Hey peeps, today we bring you Riptide Publishing’s Amelia C. Gormley and her newest release Saugatuck Summer! Amelia talks a little about Saugatuck Summer, she has brought along an excerpt for you to take a peek at and she has a fantastic Giveaway for you to take part in and we also have Thommie’s stunning review. So I will leave you to enjoy the post and remember to follow the Giveaway instructions, I’ve left links to the other posts on the tour so you can fully enjoy the Giveaway, good luck guys! 🙂 <3 ~Pixie~

Saugatuck Summer

by

Amelia C. Gormely

One summer can change everything.

Hi, I’m Topher Carlisle: twenty-one, pretty, and fabulous. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. But let’s get real. Walking the fake-it-til-you-make-it road to independence and self-respect isn’t easy. Especially since my mom’s a deadbeat alcoholic, and most of my family expects me to turn out just as worthless. Oh, and I’m close to losing my college swimming scholarship, so let’s add “dropout” to the list.

My BFF has invited me to stay at her beach house on the shore of Lake Michigan. That’ll give me one summer to make money and figure out what I want to do with my life. So of course I decide to have an affair with my BFF’s married, closeted dad. Because that always works out.

Now I’m homeless, friendless, jobless. Worthless. Just like my family expects, right? Except there’s this great guy, Jace, who sees it differently. He’s got it all together in ways I can only dream of—he’s hot, creative, insightful, understanding. He seems to think I don’t give myself enough credit. And if I don’t watch out, I may start to believe him.

What Amelia has to say:

Hi, and welcome to the Saugatuck Summer blog tour! Thank you to MM Good Book Reviews for hosting me today!

For those of you who have seen me talking about it on social media for the last nearly year and a half, you know that Saugatuck Summer was a labor of love far beyond what I would normally claim for one of my books. Of course I love them all, but Saugatuck Summer came from my very soul. Actually, I’m not certain it came from me at all.

Basically, here’s what happened: One day I was driving along, running errands, and Topher Carlisle whispered one line of dialogue in my ear. Just one. When I asked him what I was supposed to do with that, he promptly took over my brain for fifteen absolutely insane days and at the end I had the first draft of Saugatuck Summer.

Topher’s story of recovery, hope, making mistakes, and growing up just told itself, and the experience of being the conduit for that was at times grueling and heartbreaking, but also euphoric and wonderful. It was one of those experiences that, as a creator of some form of art, be it musical, visual, or literary, you have once or twice in a lifetime if you’re extraordinarily lucky, when you know you’re creating something magical. I’m not sure it will ever happen to me again, but I feel absolutely blessed that this book has come of it.

This week on the Saugatuck Summer blog tour, I’ll be sharing some bonus content from the book and a sneak peek at another upcoming book in the Saugatuck universe. I’ll also be having a heart-to-heart discussion with Marie Sexton about our experiences as adult children of alcoholics and how they translated into writing our ACOA characters from Saugatuck Summer and Family Man, giving you a peek at some of “Jace’s” art, and I’ll be sharing the official Saugatuck Summer soundtrack from a brilliant singer/songwriter of my personal acquaintance, Casey Stratton.

And finally, all week long I’ll be asking trivia questions from Saugatuck Summer and this week’s blog tour articles, and each correct answer emailed to me offers you a chance to win your choice of any of my backlist titles!

So put on your sunscreen and let’s go!

Excerpt

Today I’ll be sharing a scene from Chapter Ten of Saugatuck Summer. Topher has been staying at a beach house with his BFF, Mo, and her father, Brendan. He’s been nursing an innocent crush on Brendan, but he knows nothing can ever come of it and honestly doesn’t even want it to. He’s had a one-night-stand with Jace, an artist passing through town on vacation, whom he keeps thinking about afterward but has no hope of ever seeing again. Topher has finally gotten his crush on Brendan under control, sure he won’t do anything to embarrass either of them, but one suspicious glance from a nosy neighbor on the beach is all it takes to upset their careful balance.

***

I suppose for Brendan it was a little like encountering the serpent in the Garden of Eden; there was no sin until someone told him there was.

Then he couldn’t ever be clean of it.

