Title:
Undertow
Author:
Elle
Chardou
Release
date: February 3, 2013
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
Age
Group: New Adult
Event
organized by: AToMR
Tours
Book
Links:
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/281963
Createspace (Paperback): https://www.createspace.com/4161811
Book
Description:
Secrets...
Evie Sandstrom
has always had secrets. She has grown up with them and now they are coming back
and chipping away at her confident facade. Always one for an adventure, she
decides to leave after college break and spend the summer in Boston.
Finn Reilly is
not only a bad-boy drug dealer but he is also Evie's first love. When they meet
again in Boston, sparks begin to fly and although they share one huge secret
that should have destroyed them forever, it unites them at a time when she
needs all the help she can get.
The French
Model...
Evie's mother,
superstar actress Athena Donahue, has remarried to Etienne Fournier, a model
who is eighteen years her mother's junior and wants to get to know Evie in more
ways than one.
Once Athena
drags her daughter back to L.A. under dubious circumstances, she is within the
sights of Etienne yet out of the sights of Finn. Can they resolve their
differences and will true love prevail or will life get in the way and spoil
their chances of happiness?
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
My
flight to Boston from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport went off without a
hitch and I arrived in the city I’d called home for the first eight years of my
life enthused and giddy despite the exhaustion that hadn’t set in though I knew
it would eventually.
I
checked my phone while I waited at the baggage carousel and wasn’t surprised to
find several messages, all but one of them, from my mother.
“How
could you do this to me? Don’t you understand how embarrassing it all is? None
of them give a damn about you and all they’ll do is ask you for money. I have
already contacted your grandparents and told them to send you away when you
show up so don’t expect a warm welcoming from them. When you come to your
senses, call me back and let me know when I should expect you in L.A.”
I
pressed the delete button and listened to the final message. “Hey, gorgeous,
it’s Dylan, your cousin—remember me? I’m not staying in Dorchester anymore but
own a cute little walk-up in the gentrified area of Charlestown.”
I
smiled as I listened to the rest of the message before he gave me his address
and instructed me to call him as soon as I was on my way. I grabbed the two
Hartmann spinners I owned—both hardside to prevent damage to my precious
clothing cargo—and walked out of the airport to flag a cab down.
It
didn’t take me long to find one and I quickly hopped in before I gave the
driver the address, some double-digit numbered house on School Street and
wondered how well I would adjust to my new surroundings. It didn’t take too
long for me to find out when less than forty minutes later we were pulling up
to a swanky single-family, three-story home painted gray and obviously built within
the past ten years. Although it only had a one car garage, there was obvious a
vehicle parked inside and late-model, pearl white Cadillac Escalade blocking
the garage.
I
didn’t get the chance to ring the door before my cousin ran out barefoot in nothing
but a pair of black stovepipe jeans and a matching wife-beater. I threw my arms
around his neck as he twirled me around.
“How’s
my favorite baby cousin been doin’?” Dylan exclaimed happily in that thick
Bostonian accent of his that was pure Dorchester even if he was residing in
Charlestown now.
“I’m
doin’ good,” I replied before I held him at arm’s length to get a good look at
him.
Dylan
had always been thin but now he was firmly a man at twenty-five who obviously
lifted weights though he was still lean. His skin, the color of alabaster,
suited his short dark hair and piercing blue-gray eyes so prevalent in the
McKenna clan though they firmly came from my grandmother’s side of the family.
Before Cleona had been a McKenna, she’d been a Donahue, hence where my mother
had gotten her name from. She thought Athena Donahue would sound better than
Athena McKenna and she was right.
My
cousin grabbed my suitcases, paid the driver and we walked inside. The place
was complete with blonde hardwood floors and minimal furniture. There’d
obviously been some kind of get-together the night before because the place
smelled heavily of stale beer, marijuana and cigarettes.
I
turned toward Dylan and stared at him as I cocked my head to the side. “The
dope business must be good. How much did a place like this cost you?”
“Can
you believe the yuppie bastards I brought this place from wanted nearly a mil
for it? I was payin’ in cash and they liked that a hell of a lot better than
havin’ to deal with a bank and transferring mortgages and shit. It allowed ‘em
to pay off the mortgage they had and I got this dope fuckin’ pad away from my
parents.”
He
walked towards me and I found myself backing up self-consciously until my back
hit a wall. “What are you doin’ here? Your mother is raisin’ all kinds of stink
about you being back here. Hell, even Patrick and Clara are frightened you’re
gonna pay them a visit and take away their precious bundle. You didn’t come
back to do that, did ya?”
I
shook my head. “What the hell am I going to do with a kid? I just couldn’t
handle L.A. right now and the first place I thought about was here. I even
transferred to Boston Uni because I didn’t want to stay in Seattle.”
“Good,
just stay away from Fiona and her gang of friends, including Chloe. If you can
manage that then you should be fine. I don’t want you turnin’ into a skank like
my sister, you got that? It’s rough out here.”
“Well,
I wouldn’t know it by the way you’re flossin’,” I responded sarcastically.
“What
can I say? The Oxy and coke markets are good. Especially now those Oxyballs
have gotten so popular. I try to stay from that Bath Salt crap—too much weird
psycho shit I’ve seen people do when they are on it…but I got help and I am not
runnin’ this organization alone.”
“No
doubt you gotta give McGee a cut?”
“Well,
you know how it is? The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
“You
can say that again,” another male voice said and when I turned its way, the
face and body I saw took my breath away.
The first installment of The Atonement Series.
Deirdre Bardot is a PhD student at Harvard and on her way home for Thanksgiving when she finds out her father has been murdered in a vicious hit and run by a drunk driver.
Forced to piece her life together after such a traumatic event, Deirdre moves back to Seattle to be closer to her younger sister, Caitlyn, and their mother.
When her psychiatrist, Dr. van der Meer, suggests she needs to get away from it all and take a vacation, her best friend decides to introduce her to a friend of his who has more or less the same idea. Colin is perfect: he's good looking, self-deprecating and sexy as hell but he also happens to be the Dr. van der Meer's son.
Deirdre finds herself falling hard for a guy she barely knows and one who is equally into her as she is into him. They decide a trip to Western Europe together is the perfect way to get to know one another a whole lot better.
Then an unspeakable and random act of violence occurs one night and Colin realizes he is forced to reveal a secret to Deirdre he has been hiding...a secret that is breaking him, and in doing so to free his conscience, he just might destroy the relationship he has created with Deirdre and lose her forever.
Publisher's Note: Due to mature adult themes, sexually explicit scenes and adult language, this novel is not suitable for minors under the age of 18.
About the Author:
Elle
Chardou is a world traveler and author of several different series. Ms.
Chardou is the author of The Ties That
Bind Trilogy, The Atonement Series,
The Hart Family Saga, The Vamp Saga, The Supernaturals, Beginnings:
Book I (The Plague) series.She
is currently working on Only Love (The
Atonement Series), Queen of the
Immortals, Book Three in The Vamp
Saga.
Ms.
Chardou has lived abroad in Stockholm (Sweden), Manchester (England), Los
Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland. She currently resides in Las
Vegas, Nevada.
Author
social media links:
Blog:
The Beautiful People: A Writer’s
Journey located http://thebeautifulpeopleawritersjourney.blogspot.com.
Follow Elle Chardou on
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/dblanchbenz007
Like Elle Chardou on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Elle.Chardou
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