Hi guys! I hope you're all doing alright! I'm back with another blog tour! Yes, if you've noticed.. I love blog tours! Today, I'm featuring Tyler Falls written by Ms. Lori Clark. We'll get a sneak peek at the inside of this very intriguing and intense book. Plus! There's your favorite... a GIVEAWAY! This fun blog tour was organized by Reading Addiction Blog Tours!
Author: Lori L. Clark
Publisher: Lori L. Clark
Date Published: May 25, 2012
Language: English
ASIN: B0086F6V6S
Genre: Young Adult
Book Blurb:
Tyler has suffered from manic depression for as long as he can remember. Through medication and therapy, he manages to keep his life together. But when his parents are murdered, he decides he's had enough of living as a broken person with a broken life. So, in thirty days, he plans to stick the barrel of his Ruger SP101 into his mouth and pull the trigger.
Emma Perez's brother, Ethan Giovanni, sits in a mental institution for the murder of Dr. and Mrs. Falls. Deemed mentally incompetent and unfit to stand trial, Ethan has one weekly visitor -- Emma. She doesn't deny his guilt, he's her brother and she loves him spite of the fact he's paranoid schizophrenic.
They say when you cross paths with someone more than once, it's fate -- you're destined to meet. Tyler doesn't know Emma is Ethan's sister, and Emma doesn't know Tyler's story either. When Tyler learns who Emma's brother is, the world he's rebuilt around her begins to crumble all over again and it leaves both of them wondering why fate has such a cruel sense of humor.
Book Excerpt:
Chapter 1
Tyler
My name is Tyler Jacob Falls and I have exactly thirty days to live.
The special school I attend -- not short bus special -- and my shrink Dr. Dynerbaugh think talking about my problems will be great therapy, part of my healing process. She wants me to open up and share my thoughts and feelings more. Dr. Dynerbaugh even gave me a journal to write in, but I don't plan on using it. I've got news for her; there are more pages in that empty journal than I have days left.
I'm seventeen and live with my aunt and uncle on Loon Island. I've lived here since April last year. No, my parents didn't get a divorce or kick me out. Dealing with that would be a piece of cake compared to what really happened.
My parents were murdered -- on Valentine's Day.
That night, when I pulled into the drive after dropping Livi off, (Livi is Olivia Barnett -- only the hottest chick at Fort Jupiter High School. Yeah, I didn't always have the big "L" on my forehead like I do now), the front door to our house stood wide open. It being February in Fort Jupiter with a foot of fresh snow covering the front lawn, I knew there was no way in hell the front door should be open like that. We had a running joke in our family about my mom being like the Energy Nazi and she would flip out about someone's lack of procedure.
My gut told me something was bad wrong so I pulled out my cell phone, just as a precaution, and inched closer to the front door. When I walked in, that bastard Ethan Giovanni was wiping the blood from the knife he'd just slit my parent's throats with. He wore a sick, twisted grin on his face. I had about two seconds to dial 911 before he spotted me.
For someone who just offed two people in cold blood on their living room floor; he showed no more emotion than if he'd just squashed a freaking cockroach.
He had pure evil in his eyes. It's those eyes that will haunt my dreams every night for the rest of my remaining life -- when I actually sleep. Giovanni tried to make me victim number three, and the last thing I remember about that night was the distant echo of sirens.
He tried to run, but they caught up with him about three blocks from our house. But before running like the pussy he is, he stabbed me four times. I spent the next six weeks breathing through the pain of a punctured lung and took my meals through a tube attached to needle in my arm.
My mom and dad were buried while I lay in a semi-comatose state due to all the drugs they kept pumped into my body in the ICU at Fort Jupiter Memorial Hospital. When they said I had healed enough to leave the hospital, I went to live with my aunt and uncle -- Nicole and Kyle Falls -- on Loon Island.
There are Three-hundred-forty-two residents on Loon Island -- forty two normal people and three hundred crazy people.
Those numbers are subject to change, depending on what kind of day I'm having, to forty-one Normals and three-hundred-one Crazies.
My Aunt Nicole gets on my case for calling the residents of the nuthouse Crazies. I should probably clarify something. Loon Island was named for the bird and not because of the lunatics who live here. Oh and the Loon Island Psychiatric Hospital is not the loony bin or even the insane asylum. I wouldn't want to offend one of the nutcases or their families by being politically incorrect. (Sarcasm.)
Ethan Giovanni. His face and name are two things that will go out with me when I pull the trigger. There wasn't a trial because they said he's not competent enough. He's insane. Gee, ya think?!
How ironic is it that we both live here on Loon Island? He's one of the Crazies I told you about. He's in the maximum security part of the nuthouse -- supposedly on suicide watch twenty-four/seven. If you ask me, they should give him a rope and save the tax payer's money. Some people can't be rehabilitated. I mean what's he going to do? Find God? Give me a friggin' break. Scum like Ethan Giovanni don't deserve to live.
We're supposed to take the ferry to the mainland today. It's Monday, May 25. Memorial Day. Aunt Nicole wants to take me to the cemetery where my mom and dad are buried. It will be a day of firsts for me. The first day I've been off the island in over a year and the first time I've been to the grave site. Ever. I wonder if they'll bury me next to them.