If he’d ever given me a moment’s thought outside the context of his daughter’s friend and a kid he liked and wanted to help, he’d kept it so under wraps I never got so much as a whiff of it. I didn’t believe he had, I really didn’t. I was pretty good at picking up the vibes of sexual interest, no matter how well disguised, and he had never put any off. But after that moment, when he realized what people might think of us, it was clear he couldn’t consign me to that safe, neat, mental box anymore. Suddenly I was something else. Something dirty and scandalous, something he needed to avoid.

At first I didn’t get it. I resented the hell out of that evil-minded bitch for soiling our easy camaraderie and so, in a gesture of defiance, I tried to act like nothing had changed. Like we were still pals, harmless and platonic. But Brendan couldn’t do it. Once you’re made aware of something, you can never become unaware, no matter how hard you try. Over the next few days, everything began to unravel. He wouldn’t talk to me, would barely acknowledge me. He skirted around me whenever we were in proximity to one another as though I had some contagious illness he didn’t want to catch by accidentally brushing against me.

That’s when I began to feel unclean, and I hated it. I hadn’t done anything wrong! I’d behaved myself. I wanted to throw an epic tantrum and rail at the injustice of it. It was like it had been with my family all over again. Just because I was who I was, everything I did had to be wrong or dirty by default, right? But all I had done was indulged, in the privacy of my own mind, a benign crush that I knew would never, ever go anywhere. I hadn’t set out to seduce him, or even to tease him into the sort of awareness that dried up old cunt with her prurient mind and salacious gaze had forced on him. But now I was losing someone I’d begun to feel close to, someone I’d begun to trust. Someone who seemed to care.

With a single speculative look, she’d stolen a friend from me.

Once I realized Brendan couldn’t shake it off and be comfortable around me anymore, I began avoiding meals when he was in the kitchen, and tried to stay out of the house or up in my room as much as possible. At least Mo got her way. I spent a lot of time at the coffeehouse. Aubrey said the owners would consider paying me a wage if I appeared to have an impact on business, otherwise I was just welcome to whatever tips I made. It wasn’t much, but I didn’t care about the money, so long as it got me out of the house.

We went nearly a week without speaking a word to one another beyond the barest civilities. I admit I spent a good few hours in my room—not to mention the lake or my car or wherever—crying and feeling sorry for myself. I was mourning, as though something had died.

Perhaps something had.

After listening to Brendan pace restlessly around the house for four nights in a row, I admitted defeat.

“Brendan?” I caught him at the top of the stairs, apparently heading back to his room.

“Yes, Topher, what is it?” His voice sounded tense. Strained. I could barely see his face in the darkened hallway, but he sounded reluctant even to speak with me. I decided to get this done with as quickly as possible.

“I have some friends who live off-campus up in Allendale,” I lied. “I think I’ll see if they can let me crash out on their couch. Maybe I can find a job around there, near campus. I’ll call them tomorrow and leave this weekend.”

He hung his head. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I do.” My voice cracked and I swallowed hard. And under the hurt, I was so fucking angry. Was it really too much to ask to be left in peace so I could benignly co-opt my best friend’s family for the summer because my own sucked? It might be pathetic, but who was I harming? “Look, it was really generous of you and Mo to offer me a place to stay, but I don’t want to make trouble for you or give people the wrong idea. Small town gossip and all that. So I should go somewhere else. If I can’t stay with my friends, maybe I’ll go over to Flint, score some brownie points with my family by helping to take care of my mom for a while.”

“Topher . . .” That seemed to shock him out of his numbed detachment. I’d told him weeks ago about my mom’s (theoretical) suicide attempt and the resulting decision to cut her out of my life. “Don’t do that. Don’t go back into a situation that’s not healthy for you just because people are foolish. Because I’m foolish.”

“You’re not.” I shook my head in reflexive denial, trying to figure out how to reassure him. “You can’t help it if it bothers you to know people think things about you that aren’t true. Hell, it bothers me no matter how hard I try to convince myself it doesn’t.”

I stepped closer to him, putting on a brave smile. He smelled like red wine, and I wondered just how heavily he’d been drinking, though he didn’t seem drunk. I reached out to pat his shoulder encouragingly, like he’d done for me many times since we’d gotten to know each other.

