EXCERPT and GIVEAWAY
Crossing the Street
by Molly D. Campbell
Crossing the Street by Molly D. Campbell is currently on tour with Providence Book Promotions. The tour stops here today for an excerpt and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
This wasn’t the way Beck Throckmorton had planned it. She wasn’t expecting to find herself in her thirties writing erotica and making flat whites for a living while she stewed over that fact that her ex had wound up with her sister. She never saw herself living in a small suburban Ohio town with an octogenarian neighbor best friend. And she definitely wouldn’t have imagined the eight-year-old great-granddaughter of that friend turning her world upside down.
As summer comes around, Beck’s life is unsettled in every way. And that’s before the crazy stuff starts: the sister taunting her with her pregnancy, the infuriatingly perfect boyfriend, the multiple trips to the emergency room. The needy, wise-beyond-her-years little girl finding places in her heart that Beck didn’t even know existed.
Beck has found herself at an emotional intersection she never anticipated. And now it’s time to cross the street.
Crossing the Street is a funny, touching novel that brims life’s complexities. Filled with characters both distinctive and welcomingly familiar, it is a story that will entertain and enlighten.
Excerpt from Chapter One
My life isn’t exactly bright and shiny. My name is Rebecca Throckmorton. I live in a small town, and I muddle along as best I can. Four scenes from my world:
Scene one: I am at the grocery store. Aimlessly wandering down the produce aisle, looking at the grocery list, as usual, in my mother’s elegant hand. What the hell is a rutabaga, and why do we need one? Suddenly, I see my father, who is long gone from our family—divorce. He is wearing a gold golf shirt, his khaki slacks, crisp and unwrinkled. His hair from the back is a bit silvery, as I am sure it would be after being away from our family for all these years. My heart lurches—He’s back! He came back! I abandon my cart and nearly bowl over a woman studying kiwis, knocking the one in her hand to the ground. I don’t even stop to apologize, because my dad. I come up behind him, breathe in his cologne—yup, Eau de Sauvage. I reach out to touch his shoulder, and he turns around. I gasp. The man is definitely not Dexter Throckmorton. Instead of a Roman nose, this guy has a schnozz. There is awful hair growing out of his nostrils. His eyes are not velvety and black, like my father’s—they are a watery gray and clouded with cataracts. He hears me gasp and asks, “Do I know you?” I abandon the rutabaga and rush out of the store, grocery list still crushed between my fingers.
Scene two: My sister’s wedding. I am wearing a sleeveless, misty green satin dress with two small lines of silver sequins along the bodice. The misty green is reflected in my coloring and makes me look slightly vomitous. I feel about to vomit, since my sister Diana is marrying my former boyfriend, Bryan Dallas, who stands at the end of the aisle, beaming, his horn rims polished so highly I worry that he might start a fire with their refractions into the balcony. As D comes down the aisle on my mother’s arm (see divorce, above), my mother looking for all the world like an aging Audrey Hepburn in a slender tube of taupe silk, I look down at my bouquet and stifle the impulse to hurl it in my sister’s smug, highly-made-up-with-false-eyelashes-and-dewy-lip-gloss face.
Scene three: Me and my girlfriend, Ella Bowers. I sit with her in front of the TV. We like to watch really old reruns of Lawrence Welk that I found for her on the Family Network. Ella pats down her soft, fluffy lavender white hair, and every time Myron Floren comes on comments how much her mother “just loved that man and his accordion.” I nod and agree, because I don’t intend to hurt her feelings—Ella is eighty-three, and I don’t want her to get riled up and have a stroke. I notice my cut glass tumbler of iced tea is empty, and I offer to go into the kitchen of her cozy bungalow and get us each some more.
Scene four: My day job and what really pays the bills. I get home from my part-time job at Starbucks at four. I stretch, try to do the downward facing dog, and fail, as usual, about three quarters of the way down. My cat, Simpson, ambles over for a purr, and then I go and pee, change into sweats, and sit down at my computer, where I pound out a scene in which four orgasms occur within the space of twenty minutes between Travis and Crystal, who are extremely talented genitally. My latest book, Boys on the Beach, is under contract and due at my publisher in two months. When I think about this, sweat pools into the cups of my bra, because I am behind schedule, and erotica pays the bills, not venti lattes.
There you have it.
[Want more? Click below to read a longer excerpt.]
Praise for the Book
"Hilarious and full of heartwarming, familial honesty, Molly's latest was a joy to read." ~ Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
"Molly Campbell writes with such compassion, wit, and humor that you can't help but fall in love with Beck and, of course, the spunky, intuitive, brilliant Bob. Crossing the Street is completely heart-wrenching with an ending that will make you ugly-cry." ~ Katie Moretti, New York Times bestselling author of The Binds That Tie
"A gem of a novel about being open to life and its possibilities when you just don't wanna. Campbell serves up the mysteries of yearning, envy, and female desire with a perfect side of tenderness and wit." ~ Karen Karbo, award-winning author of the New York Times Notable Book The Diamond Lane
"I just finished reading this delightful book. It is writing at its best. I read the story and pictured the characters vividly. I was drawn into this town and the people. You will find yourself not putting the book down for very long before you just have to know what happens next and pick it back up. The characters are relatable. The issues addressed are real. It is life as many know life. Real people. Real issues. Get it. Read it. I'm glad I did." ~ Diana Whitehair
"A heartwarming, hilarious novel with an emotional bite and an ending that you won't soon forget. High praise for Crossing the Street!" ~ Josh Butler
About the Author
Molly D. Campbell is a two-time Erma Bombeck Writing Award winner and the author of one previous novel, Keep the Ends Loose. Molly blogs and is also an artist. She lives in Dayton, Ohio, with her accordionist husband and four cats.
Giveaway
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card or one of three ebook copies of Keep the Ends Loose by Molly D. Campbell (US only).
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