Title: Castles on the Sand (Shattered Castles, #1)
Author: E.M. Tippetts
Release date: August 20, 2012
Genre: Contemporary Romance/coming of age
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Book Description
"A fast-paced blend of high-stakes drama and average teenage concerns (sex, appearance, friends), capped with a welcome message of hope." ~Kirkus Reviews
If there’s one thing Madison Lukas understands, it’s pain. The pain she feels when her mother ignores her completely. The pain her best friend endures as her parents starve her as punishment. The pain of a dangerous boy whose mother has to be carried away by law enforcement on a regular basis. She gets it. She feels the pain of others as if it were her own. But when a mysterious man claiming to be her long lost brother appears with promises of relieving her suffering, trusting him could reveal more truths than Madison is ready for. Because the truth can hurt, too.
Excerpt:
Mom gets to her feet. “How often do you talk to John?”
“I don't know. He emails me. Sometimes I email back.”
For a moment she just stares at me, her eyes narrowing, then she lunges across the room and slaps me across the face. Pain explodes across my still tender nose and sinuses and I find myself clinging to the fridge door handle to keep from falling down. I must have stumbled into it after Mom's blow. “Mom...”
She curses, then ducks out the back door. Papers flutter in her wake and I snatch one out of the air. It's a cancelled rent check. The others on the floor prove to be other cancelled checks, but I take a closer look at one and see that it's actually a bounced check. Mom's overspent her bank balance again. I pick them all up – a headache beginning to throb behind my eyes – and stack them neatly on the table again. I hate it when mom hits me. She never does it hard enough to leave a mark, but it stings to have the one person I live with hate me so much that she resorts to violence.It makes me feel like a stranger in my home, an intruder, someone who isn't welcome. When I walk back to my room, I can't even sit down on my bed, I perch on the edge and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The two black eyes have faded into just dark circles, but I wonder if they'll purple up again.
Out in the back yard, I sense more than hear her potters wheel start up. I hope that calms her down. And I really wish I could call Kailie. I flip through my pitifully short list of phone contacts and stop on John's name. A glance at the clock tells me it's eleven p.m., which means it's midnight in Utah. My thumb hesitates, then punches the send key.One ring and I feel like I'm being rude. Two and I feel like I'm taking a bad night and making it a million times worse. Three and I get ready to hang up.
“Hello?” says a sleepy voice.
“Hi.”
“Mmm, hi. Who's this?”
“It's Madison.”
“Madison?” He says my name as if I'm a movie star who just called him at home. “Really? How are you? It is so good to hear your voice.”
About the Author
Emily Mah Tippetts writes romance under the name E.M. Tippetts and science fiction and fantasy under the name Emily Mah. Originally from New Mexico, she now lives in London with her family. Before she was a published author, she was an attorney who specialised in real estate, contracts, and estate planning, especially literary estate planning.
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