Waterdancer Blog Tour: Book Excerpt & Giveaway

 
Welcome to the first stop on the Waterdancer Blog Tour! I have an awesome book excerpt & a giveaway for you!
My mom dropped me at the edge of the high school driveway.
“Honey, are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”
I glanced out the window of my mom’s car. Already we were
attracting more attention than I wanted. Why did my mom have to
park right in front of the school, not at the edge of the parking lot
like I’d begged her to? Wasn’t it bad enough that she had married
Warren in the first place and plunked me down in the middle of this
alien nation like Valentine Smith in Stranger in a Strange Land? It
was true that my mom, the former Sharona Wasserman, couldn’t wait
to become Mrs. Warren Meyers. But I’d failed to consider the consequences
of her marriage at the time. If I had, I would have realized at
some point that a man that made as much money as Warren would
never want to live in our simple three-bedroom house in Otay Mesa,
three miles from the border and a hundred miles from the world he
was used to living in. No, the first chance he got, he whisked us away
to Del Mar, the most beautiful city I’d ever seen.
 
 
I’d learned to love it. It was perfect all summer long, and I went
to the beach every day and sometimes didn’t come back to the gorgeous
rented condo full of brand new furniture till well past nightfall.
Then we all went to restaurants or had take-out ’cuz Mom hardly
cooked anymore, but I had never seen her so happy. I had to admit,
my brother seemed pretty happy, too. I could fake my own happiness
where appropriate. It didn’t really matter that Warren didn’t
seem to like me so much. He loved my mom, and that was all that
mattered, wasn’t it?
“Bailey? Are you listening to me?” Mom tapped the steering wheel
impatiently.
“Sorry, Mom. What did you say?”
“I said how long did you think registration would take? Warren
and I were planning to go car shopping again. I really need to stop
borrowing the company car, as much as I love it.”
My mom smoothed her hand over the butter-colored leather
upholstery in the Volvo she had been driving. It belonged to Warren’s
employer, but she had been driving it since we had moved to Del Mar.
I thought she looked pretty in it, but man, I missed the white AMC
Pacer we’d left behind. It had been our family car for so many years
it had become like a landmark on our old street. It reminded me of
a spaceship, and I loved it. Warren had hated it. Took him only two
months to talk my mom into selling it.
“I really don’t know, Mom. Just, can you come back in, like, two
hours?”
“I’ll try, Bay. If we get tied up in finance, I’ll just leave Warren
there and come and get you. But, you know how he hates it when
he has to wait. Come right here when you finish. Don’t forget you
still have to unpack.”
I climbed out of the car and watched my mom drive off. “Good
luck, sweetie!” she called out. I stood there, not sure what to do. Kids
 
streamed toward the gym. Reluctantly, I followed. As I got closer, the
noise from inside the building grew louder.
I got to the doors and peeked inside. The gymnasium was packed.
It was crawling with kids dressed in skirts and board shorts, carrying
purses and backpacks and skateboards. It was my first impression of
a surf-side school, and I learned more about the student body in that
first five minutes than any brochure could ever tell me.
The students were good-looking. No, more than that — they
were beautiful. Long hair, tan skin, perfect teeth, and you just knew
this little girl from the opposite side of the gene pool whose mom
had recently married into money would have a hard time fitting in.
Impossibly long-legged creatures swept past me with Dolce and
Gabbana glasses perched prettily in their sun-bleached hair, digging
into their Dooney and Bourke bags for Clinique lip gloss. They
laughed at jokes told by deeply tanned surfer boys in knee-length
shorts and No Fear t-shirts, with shoulder-grazing, sun-kissed hair,
and sand still visible on the tops of their feet, some barefoot and
most in flojos, those well-worn flip-flops. I stared down at my own
outfit, a tank top with a fading appliqué of the American flag, cutoff
shorts, and white sandals with pink flowers, and began backing out
the door. It was all so cringe-worthy.
 



BLURB:
As if high school isn’t hard enough, try being Bailey Wasserman. Try being the new girl in town, navigating a touchy relationship with your flighty mom’s rich new husband in a brand new town he’s just moved you to. Add to that finding out that your father, a semi-pro surfer who’s just mysteriously re-entered your life after nearly fifteen years of silence, is half sea-creature and you’re about to inherit that particular gene on your sixteenth birthday which is only a few days away, all after you just met the cutest surfer boy you’ve ever seen in your life.
Bailey feels she and her mom have always met life’s challenges as a team of two, more like best friends than mother and daughter. But her mom’s recent marriage has changed all that. Having her little brother Landry is all Bailey can find good about that union. The move to wealthy Del Mar from their humble beginnings has turned Bailey sour, until a chance meeting of surf hottie Jack West changes all that. Then, when her father reenters her life, with his annoying Zen-surfer lingo and a talking turtle he claims is her spirit guardian, no less, he threatens the only relationship Bailey thinks is working in her world. She soon finds out that’s not all his arrival will do. His presence and their shared family trait could ultimately force Bailey to make a decision that will alter the course of her own life and those she loves…..forever. 

 
Samantha Combs, Author
Check out all 6 of my books!
 
 
Coming in September from Musa Publishing: WATERDANCER, a new YA paranormal

 
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9 comments

  1. Hi Samantha!! Sounds like a great book! :)

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  2. Yo, Samantha, sounds like you've got a winner read! Tweeted and shared for you!

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    1. I always am grateful for your support, Sharon!

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  3. This sounds like an interesting story
    rsgrandinetti@yahoo(DOT)com

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  4. It sounds like the author has a good understanding of the teenage angst that is needed in Waterdancer. If you don't get that right, the entire novel will be off!

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    Replies
    1. I can't wait to hear what you think of the whole thing. Please do let me know. :-)

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  5. Sounds Great Samantha, I look forward to reading this :)

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