YA INDIE CARNIVAL: SEASONS | SOME LIKE IT HOT

Hey y’all welcome to this week of the YA INDIE CARNIVAL! Can I just say how AMAZING my fellow carnis are? I feel so lucky to be able to read all of their inspirational posts! SQUUUEEEE! Today’s topic kind of made me go…what??? I mean, do I tend to write a season? Of course not. I don’t just write one season. FAGETABOUTIT. But then I skimmed my books and I noticed a pattern.

I love the HEAT. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Chicago. Maybe it’s because I raised my family in LA. I don’t know the reason why. But when you open the pages of my books, you will sweat! Ah, wait a minute. Maybe that came out wrong. Yeah, there’s lots of that stuff in my novels too, but back to weather…hee-hee.

Here’s a hot scene from WINNEMUCCA:

But I didn’t hear the rest of what Earl said because the white line brought me back home in my mind to when the horrible-wonderful ripening first buzzed through me after school. I had pulled my bangs back and stroked my next-to-invisible lashes with brown-black mascara when my feet twitched, unsteadying my hand. A prickly heat tickled my toes and crawled up my thighs. It made me move when I most wanted to sit still. So I bunched my white sundress up, unhitched my strapless, boob-crushing, employee-discounted leopard bra and scooted out of its matching thong. I wadded up my sex-wear and buried that perfumed ball of lace and silk in my wastebasket between unwrapped Slimfast pills, crushed wedding-present boxes and crinkled Snickers wrappers.

My heart leapfrogged me back to the road when a gust of wind just about blew the whistle on my commando-self, right in front of Earl. I tripped on some weeds at the side of the highway as I patted down every inch of my churned up skirt, my face hotter than the asphalt under my feet.

“Your momma called two hours ago,” Earl said, leaning out of his patrol car, his face as red as the pomegranates Momma grew in the backyard. “Bobby took you for dead.”

I’d done the worst thing possible by standing Bobby up. Because doing that one true thing meant the rest of the truth wasn’t far behind. I’d have to tell Bobby I didn’t love him and that buzzed the heebie-jeebies through me. The kind I’d get when I’d rush to kill a black widow before it killed me. I had no idea what Bobby would do when I told him. I had no idea what he was capable of. But, in the end, nothing would frighten me more than myself. 

Here’s a hot scene from 13 ON HALLOWEEN: 

I grip the coconut tighter, hoping it will bring me some kind of luck. But I never really heard of lucky coconuts. I reach into my back pocket. And when I don’t have pockets, since I’m wearing the same linen dress as the last time, I can’t catch my breath. The message and the rabbit’s foot are gone. They didn’t AP with me. Duh, neither did my clothes.

 “Hello?” I yell again. Now, I won’t be able to find the peacock treasure, what I was certain would be waiting for me under the X on the map that I don’t have. What I’m sure Adrianne failed to find. And I have no clue how to solve the riddle of the seven words I don’t understand that are also on the map that I don’t have. Not that I know what those seven words mean.

Me and the coconut walk around in circles searching for the map with the X and the message, in case it dropped out of my pocket. But all I see is sand slipping between my toes. Lots and lots of sand.

My feet feel heavy. I’m more alone than ever. And I wonder how it can be day here and night back home when I have the most vivid dream, or vision. I mean you can’t dream when you’re awake, right. Astral projecting makes me sort of fuzzy-tired. I see something dark and small. Like a tail. It sticks out of the bushes behind me and I run. I run toward it because maybe I’m not all alone. And then I think I hear a bark. One single bark.

And here’s a hot scene from Transfer Student, which releases 3/20:

“Let’s party, my salty sista. Where to?” Sean drapes his towel over his head. He peeks out from under it as he unzips his wetsuit just below his belly button with a Tommy-Burger look in his eye. He frees his arms of the neoprene and shakes his blonde hair. It freezes in the-I’ve-just-been-surfing-and-its-my-life look every other surfer sports at Zuma. Sean towels off his guns first, works his way to his six-pack, wraps the towel around his waist and slips out of his wetsuit.

He’s hot, but friends aren’t supposed to notice. I love, absolutely love, watching Sean dry off almost as much as watching him walk away in his butt-sculpting jeans. But we’d only taken a few waves. I can’t believe he’s done already. He isn’t acting like himself at all.

I look to the waves, trying to decide on celebration plans. The sunset casts an orange-purple glow to the sand. The beach sparkles in spots. “This’ll do,” I say. The waves crash even calmer than a few minutes ago.

“But we don’t have anything to celebrate with,” Sean says, taking a few steps closer.

“We have each other.” That came out wrong. Or, did it? He’s so smoking hot backlit by the sunset.

Sean holds my hand and says, “Let’s go find a spot on the beach.”

We tuck our boards under our arms and I feel like I’m floating on the sand on our walk down the beach, into the sunset. My sweet ride still pumps my blood. Still makes my head rush. Sean and I pass one lifeguard tower after another and wave at our friends who keep watch over the locals and the tourists. We started coming out here on our own in middle school. We had our moms or dads or nannies drop us off at tower number eight. We’re way past the lifeguard towers now, headed to Point Dume.

We stroll up by the sandy cliff and plant our boards in the sand. A queasy kind of sickly feeling comes over me when we sit for a long time without saying a word. Awkward.

I never feel awkward. I guess I should stop saying that now. How is it people stay friends after they’ve done it?

Sand grinds between Sean’s hand and my thigh. “For old times sake?” he whispers.

Sean presses his body against mine and he gently works on laying me down in the sand. I want to do it. Remember it this time. Grains of sand settle into my hair when he kisses me, easy, slowly as if he’s asking me with each kiss how far he can go. My body replies and his tongue plunges into my mouth. His hand moves over my thigh. I arch my back wanting him to stop, but our next kiss is sweet, perfect. I’d forgotten how Sean tastes of jasmine and sunshine. A shooting star fades then falls into the Pacific. I shrink in his arms.

“What’s the matter?” Sean asks all out of breath.

There really is no way to describe the look on the face of a guy who’s just realized he isn’t going to get laid. Sort of blank, but begging. 

What do my amazing carnis have to say about seasons in their writing? Check them out!

1.	Laura A. H. Elliott author of Winnemucca & 13 on Halloween, Book 1 in the Teen Halloween Series	2.	Bryna Butler, author Midnight Guardian series
3.	Heather Self	4.	T. R. Graves, Author of The Warrior Series
5.	Suzy Turner, author of The Raven Saga	6.	Cheri Schmidt, author of the Fateful Trilogy
7.	Rachel Coles, author of Into The Ruins, geek mom blog	8.	K. C. Blake, author of Vampires Rule and Crushed
9.	Patti Larsen, The Hunted series and The Hayle Coven series	10.	Amy Maurer Jones, Author of The Soul Quest Trilogy
11.	Dani Snell’s Refracted Light Reviews	12.	Fisher Amelie, author of The Understorey / Callum & Harper
13.	M. Leighton, Blood Like Poison Series, Madly, The Reaping	14.	Kimberly Kinrade, Bits of You & Pieces of Me, Forbidden Mind
15.	Madeline Smoot, Missing, Summer Shorts, and The Girls	16.	Cidney Swanson, author of Rippler
17.	Gwenn Wright, author of Filter	18.	TG Ayer
19.	Melissa Pearl, Author of The Time Spirit Trilogy	20.	Heather M. White, author of The Destiny Saga
21.	Roots in Myth, PJ Hoover	22.	Courtney Cole Writes