This Is Sarah Blog Tour: Excerpt

Today I'm thrilled to be a part of the blog tour for Ally Malinenko's upcoming contemporary novel, This Is Sarah! Read on below for an excerpt from the book, and be sure to add it to your TBR list!

This Is Sarah
By Ally Malinenko
Publisher: BookFish Books
Goodreads

Synopsis: When Colin Leventhal leaned out his bedroom window on the night of May 12th and said goodbye to his girlfriend, he never expected it would be forever. But when Sarah Evans goes missing that night, Colin's world unravels as he transforms from the boyfriend next door to the main police suspect. Then one year later, at her memorial service, Colin makes a phone call that could change everything. Is it possible that Sarah is still alive? And if so, how far will he go to bring her back?

As Colin struggles with this possibility, across the street, Sarah’s little sister, Claire learns how to navigate the strange new landscape of life without her sister. While her parents fall apart, Claire remains determined to keep going, even if it kills her.

THIS IS SARAH serves as a meditation on loss, love, and what it means to say goodbye.

** Excerpt **

I get up early to run, because it’s easier in the morning. There's no one up yet at five am, and the streets belong to me. I don’t even bring music anymore. I only want to hear the steady thwack of my sneakers on the pavement, the rustle of leaves in the breeze and the huff of air coming out of my lungs. It sets up a rhythm that allows my brain to shut off for a while so my mind stays empty.

Not thinking feels good. It’s one of the few things that still feels good.

I crest the hill at the top of Cedarhurst and pick up speed going down. My lungs feel clean and clear, and I think about sprinting the last five or six blocks back to my driveway. My energy seems a little low, but I figured I can probably push it.

The sound of my feet hitting the pavement intensifies and I pump my arms hard, small tears forming in my eyes from the wind. I clear my mind. I am no longer Colin. I’m just muscle, tissue and bone; a complex and delicate machine pushing its way against gravity and inertia, covering distance on this rock floating in the darkness of an ever-expanding space.

When Claire pulls her bike alongside me I nearly jump out of my skin. Where the hell did she come from? She pedals hard, riding off the seat, her blonde hair whipping back. She passes me and looks back and smiles. As the distance between us grows, I’m overcome with loss, and a sort of panic, like I need to catch up to her. I’m not sure what it is, but I watch her move away from me, her blonde hair streaming, her legs working the pedals and every muscle in my body screams to catch her.

Suddenly Claire is everything in the world, everything beautiful, alive, peaceful, and good, and it’s all getting away from me.

The farther she gets from me, the closer she gets to the monsters and all I want in the world is for Claire to always be safe.

Jesus Christ, I just want to be able to save one of them.

She looks back at me once and smiles before pumping the pedals again. In that moment, that small bright moment, her hair and her smile reflecting the early morning sun, she looks just like Sarah. Just like Claire looked that day in the hallway.

Suddenly I feel so hollow and empty, carved out like the husk of some dead cicada. I watch her get away from me and feel more lost than ever before. She rounds the bend and disappears from my line of sight, something inside of me snaps and I stumble forward. My feet now clumsy, my balance thrown off, until I stop, bent, heaving, coughing, spitting foam, my heart wild inside me. In my head, an image forms of Sarah when I made her laugh so hard she nearly choked on her sandwich at the diner.

That was Sarah.

Sarah and me, in a moment we won’t have again. A moment that was once real but now feels like it belonged to another life. Neither of us foresaw it ending this way.

The year before or the week before or the day before. We never saw it coming.

If I knew when she stood on that driveway, staring up at me, with me hanging out of the window looking down at her, if I knew, I would have told her everything.

About Ally Malinenko

Ally Malinenko is the author of the poetry collection The Wanting Bone (Six Gallery Press) and the children's fantasy Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb (Antenna Books). She lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

Website | Twitter | BookFish Books

2014 Mid-Year Rewind

Well, my friends, June is just about wrapped up, and so is half of the year. I have no idea where six months have gone, and I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that way.

I know I do a bookish look back at the end of the year, and I still plan to, but I thought it'd be interesting to do one now, too. So far in 2014, I've struggled almost constantly to squeeze in time for both reading and blogging. But going to UtopYA has really woken me up to the fact that there is never going to be a perfect time when I have absolutely nothing else to do and can just sit down and read or blog. I have to make time for those things, just like I make time to do laundry or go grocery shopping or clean (ugh, ugh, and ugh). So really the goal of this post is to take a hard look at the bookish stuff I set out to accomplish at the beginning of 2014 and still haven't so that I can do it and be able to proudly say in the year end recap that I did it.

I've only read 21 books so far this year, 3 of which were rereads. I've fallen behind on my Goodreads challenge goal of 50 books, and I've read 0 towards the Australian Women Writer's Challenge. Those are some pretty depressing stats. I also can't say that I've been utterly blown away by most of the books I've read in 2014, the notable exceptions being Ignite Me (Warner, Warner, Warner!), The Darkest Minds, and Never Fade. Divergent and Shadow and Bone both surprisingly didn't cut it for me.

