Christine Presents: Beside Your Heart

Please welcome Mary Whitney author of Beside Your Heart.

Mary will be awarding one big package of 3 signed paperbacks of her books to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.

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BESIDE YOUR HEART

By

Mary Whitney

   

"It's an emotional story that will take the reader back to those feelings that made the late teen years such a powerful time."

Late one night Nicki Johnson plays with emotional fire and Googles her high school love, only to find his name splashed across the British gossip columns. Back in his native England, Adam Kincaid is successful and dating a woman from an aristocratic family like his own. With a career in politics, Nicki’s no slouch, but she knows Adam is living a world away from her life.

Yet there was a time he was no farther than the next locker. Nicki will never forget their year together in high school—the year of her sister’s death, the year her mother checked out. Adam helped Nicki through suffocating grief, and she led him through a coming of age. Was it just high school, or was it something more?

We said our goodbyes, and Adam guided me to his black Honda. My stomach did flip-flops. This had been a very bad idea. Lisa was right. This was not good for me.

Adam opened my door, and I grasped for a way out. “You don’t even know where I live. It could be really out of your way in BFE.”

“BFE? Where is that?”

“It’s just a more polite way of saying Bum Fuck Egypt.”

“Of saying what?” He laughed.

“Oh, uh, Bum Fuck Egypt. It’s kind of an American saying for the middle of nowhere.”

Closing his eyes for a moment, he shook his head and grinned. “Bum. Fuck. Egypt. So you fuck someone in the bum in Egypt and that means the middle of nowhere?”

“In the bum?”

“Bum. It’s another word for arse.”

“I never really thought of it as being someone’s ass before.” I giggled. “You might be right, though. I thought it was more like you were a bum and fuck was short for fucking, as in ‘fucking Egypt.’ Does that make sense?”

“The whole thing doesn’t make sense, but it’s funny.” He leaned against the car door with the same look in his eye as when we’d talked about sexual frustration in class that other day. “You know, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard an American girl say fuck.”

I was in an eye-lock with him, biting my tongue. I bet Meredith liked to have sex all the time, but she’d never say fuck. “It’s not very ladylike,” I said.

“But you’re not bothered.”

“Well, I try not to say it.”

“Of course, but you don’t seem to bother much about what people think of you.”

I looked down, wondering if that was true, and the scar on my arm caught my eye. It was a perfect example. With all that I’d gone through, I didn’t fucking care. I shrugged. “Unless they’re my friends or family, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.” He rested his chin on the door as he studied my face. I felt like I was being appraised again. With him being British and all, I wondered if he thought I should be more proper. Maybe that’s why he liked Meredith. A moment passed, and his voice brightened again. “You just said you lived by the school. So do I. Your home can’t be that far away.”

  

Even before she graduated from law school, Mary knew she wasn’t cut out to be a real lawyer. Drawn to politics, she’s spent her career as an organizer, lobbyist, and nonprofit executive. Nothing piques her interest more than a good political scandal or romance, and when she stumbled upon writing, she put the two together. A born Midwesterner, naturalized Texan, and transient resident of Washington, D.C., Mary now lives in Northern California with her two daughters and real lawyer husband.

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