Title: Wrecked (A Starstruck Novella)
Author: Cynthia Valero
Genre: New Adult
Release Date: April 20, 2015
Synopsis
Welcome to STARSTRUCK, a showplace for talent, a playground for love.
A new contemporary continuity series by Beth Ciotta, Cynthia Valero, and Elle J Rossi. Three authors. One world. The hot nights continue with Valero’s emotional new-adult novella, Wrecked.
A Secret Crush…
Talented songwriter, Sunny Burnett, shelves her dream of Nashville when her older sister is killed in a car wreck and helps her mother pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Two years later, her mother’s still struggling and Sunny is desperate to help her. Dusting off her guitar, penning a new song, and marshaling her courage, she enters a duet contest, hoping to use the prize money to turn her mother's life around. She’ll do anything to win. Even if it means partnering with the last man she should ask—her sister’s ex-boyfriend, a gifted singer and Sunny’s longtime secret crush.
A Clandestine Choice…
Curtis Bliss blames himself for Tuesday Burnett’s death. And so does her family. Haunted by regret, he forfeits his musical dreams for years, until he’s challenged by an unexpected source—his ex’s younger sister. Sunny Burnett blows him away by asking for his help and, in turn, offering him a tentative forgiveness. Even more surprising is the burning attraction that ignites and consumes them both.
Can the new lovers make their dreams come true after all? Or will the secrets they keep wreck them forever?
“I’d give you anything else, Sunny. Anything in my power. I’d cut my heart out and hand it to you, what’s left of it, if that’s what you wanted. But I can’t sing, and I especially can’t sing on that stage.”
“It’s not for me. It’d take more than that for me to ask you for anything.” She gripped her handbag again, almost like a lifeline. “It’s for my mother.”
Krista. His gut twisted tighter. Her house had been like a home for him. She’d been the mother he’d lost at fifteen. The last time he’d ever felt taken care of. The last time he’d eaten a home-cooked meal. And he’d appreciated her caring way more than she could ever know. He hadn’t exactly paid her back in the way he’d planned.
“It’s been a year and she’s not getting better.” Sunny smacked the hat again. “I need that prize money to start a cafe. I think it might bring her back to life. It has to.”
His mouth worked, but he couldn’t shove out any words.
“You want to give us something? You want to give us that last little piece of your heart? Give us this.”
He almost asked when she’d grown so fierce, but he knew the answer. He also knew he couldn’t say no, even as he wanted to run fast and far away.
“You’re so grown up.” The whisper slipped out.
“Tuesday’s death didn’t stop my bones from growing.”
He noticed her long legs, her graceful neck, the gentle arch of her back. He noticed the way her hip jutted when she planted her hand on it. She reminded him of a warrior queen braced for battle. She was braced for him to say no. She was braced to launch another attack to change his mind, to remind him why he would indeed do her bidding.
And, to his absolute disbelief, his fingers left the hand truck and reached out to touch a lock of her hair.
It was as silky-soft as he remembered.
He curled it around his index finger, and she closed her eyes. Her chest rose and fell with sudden, labored breaths. He felt himself slipping under a strange, dangerous spell.
She smacked away his hand. Her eyes glinted again. “I’m not Tuesday.”
“No, you’re not,” he said and her cheeks flushed red. “I’ll sing on that stage with you just this once, Sunny. When you’re contest is done, so am I.”
Excerpt
About The Author
Cynthia Valero is an award-winning author of two solo novellas as well as three paranormal romance novels and two anthologies written with Beth Ciotta as CB Scott. Her newest novella, Wrecked, is an emotional, new-adult tale in the new contemporary continuity series, STARSTRUCK, which also includes Beth Ciotta and Elle J Rossi. A student of Natalie Goldberg, Zoetrope All-Story, and The Writers Studio, Cynthia is currently writing a fantasy novel of forbidden love and deadly feuds set off the coast of early America.
Cynthia lives in the northeastern United States, is a student of kung fu and history, and believes that the rumble of a classic hot rod is music. Her family will tell you that she is a grudging cook but a great reader of bedtime stories.
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