Title: Star of Bethlehem (Flowering
holiday novella)
Author: Sarah Daltry
Release Date: 11/18/2013
Publisher: SDE Press
Synopsis:
Jack
isn’t a rock star. He’s not the leader of a MC. He isn’t a billionaire. Lily’s
not the daughter of a mob boss, or a stripper, or a virgin with a BDSM
fascination. They’re just regular college kids, who somehow found each other in
the middle of all the crap and chaos of growing up.
“With you, Jack, it was the first time
I ever felt real. It was the first time anyone looked at me and saw substance.
It was the first time I wanted to make someone see me.”
Jack
and Lily have navigated his past, her desire to move on from her family’s
demands of her, his depression, and her loneliness. Now, on New Year’s Eve,
they have an entire year laid out ahead of them. First, though, Jack needs to
meet Lily’s family, to be welcomed into her life. It’s intimidating, but with a
sweater that is way too hot and his grandmother’s ugly car, he arrives at
Lily’s gleaming house on a hill, ready to open himself up completely to her.
Inside
the perfect, sparkling house, Lily waits for the boy she has come to love. But
Lily’s house and family are a lot like her – shiny and pretty on the outside,
with a sad emptiness on the interior. Lily wants to give Jack the one thing he
has always dreamed of – family and love – but can she keep him from seeing how
hollow a lot of the picture perfect life he fantasizes about really is?
This
is a novella length work that follows Forget
Me Not and Lily of the Valley.
Trailer
Excerpt
I take his hand and pull him down
beside me on my bed. I feel so complete in his arms, as if nothing can go wrong
when he holds me. It’s all the other stuff. The world, people, pressure. Maybe
it’s a little fear that things just ended with Derek. That one day, as quickly
as I fell for Jack, I also fell out of love with Derek. I don’t have enough
experience to know if that’s normal. What if it happens again?
“What? Tell me,” Jack whispers.
“Have you ever felt like your entire
life is some surrealist’s joke? That you think you’re in control of it, while
really, you’re probably just…”
“A melting clock?” he finishes and
laughs. I look at him, disappointed that I can’t explain it, but also relieved
that he doesn’t care.
“All the fucking time,” he says. “I
know you’re scared. I know I’m scared.
But I seem to remember you telling me that I should remember what matters. I
made you a promise, princess. Yes, your house intimidates me. Your life intimidates me. Hell, loving you
intimidates me. But I’m in this. I’m here. Present. Entirely. I’m looking only
forward. And all I see is you.”
“Take the damn book,” I tell him. “I
just wanted to show you that I have faith in us. It was a conscious decision to
give you something that was a very special gift to me, to tell you that I trust
you with it, because I trust you to be there. Long term.”
He takes me in his arms and kisses me.
I decide I won’t stop him if he goes further, but he doesn’t. Our bodies
crackle with the energy between us, but as much as the sex thrills me, Jack
does so much more for my mind than his body could even do. I can’t believe how
alive I feel when he’s near me. Perhaps it’s selfish. Perhaps it’s desperate.
But I want him here in my life; I want him with me, because I love being this
aware.
I speak against his cheek, while his
hands slowly explore my body. It’s sensual but not sexual. He’s studying me like
a work of art. “I don’t want to fall out of love with you. I thought Derek was
all I ever wanted. I don’t want to be in the same place with you a year from
now.”
“You won’t be,” he tells me.
“How do you know?”
He kisses along my face, brushing his
lips against my cheek, my forehead, my nose, but never reaching my mouth. “I
don’t know how. But I do.”
I love that he can put aside his doubts
to ease my own. I know Jack’s had so much trouble in his life, and the fact
that he can comfort me, when my problems are so petty and stupid in the scheme
of things, is one more thing I love so much. “I know I’m shallow. But I don’t
want to be, Jack.”
“You’re not shallow. You’re not empty.
Anything you think of yourself – it’s crazy. If you want to talk about surreal,
it’s the fact that you think you’re less than something. Maybe you didn’t get
shit on the same way I did in high school, but clearly, people have
underestimated you. They missed out on you. And you have every right to be
hurt. But, Lily? No one will ever hurt you again.”
I smile. “Thanks. I’m sorry I’m being
so moody. It’s probably hormones or something. I think I’m just frustrated.”
“Yeah?” He laughs. “Well… I mean… I can
help you relieve some of that.”
He’s on top of me and I don’t care that
it wasn’t exactly what I meant. I don’t care that someone could walk in.
Someone probably will walk in, since
eventually they’ll come looking, but I don’t care at all. I want to belong to Jack,
and I don’t know any other way to do so.
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About the Author
Sarah Daltry writes erotica and romance that ranges from
sweet to steamy. She moves around a lot and has trouble committing to
things. Bitter Fruits is her first full length novel. Her
other two novels have already been released. Forget Me Not and Lily of the
Valley are simultaneous perspectives in the New Adult contemporary romance
series, Flowering. Sarah also has
three novellas (including Star of Bethlehem,
part of the Flowering series) and
several short stories available. She is currently working on Immortal Star and Daughter of Heaven in this series, and Orange Blossom, another novel in Flowering . When Sarah isn’t writing, she tends to waste a lot
of time checking Facebook for pictures of cats, shooting virtual zombies, and
simply staring out the window.
Connect with Sarah
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