“It’s okay to mind what other people think. I don’t blame you. At least you and I know what’s true. We haven’t done anything wrong. So—”

Brendan’s head came up at that, his eyes glittering in the thin moonlight coming in from the massive window in his bedroom just a few steps down the hall. His gaze riveted me, pinned me down, even as I staggered a step backward.

Everything I’d sworn he didn’t—couldn’t—feel for me was in his eyes.

“Oh, no . . .” I breathed, horrified and fascinated and, God help me, exultant in the same instant.

He wanted me.

It could never happen. It could never happen. I couldn’t hurt Mo like that, couldn’t betray her kindness, his kindness. I couldn’t encourage him to do something he would regret for the rest of his life, however much a part of me yearned for it.

But sweet baby Jesus save me, I was responding to the heat in that look he fixed on me, growing hard and aching despite my terror and confusion. I’d spent the week feeling alone and unwanted and cut adrift, and he looked like an anchor. The fact that he wanted me made me feel less alone.

Now, more than ever, I needed to man up and walk away. What had been a harmless situation had just become even more fucked up. By several orders of magnitude.

He caught my hand as I tried to snatch it from his shoulder, where I’d rested it when I’d tried so innocuously to offer him comfort and reassurance. Now that small contact seared me, and his hand around mine felt like a band of fire, his skin blazing.

His eyes were so hungry and his face so tormented. He didn’t want to want this, no more than I’d wanted my infatuation with him. I’d been so, so wrong in my analysis of the situation. The awareness that had been thrust upon him wasn’t of the potential scandal we might stir up, however innocently. It was of all the non-innocent things we could do to fully warrant that scandal.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Walk away, Topher. Walk away now while you still can.

Why wasn’t he walking away?

He wasn’t. He stepped closer.

“Topher . . .” he whispered, just that soft brush of my name filled with anguish and need. He didn’t really want to do this, except he did, and his hand around mine shook so fucking hard.

Why couldn’t I pull away? Why couldn’t he? It was every imaginable sort of wrong and we both knew it and why wasn’t that enough to stop us? I don’t know, and then it didn’t matter. One of us took that final step forward—I truly have no idea who—and our lips pressed together. We exhaled in the same instant, our breath exploding between us.

I was shaking too, I realized at that first tentative touch. Yet my mouth opened without any forethought and my tongue stroked his bottom lip. That was the moment I escalated things. I didn’t mean to do it. I would hate myself forever for it, but I did it. I upped the ante.

Are we really doing this? Some appalled part of my brain asked. My conscience said no, but my body—and perhaps some confused part of my heart that wanted to take all the kindness and understanding he’d offered me these last few weeks and make it into something more—said yes.

Why shouldn’t I have this? If the world was going to damn me and think awful things about me anyway, no matter how good I was, why shouldn’t I have at least one thing, one moment, I wanted?

Still, perhaps my conscience would have won out in that final standoff if his lips hadn’t parted, if his tongue hadn’t met mine, if his hands hadn’t drawn me close and pressed me against the erection beneath his flannel pajama bottoms.

If he hadn’t taken control of that kiss and turned fear and hesitation into demand and hunger.

Once he did that, there was no going back.

Giveaway!

HOW TO WIN YOUR CHOICE OF ANY SINGLE BOOK FROM MY BACKLIST (all-in-one volumes not included):

At each stop along the blog tour I’ll be asking a trivia question from Saugatuck Summer. Yes, this means some familiarity with the book is required, whether you purchase a copy, have an ARC, or employ the Kindle or B&N lending programs. If you visit some of the other blog tour stops, you might also find the answer in some of the excerpts.

PLEASE DO NOT ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS. Instead, send the answer to me privately by using this contact form. Each response will enter you into the drawing and three winners will be picked. The more questions you answer, the more entries you get. You can choose from any of the following titles:

Inertia (Impulse, Book One)
Acceleration (Impulse, Book Two)
Velocity (Impulse, Book Three)
The Laird’s Forbidden Lover
An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2)
Inch by Inch (The Professor’s Rule #3)
Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4)
To the Very Last Inch (The Professor’s Rule #5)
Strain

(Note: Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #1) is already available free at Riptide, and my pre-Saugatuck novella, The Field of Someone Else’s Dreams, is available for free at Amazon, All Romance eBooks, and elsewhere.)

