one Print Copy of TILL DEATH US DO PART, and one $10 Amazon U.S/UK eGift Card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

Synopsis | Trailer & Playlist | Teaser | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway

Synopsis

The fateful day Mimi Marcus has dreaded begins with a phone call…

The wife of a U.S. Marine, Mimi spent countless nights worried that her husband Joel would fall in the line of duty. He had fought valiantly and served his country with honor. That’s exactly what they tell her when they deliver the news—Joel was taken by the enemy in Afghanistan. Her husband is dead.

In desperate need of closure, Mimi travels to the one place Joel still has ties—The Marcus Ranch in Texas, inherited by his handsome younger brother Austin.

New beginnings are only an illusion…

The closer Mimi grows to the Marcus family, the more she considers it home. But when suspicions of Joel’s past surface, Austin refuses to disclose family secrets—even to his brother’s widow. It’s only by accident she uncovers evidence of Joel’s tainted past. Devastated by his lies and betrayal, she slowly opens up to Austin, and together they unfold layers of pain and grief.

Mimi is sure she’ll never love again, but is Austin the man to prove her wrong? Then the unthinkable happens…

Just as Mimi finds new hope in a future with Austin, Joel returns home from war. Enraged, traumatized, and teetering on the edge of insanity, Joel confesses to a history of deception, revealing yet another secret—this one too terrible to forgive.

In an awful twist of fate, Joel proves marriage vows are made to be honored.

No matter what.

Teaser: Excerpt

PROLOGUE

Mimi
London, 2011

      Mimi had been dreaming of a storm. Heavy rain, violent claps of thunder, and lightning flashing simultaneously.
      She saw Joel reaching out for her, his body bloody and wet. She awoke in the darkened room. It was 2:17 a.m., 6:47 a.m. in Afghanistan, and the exact time she had woken up for three nights in a row.
      She slipped out of bed, her pyjama bottoms loose around her ever-shrinking waist. The air was freezing. She dashed across the room to wrap herself in the fleecy dressing gown her mother had just bought her for Christmas.
      Her stomach growled, begging for food. She couldn’t eat. She clicked onto her Twitter feed to check for more updates about the suicide bombing in Kabul which had claimed at least six. Two were American Marines.
      Mimi had contacted the Embassy several times, but nobody could tell her anything. The pain of not knowing was taking away her ability to breathe normally. The silence was too loud. She had tried to remember their last conversation. Did she tell him that she loved him? Words so quick to fall off the tongue to end a phone call. Love you, bye.
      Often she had felt like being the wife of a Marine meant she was holding a grenade. She was always waiting for a letter, waiting to hear his voice, waiting for news that he was alive or dead.
      She hadn’t known how deeply this war would affect her. She remembered the morning she first learned of the Gulf War in 1991. Mimi’s older sister, Larna, ran into her small bedroom in a complete meltdown. “Mimi, war has started!” She recalled the fear she felt. She was only eight years old. When she realised that the war wasn’t in England, she’d cried with relief.
      Somehow, throughout her life, Mimi knew war with the Middle East was going to directly affect her eventually. Her premonition was confirmed the day she met Joel Marcus.
      In the bitter silence, Mimi was left with nothing but her own whirling thoughts. Memories flitted in and out. Knots kneaded together in her stomach, its grip tightening. She was stuck on a waltzer of panic.
      “Why?” She had asked Joel many times. He had never met her gaze. He’d always change the subject in an effort to avoid giving her the answer she desperately craved.
      She needed to understand. What was the driving force steering the man she loved to the front line? Why did he choose to offer his life for a war that was never going to reach a peace treaty, a war full of bloodshed, a price too many lives had already paid with no signs of the bloodshed ending?
      Then, one day, as they watched an anniversary special of 9/11 at Mimi’s London flat, he asked her a question asked by so many before him when the subject of 9/11 was raised. “Where were you?”
      She had told him that she was at work. It was one of those moments in history that people knew just where they were and just what they were doing. She recalled her colleague had delivered the news to her. Mimi remembered going into the break-out area, watching the breaking bulletin, and wondering, was this really happening?

