Title: The Boy in the Woods
By: Jen Minkman
Publication Date: December 1, 2013
Blurb:
Julia fell down on her knees next to his
lifeless body, her heart filling with dread as she
noticed the left side of his face was covered
in blood. He had fallen off the motorbike,
hitting his temple on a sharp-edged rock. His
head injury looked really, really bad.
“Michael?” she whispered softly, putting a
trembling hand on his forehead. “Can you
hear me?”
Julia has been in love with Michael for years.
He’s the hottest guy in school, and she
can’t believe her luck when they finally hit
it off during Senior Prom. Her dream doesn’t
last, though: after a few dates, he callously
dumps her out of the blue. Summer vacation starts with Julia feeling
heart-broken and miserable.
But then she rescues Michael in the woods when
he has a motorcycle accident in a
heavy thunderstorm. From that point onward,
her life is turned upside down. Michael
has changed completely after the blow to the
head that nearly killed him... and he wants
her back. But why is he so different? And will
she be able to trust him this time around?
Can the boy who broke your heart ever win it
back again..?
Excerpt:
Julia trailed behind her boss as she
walked over to the cash register, looking left and right to catch a glimpse of
her other colleagues.
“Kolbe!” her brand-new boss shouted
toward the entrance. “Come and help me out, will you?”
Julia stopped dead, frozen in her
tracks. Was she going deaf, or had Martin just said… Her heart hammered
ridiculously fast as her eyes zoomed in on the front door.
“He’ll come and help you at the
register.” Martin’s voice sounded as though it was coming from far away. He
left her standing there, rooted to the spot.
Julia tried to snap out of her
paralysis and stumbled the final few steps to the counter. Her breath hitched
when she saw an all-too-familiar figure walking in her direction. She
swallowed. But surely it couldn’t be.
Oh God, no. No, no, no. This was not happening.
And then, she couldn’t look anywhere
else but up, straight into two eyes green as the forest.
“What
on earth are you doing here?” Julia
stared at him in alarm.
“I work here,” he replied unfazed, a
half-smile tugging at his lips.
“Since when?” It was simply not possible that she, in her unfailing
stalker mode, had somehow missed this: Michael holding a job at the same
bookstore she’d applied to two days ago.
“Since last week.”
His smug composure quickly turned her
initial befuddlement into outright infuriation.
“Why?” she demanded fractiously.
He raised an eyebrow. “To earn some
extra cash?” he declared in an ‘isn’t-that-really-obvious’ tone.
“But why here?”
Michael started to chuckle. “Why are
you giving me the third degree?”
“Are you following me or something?”
she grumbled, her heart treacherously leaping in her chest for a moment as she
considered the possibility.
“Well, I’m sorry to burst your bubble
here, but I think it’s the other way around. First, you turn up at the pub I
always hang out at on weeknights, then, you decide to take a jog near the place
where I almost had a fatal accident, and now you turn out to have applied for a
job at the same store I’ve been working at for the past week. What does it look
like to you?”
Shucks, he was right. Julia resisted
the urge to stamp her foot like a little girl. “In your dreams, you arrogant
bastard,” she muttered. “Everybody says I should stay away from you.”
In the silence that followed, she could
still hear her heart beating in her throat.
About the Author:
Jen Minkman (1978) was born in Holland, in the
town of Alphen aan den Rijn. When she was 19, she moved between The Hague,
Salzburg (Austria), Brussels (Belgium) and Cambridge (UK) to complete her
studies in intercultural communication. She is currently a teacher of English,
career counsellor and teenage coach at a secondary school in Voorburg, Holland.
She tries to read at least 100 books a year (and write a few, too!). She is a
published author in her own country, and translates her own books from Dutch
into English for self-publication.
In her spare time, she plays the piano, the
guitar and the violin. For every novel she writes, she creates a soundtrack.
'I have always been drawn to writing. My first
book was a sci-fi novel at the age of eight, which I painstakingly typed out on
my dad's typewriter and illustrated myself. Nowadays, I stick to poetry,
paranormal romance, chicklit and/or fantasy. In my home country, I am the first-ever
published writer of paranormal romance, and I will gradually make my books also
available in English (seeing I have to re-write and translate the books myself,
this will take some time!).
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