Again, please do not post your answer in the comments, but submit it to me privately.

To give people time to read and respond, the contest will remain open for one month after the release of Saugatuck Summer. It will close on June 19, and the drawing will be held on June 20.

Today’s Saugatuck Summer trivia question:

Chapter 13, who does Topher end up getting a job offer from?

Be sure to check out the Saugatuck Summer soundtrack by singer/songwriter Casey Stratton !

About Amelia

Amelia C. Gormley may seem like anyone else. But the truth is she sings in the shower, dances doing laundry, and writes blisteringly hot m/m erotic romance while her son is at school. When she’s not writing in her Pacific Northwest home, Amelia single-handedly juggles her husband, her son, their home, and the obstacles of life by turning into an everyday superhero. And that, she supposes, is just like anyone else.

Her self-published novel-in-three-parts, Impulse (Inertia, Book One; Acceleration, Book Two; and Velocity, Book Three) can be found at most major online book retailers, and be sure to check Riptide for her latest releases, including her Highland historical, The Laird’s Forbidden Lover, The Professor’s Rule series of erotic novelettes (co-written with Heidi Belleau), the post-apocalyptic romance, Strain, and her upcoming, New Adult contemporary, Saugatuck Summer, available now.

You can contact Amelia on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, BookLikes, Tumblr, or contact her by email using the form at http://ameliacgormley.com/

Review

Title: Saugatuck Summer

Series: Saugatuck Series 01

Author: Amelia C. Gormley

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Length: Novel (363 pages)

ISNB: 9781626491168

Publisher: Riptide Publishing (May 19^th 2014)

Heat: Explicit

Heart: 4.5 Hearts

Reviewer: Thommie

Blurb: One summer can change everything.

Purchase Link: http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/saugatuck-summer

Review: This was a fabulous book start to finish, with incredible characters exquisitely written, with astonishing personalities and many layers of depth that you had to unravel while reading on.

As much as it started a bit “lazy”, with the pace being somewhat subdued and slowly picking up, the story has quite the gripping effect on you. Topher is a character that at the beginning might not inspire much affection, but as you read on he manages to stun you in your place with the horror that is his life. When you sum it all up, there is an incredulous amount of abuse the main character has suffered, but the slowly flow of the information coupled with a lovely sense of humor makes the read not only bearable, but can read all this dark, twisted abuse without it emotionally draining you. The fact that the story is told by Topher himself in a somewhat detached voice – he is after all on meds and has come to terms with his life –makes it even better for you to simply read on without getting utterly wrung out.

To be completely honest here I really disliked Topher in the beginning. The drama queen/home wrecker did not appeal to me, but the author achieved an amazing feat for me as she slowly turned this character into a very likable one, and most importantly describing the infidelity event in such a realistic way, the emotions attached with it were so perfectly true, that I couldn’t resent the fact I was reading that part at all. After part one of the book was well and truly over I did take a deep breath finding it a bit astonishing that I had indeed read through it without getting pissed and/or crazy drowned in emotion.

The second part of the book though was for me the joyride, even as in fact that was in the end the one that nearly made me cry. I loved it all, the entire story and how it twisted and turned, how the characters I was absolutely sure I’d hate till the end surprised me and somehow managed to even get my sympathy. I loved the very realistic growth Topher achieved, but most of all I loved Jace. Freaking Jace! He was stunning in and out and in every way. Could I love a character more? Ugh, I think not.

The entire book was lovely, the writing was amazing, gripping, enchanting and so down to earth (I don’t know if that makes sense). I never felt as if the author was exaggerating events and feelings, I never felt as if something was too much, and I had the most amazing time with the humoristic lines and the most intense moments when reading the erotic parts. It was such a wholesome book and when it ended I felt sated. Nothing to add, nothing to question. I am however grateful that it seems to be book one in a series, as I’m wondering what comes next, and what characters the author is going to introduce us to.

As for this one I strongly recommend it to those who love a good romance with struggling characters that show a great deal of strong personality and a sense of never giving up no matter what life shoves at them. Enjoy!