      She had recalled the images of that day. It was imprinted in her memory. She’d watched the play-by-play footage of the plane exploding on impact, demolishing at least six floors. Torrents of smoke appeared to be throwing out a backfire of orange fireballs. She remembered the very moment she saw a dark eerie shadow come into view. Then, when the second plane hit, it had occurred to her that what she was watching wasn’t some tragic accident.
      When Mimi’s colleagues started filtering back into the office, the question on everybody’s lips was, “have you heard…? Have you seen…?” Barnard & Millban, the company Mimi worked for, was American-owned. Calls were made to family members and colleagues overseas to ensure they were okay. Although the images were truly horrific, Mimi found herself hungry for more information. She wanted to know the ins and outs as to why such evil had been inflicted. And then…she wondered about the most morbidly, thought-provoking question.
      Jump or burn? Mimi understood why the people in the towers wanted to jump. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the heat in those buildings, the intensity of those fierce flames. For Mimi, jumping indicated choice, falling into a final act of hope.
      The next day, news of the terror attacks dominated the media. It was the first time Mimi had heard the name Osama bin Laden , the terrorist leader of Al-Qaeda. The papers printed a gallery of images of the doomed towers with the headlines: “War Comes to America,” “War on the World,” and then the Daily Mail’s photo of the dark, evil cloud of smoke with one word, one powerful meaning: “Apocalypse.”
      President Bush confirmed the terror attack. He called it “a mass murder.” He said the American military was prepared.
      There was a ripple of shock throughout the day. Many lives were changed forever. It was a day that changed history. The world was at war!
      After she had shared her recollection with Joel, he rested his hands firmly on her shoulders. He surprised her by giving the answer to the question she asked him so many times before.
      “Now you know why I’m doing this. It was all because of that day.”

Till Death Us Do Part
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Author Q&A

If you can pick one song that encompasses the whole story, what would that song be?

"There were quite a few scenes that I loved writing. If I had to make a firm choice then it would have to be Chapter 30 titled: Joel. This is where my emotional investment to the story hit its highest level. It is the moment that my voice was no longer my own. It was all theirs."

Who is your celebrity dream cast for TILL DEATH?

"Scott Eastwood would make the perfect Austin. I’d love to see Zac Efron play Joel, although he would have to be more rough around the edges.

Looks wise, Shay Mitchell would fit Mimi perfectly but I have no idea if she could pull off a British accent!

I think that Julianne Hough would also fit the physical profile of Meg, but again, she’d have to be able to pull off being a Brit."

Team Joel or Team Austin?

"Ultimately, Team Austin. But I loved writing about Joel, he was very complex, there was far more about him than meets the eye."

That ending....Many Readers didn't see it ending as it did. How much of that ending was you and how much was you letting the characters take the wheel?

"That ending was all them. I didn’t even know what was going to happen until my fingers typed the final words. Suddenly, my mind raced right back to the opening chapter of the book where Mimi was dreaming about Joel; his body, bloody and wet. All of the feelings and emotions I had throughout the story came together in the final scene. The best way to describe it would be—putting a needle and thread throughout the book and stitching it all together. Truly, it felt like I was right there with them. The ending resulted in showing readers what I saw…even I was shocked!"

Do you have plans to write more with the characters from TILL DEATH?

"No. I truly feel like my journey with the characters has ended. That being said, they will forever be a part of me."

What is in the works now?

"I am working on a new standalone novel about a woman that fakes her own death to escape from her abusive husband. Some of my research is being carried out by working with a lady who has been a victim of domestic violence. She has offered to share her experiences with me. It is not based on her life, however she is helping me to understand what some women may be feeling that are or have been in an abusive relationship. This one is going to be emotional for sure."

About the Author

Novelist, movie addict, and animal lover, Cristina Slough is the author of Till Death Us Do Part, her début novel.

Cristina has always been a bookworm, rarely seen without a pen and paper in her hand, she loves delving into a literacy fictional world of her own.

At the age of 11, her junior school teacher told her mother that she would be wasting her life if she didn’t become an author. Throughout her teenage years and beyond, her parents spurred her on to keep writing. She later began a career in commercial real estate, working in London’s West End, a corporate bubble where she was unable to fuel her passion to write.

It was on her Californian honeymoon in 2012 that the bug to write was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. After visiting Yosemite National Park she was inspired by the natural beauty of the land that surrounded her. Holding a special place in her heart, Yosemite would later be written into her début novel.

She finally gave up the ‘big smoke’ when her son, Lucas, was born in October 2013.

When Lucas was a newborn, Cristina was told to sleep when the baby sleeps. She never could. There was a calling inside her to write. After getting to grips with her new role as a mother, she began working a psychological thriller, but she couldn’t fully connect to the characters she created. She ditched the manuscript and started Till Death Us Do Part (Limitless Publishing, 2015).

Cristina is married to Adam, who runs a successful business; together they share their Bedfordshire home with their son, crazy white German Shepherd and three spoiled cats. They can be found trekking through woodlands, or around the many shops Cristina loves to explore. As a family, they love to travel frequently, the United States being a firm favorite.

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