But I'm ready to finish this year out strong. Since UtopYA, all I've wanted to do is read and write. It's finally dawned on me that of course there's always time for both. So what if I put off the cleaning for another weekend? Everyone constantly tells me that I obsess over it too much, anyway. There are too many awesome books that I want to read, and they're not going to get read if I keep brushing them aside for stuff that's not really urgent. And now that I've reexamined the priorities in my life, I've discovered that lots of things aren't in fact urgent, thus freeing up more time for reading—yay!

I hope to meet my Goodreads number for 2014 and even surpass it, but you know what? I've decided that the final tally isn't going to matter; what's going to count is being able to say that just reading those books made me happy. Being back in the reading groove has made me realize how long it's been since I read purely for fun. There are a bunch of amazing looking titles releasing later in the year (Blue Lily, Lily Blue, anyone?), and I'm confident they're going to contribute to an awesome second bookish half of 2014.

Adventures in Nashville: Elvis! (Costello!)

Today we're venturing off the bookish path for a more musical one, though this journey would not have been possible if I hadn't already been heading to Nashville for UtopYA.

I've been an Elvis Costello fan for about ten years now, which is not all that long considering that his first album, My Aim Is True was released in 1977 (the year I was born). I first began really listening to his music after catching some old music videos of his on VH1 Classic, back when they played videos twenty-four hours a day. One of my favorite EC songs ended up being, appropriately enough, "Everyday I Write the Book."

I attended my first Elvis concert in 2005. I was living in New York City at the time and was fortunate enough to see him perform live twice that year, and twice again in 2006. You could say I was a little spoiled, since he played NYC often, and still does. The next time I saw him live was in 2008, the year I moved to Florida; he opened for The Police on their reunion tour.

I knew when I moved that one of the things I'd probably be giving up was going to an EC concert practically every year. In the grander scheme of life there are far worse things one could be without, but this was a big one for me, and I freely admit it because I love his music. About two years ago, and my mind is a little fuzzy on the exact date because this tale ends unhappily, Elvis was scheduled to play in the Orlando area. Not only that, but the shows were going to feature a giant wheel that audience members were going to be invited up on stage to spin. Whatever song the wheel landed on was the song that was going to get played next. Pretty neat, right? (Elvis did a similar tour in the 80's).

Of course I had to go to this show. I scored third row center seats and all was well until I received an email from Ticketmaster saying that the show was postponed. Tickets would be honored on the rescheduled date, but in a stroke of supremely bad luck, this particular show could not be made up when he returned to Florida for the other gigs that had been postponed. The venue was not available at the time because the touring production of The Lion King had taken up residence at the theater for about a month. I had never hated Simba and his pals so much in my life.

Fast forward to a few months ago. Ally, The Melissa, and I already had our road trip to Nashville for UtopYA booked. Then I happened to see a Facebook post announcing tour dates for some solo EC shows. I could not, and still sort of don't, believe that one of those dates coincided with the Saturday that we were also going to be in Nashville. If this was the universe's way of making up for the Cancelled Due to The Lion King Thing, I was seizing the opportunity.

And that's how Ally and I (The Melissa is not a fan of The EC and relaxed back at the hotel) found ourselves at the Ryman Auditorium last Saturday. The venue is renowned for its place in country music history and stellar acoustics. Although you're assigned to individual seat numbers, you actually share a long church pew. I didn't care if I had to stand on my head for two hours; I was prepared to enjoy this evening to the fullest.

At all of the shows I've been to, Elvis has been a punctual man, and at exactly 8:47, following a half hour set by opening act Larkin Poe, he took the stage. I know I had a goofy smile on my face; I hadn't been deliriously happy in a very long time. I mean, I was about to burst from happiness. Elvis opened with the fantastic "Jack of All Parades," and then, and then, and then . . . he sang my favorite song of his EVER.

At first I didn't recognize the opening notes to "King Horse" because I'd never heard it acoustic before, but when I caught on, I flailed. I think I may have even punched Ally in the arm. I never thought I'd get to hear that song live just because Elvis's song catalog is so vast. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I can now die a happy person for having heard "King Horse" live.

I'm not going to bore you with a song-by-song recap of the evening (although I'd be more than ecstatic to do so for anyone who'd like one!). Elvis rocked for over two hours with an eclectic setlist that ranged from early compositions like "Cheap Reward" to the very, very recent "The Last Year of My Youth" to an absolutely electrifying "Watching the Detectives." He also did an awesome mash-up of his own "New Amsterdam" and The Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away." He sang "Alison," which made me very happy for our own Ally, because she's an Allison (with two L's).

Needless to say, this concert was the highlight of the trip for me. It also goes without saying that I fangirl hard over Elvis, really on a par with my book fangirling. So to tie Elvis and books together, here's a clip of him and his band, The Imposters, performing "Everyday I Write the Book" live. ;)

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (44): Best Hogwarts Secret

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme hosted by Uncorked Thoughts. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related! A list of upcoming topics can be found here.