Aunt Nicole knocks on my locked door and I tell her I'm coming. Since she knows I keep the door locked she doesn't bother trying to open it.
It's not that I don't trust my aunt. On second thought... it kind of is. I don't trust anybody. She works for the hospital sometimes. Her and my uncle both work there. Most of the Normals on the Island either work at the hospital or live with someone who does. She's a Criminologist who studies the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in people and in society. I've seen the way she watches me like I'm one of her patients and I know she's just waiting for me to snap.
My Uncle Kyle's a warden at the big house. Kyle's badass -- for an old man. He's not old like ancient or anything, just older than me. He works out every day and I know he could kick some serious ass without blinking an eye. I know he'd kick mine in a heartbeat if I were to cross the line. Oh and just for the record... I'm no scrawny assed wimp.
I've heard people say never trust anyone over thirty. I have a different set of rules about trust. Don't trust anyone old enough to focus on you with their eyes or manipulate you with a smile. So, except for newborn babies and really old people, there aren't too many people able to earn my trust.
I work out in Uncle Kyle's basement gym late at night when no one's around to spy on me. Now, it's a matter of survival -- in case they lock me up in the nuthouse again and not because I'm trying to turn some hot chick's head. Dr. Dynerbaugh -- Dr. Dinnerbell as I like to think of her -- says it's good to exercise at least thirty minutes each day. It's supposed to help with my depression. She should practice what she preaches. She's not depressed, she's just fat.
Chapter 2
Emma
To my family, I'm Emmaline Antoinette Perez. Everyone else just knows me as Emma Perez or Em. I'm sixteen and live in Prayer Cove. Prayer Cove is part of Fort Jupiter where a lot of Hispanic families live. Since many of us are Catholic, some moron got the bright idea to call the area Prayer Cove. Last I checked -- our mail still comes addressed as Fort Jupiter.
I used to go to school at Fort Jupiter High. But after my idiot brother Ethan needed money for drugs and murdered that man and his wife -- Dr. and Mrs. Falls -- in the white-bread section of the city... going back and facing everyone at school didn't work out so great for me. Now, with a little help from the state, all my classes are done online through Virtual School.
Tyler Falls went to School at Fort Jupiter High School too, but he was a grade ahead of me and we didn't have any classes together. Rumor has it that he went loco after he found his parents murdered and wound up in the nuthouse on Loon Island.
I don't know and I don’t care. I mean, I feel bad about his parents and all, but Tyler Falls is a jerk. One of those popular assholes who thinks he can do whatever he wants. The typical rich kid jock. Nice car, pretty girlfriend. One thing about being on top... it hurts a helluva lot worse when your ass hits the bottom of the social ladder. Anyway, I never met the dude and wouldn't know him if he stood in front of my face. Obviously, we didn't run in the same social circles, if you catch my drift.
I don't have class today because it's a holiday so I'm going to take the ferry over to Loon Island and visit Ethan. Ethan and I have the same mama but different fathers. His real dad took off when he was just a baby.
Even though we don't see eye to eye about a lot of things anymore, we used to be pretty tight. Before he got mixed up with gangs doing drugs and started getting into trouble with the cops all the time.
Ethan is four years older than me and the drugs really messed up his head. I don't think the drugs caused all of it but they sure didn't help him any. Now they say he's insane. Unfit to stand trial. A paranoid schizophrenic. He's locked up in the psych hospital on Loon Island. As far as I know, I'm the only one who ever visits him.
I think mama still prays for him, but I wonder where God was when he was getting into all this trouble. I don't dare ask mama that question. I don't think anybody goes to church more or prays harder than mama.
Even though she says she loves Ethan, he is her only son -- she says it is not up to her whether or not he is forgiven -- it is in God's hands now she tells me.
She don't visit him. I know it cuts him like a knife, but Ethan won't ever admit it. He don't ask about her and says she is as dead to him as he is to her. That's on a good day. If he's having a bad day, he has plenty to say. None of it very nice -- mostly just plain off the wall crazy babbling. I guess that's more proof that he's where he is for a good reason.
Mama works cleaning houses for people. Mostly in Fort Jupiter, but there are a couple houses on Loon Island she does twice a week. I'm thinking about finding me a cleaning job over the summer for some spending money.
My papa was killed in a drive-by shooting when I was about six. So now that Ethan's locked up in the crazy house, it's just me and mama.
I'm going to take the ferry to Loon Island to see Ethan now. I hope he's having a good day.
Where to Buy:
About the Author:
- I’m an only child.
- I love dogs!
- I was born in Iowa City, Iowa and lived in Iowa my whole life until January 2007, when I moved to the STL area.
- I worked as a professional psychic reader for 2 years.
- I’m a Pisces Sun, Leo Moon with Aquarius rising.
- I’ve written 3 books and am in the process of writing my 4th.
- I don’t look or act my age!
- I’ve been married twice and divorced twice.
- I love 80′s hair band music.
- I’m a claims payment analyst for Fortune 500 Magazine’s #16 “Top 100 places in America to work.”
Twitter:
@clarklori
GIVEAWAY:
What would you do if you fell in love with a person related to someone who did something unspeakable to your family? Would you break up with her/him? Or would you just accept it?
Let me know your thoughts on the comment section below.
Note: My review for this book will be posted within this week. Thanks!
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