BooksChatter: ☀☄ Competing With The Star: The Star [2]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Competing With The Star, a Contemporary Young Adult Romance by Krysten Lindsay Hager (22 March 2016, Limitless Publishing LLC, 232 pages).

This is the second book in The Star series.

Don't miss our interview with author Krysten Lindsay Hager.

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

Competing With The Star is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

Author Krysten Lindsay Hager will be awarding a $5 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn winner 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 | Trailer | Teaser | The Series | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

Hadley Daniels’s life seems perfect…

Before the beginning of sophomore year of high school, Hadley and her family move to a beautiful beach town, where she makes amazing new friends and lands the boyfriend of her dreams-Nick Jenkins. He’s the kind of guy every girl swoons over, and it isn’t long until Hadley discovers some are still swooning.

A famous ex-girlfriend makes matters more complicated…

After some time dating, Hadley and Nick form a deep bond. But insecurity sets in when Hadley discovers her boyfriend once had a huge crush on her friend-who just happens to be the beautiful former teen TV star, Simone Hendrickson.

The past is the past-or so they say…

Hadley confronts Nick, who confesses about his history with Simone. Though he claims to only have eyes for Hadley now, it’s hard to believe-especially when she’s blindsided with the news that Nick and Simone kissed after school.

Now Hadley must determine who is telling the truth. Love, betrayal, friendship…who needs soap opera drama when you’re busy competing with a star?

Teaser: Excerpt

Chapter One

Why did the day always drag on for eternity when you had plans after school? It was as if the minute hand on the clock refused to move. As I stared at it, I wondered if that whole thing about a watched clock never moves was actually true. I couldn’t wait for the school day to end because today, Nick Jenkins, my new boyfriend, and I were meeting after school to get ice cream together. It was going to be our first official date. Well, sorta. I didn’t think my parents would be all that amped about my going on a formal official date, but an afterschool ice cream place trip on a weekday? That sounded doable. So I asked them for that and they were okay with it. And now I just had to wait for stupid time to cooperate and Nick and I would be sitting together at Scoops in that back booth, talking about whether or not the Tigers would make it to the playoffs.
      “Class, I want you to finish reading the first three chapters of Sense and Sensibility for class tomorrow,” Mrs. Simpson said. “Make sure to take notes.”
      Then the most beautiful sound in the world came along— the final bell. I grabbed my bag and rushed out the door to my locker, where I ran into Reagan O’Hara, Nick’s gorgeous ex-girlfriend.
      “Watch where you’re going, spaz,” she said, glaring at me. “Exactly where are you in such a hurry to get to anyway? I can’t imagine that you’d have plans.”
      I could have said, “Off to meet my boyfriend, you know, the guy you used to badmouth me to,” but no, I took the high road and said, “Excuse me,” and kept going.
      “Whatever, loser,” she said.
      My shoulders tensed. As I tried to ignore her and tell myself it was just jealousy, I couldn’t pretend that her words didn’t hurt. I had been considered kind of a loser at my old school in Goodacre. I had had one super close best friend who I did everything with, Lexi Irvin, and when she moved to Dallas, it was as if I had been abandoned. So yeah, I had felt like a complete loser in Goodacre, but now I was here in Grand Haven, with new friends and a new positive outlook on life. I had a new best friend, Charlotte Lidstrom, and had become friends with former teen TV star Simone Hendrickson and her best friend, Asia Milanowski.
      It could be intimidating hanging out with Simone since she was popular, pretty, and famous. Sometimes I felt invisible next to her, and unfortunately, hanging with Simone sometimes meant spending time with people like Reagan or Simone’s other friends, Pilar Ito and Morgan Kemp. Morgan was the ultimate mean girl. I swear, even if she told me she loved my outfit and was hooked up to a lie detector test saying she was telling the truth, I still wouldn’t want to risk it and I’d go home and change. But today I was not going to worry about Morgan, Reagan, or any of that. I was just going to focus on my first date with Nick… until I rounded the corner and ran into Simone, who was waiting for me at my locker with Morgan and Pilar.
      “Hey, Hadley,” Simone said. “Wanted to return your lucky bracelet. Let’s hope it helped me pass my math test.”
      She handed me my heart and natural stone charm bracelet and I slid it on my wrist. Morgan looked down at my hands and made a face.
      “Why are you wearing such dark nail polish?” she asked me.
      My face got warm. “I thought the color was pretty when I saw it in the store. I’ve never seen this shade of purple with so much blue in it.”
      “Guys aren’t into weird nail polish colors,” Morgan said as she fluffed her long curly blonde hair with her red polished fingers.
      Great, so even my nail polish was wrong. Could I do anything right?
      “Here comes Nick,” Pilar said, and the girls all got quiet.
      “Hey, guys,” he said, coming up and nodding at them.
      I started to curl my fingers under so he wouldn’t notice my dark polish— the color that up until a few minutes ago I thought was unique and beautiful was now making me feel like a little oddball.
      “Cool color,” Nick said.
      “Huh?”
      “I like the blue. It’s very you,” he said, and then he reached over and intertwined his fingers with mine. Take that, you dark nail polish haters.
      [...]

Competing With The Star
Available NOW!

The Series: The Star

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Next Door To A Star [1]

Hadley Daniels is tired of feeling invisible.

After Hadley’s best friend moves away and she gets on the bad side of some girls at school, she goes to spend the summer with her grandparents in the Lake Michigan resort town of Grand Haven. Her next door neighbor is none other than teen TV star Simone Hendrickson, who is everything Hadley longs to be—pretty, popular, and famous—and she’s thrilled when Simone treats her like a friend.

Being popular is a lot harder than it looks.

It’s fun and flattering when Simone includes her in her circle, though Hadley is puzzled about why her new friend refuses to discuss her former Hollywood life. Caught up with Simone, Hadley finds herself ignoring her quiet, steadfast friend, Charlotte.

To make things even more complicated, along comes Nick Jenkins…

He’s sweet, good-looking, and Hadley can be herself around him without all the fake drama. However, the mean girls have other ideas and they fill Nick’s head with lies about Hadley, sending him running back to his ex-girlfriend and leaving Hadley heartbroken.

So when her parents decide to relocate to Grand Haven, Hadley hopes things will change when school starts…only to be disappointed once again.

Cliques.

Back-stabbing.

Love gone bad.

Is this really what it’s like to live…

Next Door To A Star?

[Published 1 September 2015, 240 pages]

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About the Author

Krysten Lindsay Hager is a book addict who has worked as a journalist and humor essayist.

She is the author of the LANDRY's TRUE COLORS SERIES and the STAR SERIES. TRUE COLORS was her debut novel and the first book in the LANDRY'S TRUE COLORS series. BEST FRIENDS...FOREVER? (Book 2) was #1 in Amazon's hot new releases in teen & young adult values and virtues fiction and #1 in Amazon's hot new release in children's books on values. Landry in Like (Book 3) was #3 in Amazon's Hot New Releases for Girls & Women.

Her work has been featured in USA Today, The Flint Journal, the Grand Haven Tribune, the Bellbrook Times, and on the talk show Living Dayton.

Check out her YA novel, NEXT DOOR TO A STAR (book 1 in the STAR SERIES) and COMPETING WITH THE STAR: Book 2 in the STAR SERIES.

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