Riding With Brighton by Haven Francis Blitz
Riding with
Brighton
Genre: YA
Contemporary Fiction
Release Date: June
27th 2017
Harmony Ink Press
Summary:
In the small town of Spring Valley, molds weren’t made to be
broken, and high school senior Jay Hall’s been living comfortably in his
popular jock one since adolescence. If it weren’t for the colorful, outspoken
artistic anomaly Brighton Bello-Adler, he might have been willing to remain
there. Unnaturally drawn to Brighton, Jay knows he needs something from him,
but is he ready to find out what that something is?
Temporarily ditching his old life, Jay climbs into Brighton’s
Bronco and finds himself on a whirlwind road trip through parts of his small
town he didn’t know existed. When the excursion takes an unexpected turn, Jay
is cracked wide open, and the person who’s revealed does strange things to
Brighton’s heart.
But just when it appears they could be headed toward their own
shared piece of paradise, the road takes a sharp right turn into Jay’s
life—where the real trip is about to begin.
In an unconventional love story that defies labels, two young men
embark on a journey toward growing up, coming out, and finding their place in
the world. It’s a trip that ranges from heartbreaking to uplifting, funny to
sweet, but always unique and personal.
BUY LINKS
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Excerpt:
Prologue—Jay
When I woke up Friday morning, I knew it
was going to be the day I would finally change my life.
Which, in retrospect, seems like a
totally unattainable goal for the day. I mean, who can really change their life
in a single day? Just to be clear, I’m talking about for the better. Fucking up your entire life in one day—that’s
totally doable. Really, all it would take is 140 characters exposing your dirty
black soul on Twitter. You wouldn’t even have to leave your bed.
Realistically, fucking it up would have
been the more likely outcome considering the exact changes I needed to make.
Again, I’m only realizing this in retrospect, which I’m suddenly starting to
despise. Why the delayed reaction, common
sense? Seriously.
In my defense, I was blinded by an
epiphany. I shit you not. It’s the only explanation for the clarity that pushed
out all the regular crap that usually occupies my brain.
Has that ever happened to you? Have you
ever opened your eyes and immediately cringed because suddenly the exact depth
of suck-ass your life has reached is slapping you repeatedly in the face? Trust
me, it sucks. I mean, you go to bed in a comfortable state of denial thinking
life’s great. In my case my girlfriend had watched me hit the game-winning
double, and afterward my teammates and I had knocked back a few beers before
heading home to our McMansions in Folsom Hills. Life is dandy. You sleep like a damn baby—that’s how comfortable
you are in your warm shit pile of a life.
And then—ka, fucking, boom—you wake up
and… oh hell no, how the hell did this
happen? Someone bring me a fallout shelter because I need a safe place to
escape from my life for the rest of eternity.
But no fallout shelter comes, and
eventually you’re forced to see that your entire life must be destroyed and
then resurrected. And all you can think is thank
God this mayhem came in the form of an epiphany, because you’re definitely gonna need some divine powers to help
you out.
It was all a mess, but the thing that
was really screwing with my head was why it all
had to change. I mean, I knew why. Deep down I’d always known why, but I
had managed to live in the safety of denial for years.
Not anymore. The veil of delusion was
lifted and suddenly, everything was blindingly clear.
And what was clear to me that morning
was that I had forfeited the life that should have been mine. In fact I had
veered as far as I possibly could from my should-have-been life. The path I’d
chosen was definitely not the one less traveled. I took the path that had been
tromped over a million times. It was a sharp right turn, backward a good mile
and a half, around corners, down hills, through a forest, and across the
universe from where I’d really wanted to go.
But suddenly I was forced to go there.
The maze I would have to navigate in order to backtrack be damned.
About the Author
An
escapist filled with wanderlust, writing is Haven’s responsible adult version
of getting in the car and driving without aim. Reading and music are close
seconds. She and her husband can often be found checking out their favorite
bands locally or hundreds of miles away via road trips. Reading is something
they don’t have in common, but he tolerates her dimly lit late-night habit.
Haven once made a living writing about trends in
interior design but thoroughly enjoys that fact that people, unlike furniture,
can fall in love. She especially loves when they fall desperately and into a
forbidden kind of love. Haven also works as a graphic designer but considers
Mom her most important title.
She has a slightly embarrassing fascination with
the period of life that sits awkwardly between childhood and adulthood; the
years when nothing is certain, lots of mistakes are made, falling in love is
inevitable, and finding yourself is a struggle. For her it’s a fun place to
escape to and she hopes her readers agree.
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