BooksChatter: ☀ Whatever It Takes: Nothing But Trouble [1]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Whatever It Takes, a New Adult Contemporary Fiction novel by Lindsey Pogue (18 January 2016, Lindsey Pogue, 314 pages).

This is the first book in the Nothing But Trouble series; a story of love and loss which contains mature content, sexual and other.

Don't miss our interview with author Lindsey Pogue.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the Prologue and the first four chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

Author Lindsey Pogue will be awarding two signed copies of Whatever It Takes (US only), and two eBook copies of Whatever It Takes (INTL) to a randomly drawn winners via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

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

Synopsis

Four years ago, I thought my life was pretty normal for a teenager. Three years ago, my world was shattered, and now I’m just trying to hold the pieces together. But regret and anger aren’t so easy to ignore.

I just need to catch my breath … for it all to go away …

I thought I might finally be ready to move on from that horrible night, but then he decided to come back.

He can’t come back … he’ll ruin me completely.

One horror-filled night changes the course of Samantha’s seemingly normal life. She’s ruined everything. Despite her determination to keep the family ranch up and running, her guilt makes it impossible to completely move on or forget.

Sam takes comfort in her quirky, endearing friends as she tries to balance between the girl she was and the woman she wants to become. Just when she thinks she’s finally making amends with her past, someone she never thought she’d see again returns, and Sam’s life is once again turned upside down. Both her head and her heart want different things, so she’s lost when, once again, she’s forced to make a decision that will inevitably change her life.

Teaser: Excerpts

One

Present Day
Sam

     Sprawled out beneath my favorite tree, I stare at the oak branches outstretched above me. Lichen, nature’s lace curtains, cast intricately sewn shadows across me, blocking out the harsh rays of the sun. This place, in the shade of the oldest, most unruly tree on the property—“the watchman of the lake,” as I’d pretended when I was younger—has been my sanctuary since I can remember.
      For years I’ve been retreating to this very spot, where the grass grows a little thicker from where I lie up on a slight hill down to the water’s edge, protected by the oak’s expansive shade. So much has changed since I was young—me, my family; even the small country town of Saratoga Falls seems to have found a quicker pace—but here, underneath this tree, it feels as if the past still lingers, coming in and drifting out on the breeze when I least expect it. This place is a mingling of my past, present, and future.
      The oak was my climbing tree when my golden hair was in pigtails, but now my pigtails have given way to a single, thick braid that feels lumpy beneath my back as I lie at its base. My little-girl hands have become calloused from seemingly endless days of horse grooming and stacking firewood. My cowboy hat’s bigger, sun bleached and weathered from years of abuse, and my boots are well worn from mucking out stalls and mending fences. This is my napping and hide-away-from-the-world spot. It’s where Mama and Papa are both buried and it personifies distant memories of first loves and wistful dreams.
      Not a day goes by that I don’t think about those things—of Reilly and the day we crossed the line from friends to something more, the promises we made to each other only to break them, the distance, his distance, and the fact that the day I fell in love with him, he chose to leave. All the regrets that followed still linger, too.
      Shasta, my old gray mare, snorts as she grazes beside me, a sound that stirs me back to the present. I hear the muffled sound of her hooves as she takes a lazy step between mouthfuls of the patchy green that grows around us.
      Telling myself I deserve a few more moments of respite, I close my eyes and fall back into a sleepy daze, listening . . .
      . . . red-winged blackbirds chirp as they fly from the fence line into the surrounding scrub oaks that sprawl out behind me . . .
      . . . insect wings flitter between drifts of dry breeze . . .
      . . . lizards scurry in the crisp, fallen oak leaves that litter the ground . . .
      This place, where life is simple and calm and known, is where I want to be. With a deep inhale, I let the fragrance of summertime—of red clay earth and sunbaked hillsides—wrap me in a blanket of sunshine and comfort me until the familiar tempos of nature fade. I exhale, and as I revel in a tension-easing stretch, I feel another familiar sensation as my knuckles brush against Papa’s gravestone, damning and ever-present behind me. A knot forms in my stomach. I don’t have to look at the gravestone to know what it says: Robert Miller, Loving Father and Husband, Beloved Horse Whisperer. May he rest in the valley of horses.
      Eventually, the undertones of country living dissolve and I’m left with the sound of rubber scraping across glass, and the warm breeze brings with it a chill that rakes over my skin . . .

      The road is dark and wet, and the headlights are all that illuminate the bend ahead. The air in the truck is stale and pregnant with a dozen emotions that suffocate me as I try to wade through them. I look at Papa, but his gaze is narrowed, angry. I disappointed him. I ruined everything.
      We see it all too late—the gnarled branch that blocks the road. In fast-forward, Papa slams on the brakes. Screeching rubber echoes in my ears as we swerve toward the mountainside, away from the cliff. Then the truck is rolling, the world is crushing in around me, and my head smacks against the window and then the dash. The sound of groaning metal against the asphalt grates in my ears, and I can hear Papa yelling something. The warm skin of his fingers brushes against my arm, but I can’t concentrate as my arms flail and my head bangs against the roof of the truck.
      We crash. We lurch. We stop. Branchy fingers reach through the broken window and I glance over to see Papa. He’s bleeding.

Excerpt two

     The dismal ache inside me overshadows the disappointment I know I should feel as I contemplate the shard’s sharp edges. Standing motionless and muted, I take deep, grounding breaths.
     In . . . out . . .
     In . . . out . . .
     In . . . out . . .
     It does nothing to stave off the unbearable tightness in my chest. I should put the shard down. The months of fighting against the pain, of trying to ignore it and accept it, to control the growing weakness that nearly cripples me, moves so far beyond me I want to give in.
     I can’t push the urge aside. I can’t ignore it. Not any longer. I need the burn—so raw, demanding, and overpowering—to go away. I need my heart to stop aching, and for once, I want the grief and shame to ease, just a little, so I can breathe again.
     Finally, I let out a shaky breath. I run the pad of my thumb over the slick surface of the piece of glass. It’s thin, sharp, and might break in my hand if I clutch it any harder.
     A fiendish need claws inside me, and a delirious giddiness overcomes me at the thought of even a second’s relief.
     I lick my lips. This is what I need . . . one fell swoop of the glass across my skin. The burn. The sting of air and torn flesh, just enough to draw blood. Then I’d feel something else.
     I press a jagged edge of the glass to my palm.
     “Samantha, I was calling you,” Alison says from the doorway.

Whatever It Takes
Available NOW!

About the Author

Lindsey Pogue has always been a little creative. As a child she established a bug hospital on her elementary school soccer field, wrote her first YA manuscript in high school, and as an adult, expresses herself through writing.

Her novels are inspired by her observations of the world around her—whether she’s traveling, people watching, or hiking.

When not plotting her next storyline or dreaming up new, brooding characters, Lindsey’s wrapped in blankets watching her favorite action flicks or going on road trips with her own leading man.

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Giveaway and Tour Stops

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