This week's topic is:
Best Hogwarts Secret

The best kept secret at Hogwarts is most definitely the Marauders being animagi. No one had a clue. The Marauders were not only unregistered animagi, but no one even fathomed that the three young wizards possessed enough skill to accomplish that kind of magic. Because of this well kept secret, the Marauders were able to help Remus with his werewolf problem, Peter was able to remain in hiding for years, and Sirius was able to escape from Azkaban. If their animagi abilities had ever been revealed, the Harry Potter series would have been completely different.

Adventures in Nashville: UtopYA Con 2014

It's good to be back! Last Thursday, in the very, very wee hours of the morning, Ally, The Melissa, and I set out on a nearly 700 mile drive from Central Florida to Nashville, Tennessee for four days of bookish and some non-bookish fun. Our primary destination was UtopYA Con 2014, with some ambling around Nashville thrown in.

We had a pretty straight route from Florida through Georgia and then into Tennessee. This was the first road trip for my car, which Ally christened "Ronan" along the way, after Ronan Lynch from Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys. Poor Ronan had to endure a lot on this trip: boiling outside temperatures, some bumpy roads, and lots of bug splat. Fortunately it rained a few times, otherwise I was going to have to manually clean the windshield. And I so did not want to do that.

View from the passenger side window

The drive ended up taking about 12 hours with breaks and getting stuck in traffic through Atlanta and once we got into Nashville. I think we were all very grateful to see the hotel. After dinner, we checked out Downtown Nashville for a little bit and then passed out for the night back at the hotel.

Friday was the first day of the con. Gennifer Albin was scheduled to give the opening keynote speech but had to spend the night in an airport, so Sylvia Day, who was set to speak on Saturday, spoke on Friday instead. She was fantastic and delivered an extremely insightful speech about the business of being an author. After the keynote, we got to meet the lovely Ali from Ginger-Read Reviews and the lovely Carmen Jenner, author.

We checked out the author tables, where I basically wanted to buy every book I saw. Alas, some unfortunate luck right before the trip prevented me from buying any books during the entire con. My car required some necessary repairs before departing that totaled over $500, thus completely obliterating any notion I had of buying books. I bought exactly one souvenir during the whole trip (and which will be featured in the next Book Loot post). I was really down about my book budget going bust before I even left home, but there was this one thing, which I'll get to later, that cheered me up considerably . . . .

We squeezed in a little sightseeing, the highlight of which was the Belle Meade Plantation:

We also had the best lunch ever on Friday:

I had not eaten a White Castle hamburger from an actual White Castle restaurant since moving to Florida six years ago. Because there are no White Castle restaurants in Florida. I still buy them frozen and microwave them, but it's not the same. Eating one of these unhealthy babies steamed fresh off the grill was heavenly.

Saturday's keynote speaker was Gennifer Albin. Something she said that really resonated with me was how you have to make time to write. I'm not writing a book, but I applied it to writing blog posts and even to reading. I'm always going to think of a million other things that I should be doing instead of reading and blogging, but sometimes, those other things can just wait.

We attended the blogging panel, which was inspiring. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, but at the end of the con, I really felt a renewed passion for reading and blogging that I hadn't experienced in a while. And I still feel that way, which is why I'm sitting here at night writing this post when I should be grabbing some sleep, lol.

On the tourist-y side of things, we paid a quick visit to Nashville's replica of the Parthenon, which is also an art museum:

I had a rough day on Saturday. Like everybody else, I was exhausted, but unlike everybody else, I let it get to me. I'm also not the best traveler. I mean, I love visiting new places, but I also get homesick very easily and quickly begin missing the comforts of home, like my own bed, softened water, being able to microwave a snack (White Castle hamburgers!) whenever I'm hungry, etc. So I was longing for home on Saturday, too. My GPS was also having trouble navigating Nashville, rerouting us quite often. The frustration of not being able to get from Point A to Point B without an unintentional detour, plus the heavy traffic, just pushed me over the edge. So I did the only logical thing I could do: cry. Who cries on vacation? I do. That was an eye opener, in that I was stressing out while on vacation, and I definitely need to get a better handle on my stress.

And now for the thing that cheered me up: Ally and I went to see Elvis Costello at the Ryman Auditorium on Saturday night. I am a HUGE fan of his, and when I found out he was playing Nashville the same weekend we were going to be there, my heart nearly raced out of my chest. Everything: the drive, the expense, even the tears, everything was worth it for this moment. I'm actually going to write about the concert in a separate post, because it totally needs its own space.

And so Sunday, our final day in Nashville, arrived. As much fun as I had, all I could think about was how wonderful it was going to be to sleep in my own bed that night. The trek home took another 12 hours, and by the time we reached the home stretch, I wanted to kiss the sign welcoming us back to our county. When I walked into my house, I wanted to hug its entire contents. When I finally went to sleep that night, hitting the pillow was more like falling into a coma.

Road tripping was tougher than I'd anticipated and I wouldn't want to do it all the time, but I'm glad we did it, if only because it's something I wouldn't ordinarily do. We're setting our sights on attending BEA next year, especially since it'll be the last one in NYC for a while. At least I know my way around the city and can pretty much go anywhere without having to drive. :D