Author: Victoria Kinnaird
Series: Keswick Chronicles: Book 1
Publisher: Encompass Teen
Publication Date: January 21, 2016
Length: 183 pages
Buy Links:
Blurb
Jack Daveyson grew up with a guitar in his
hands and his head full of melodies. Ten years after writing his first riff, he
knows exactly what he wants to do with his life - graduate high school, escape
Wayville and hit the road with his band, Forever Fading Echoes.
But it's a bit hard to to launch a band
without a singer. Enter JJ Keswick.
JJ is everything Jack isn't: rich, confident and popular. He also happens to be one of the best singers Jack has ever heard.
Jack reluctantly lets JJ into his band and into his life. The spark between them in the practice studio grows into something neither of them were expecting - a love that threatens to tear their lives apart.
International bestselling author Victoria Kinnaird is proud to introduce you to The Keswick Chronicles, a YA rock'n'roll romance.
Pack your guitar, pull on your band tee shirt and turn up the volume - it's time to meet your new favourite band.
JJ is everything Jack isn't: rich, confident and popular. He also happens to be one of the best singers Jack has ever heard.
Jack reluctantly lets JJ into his band and into his life. The spark between them in the practice studio grows into something neither of them were expecting - a love that threatens to tear their lives apart.
International bestselling author Victoria Kinnaird is proud to introduce you to The Keswick Chronicles, a YA rock'n'roll romance.
Pack your guitar, pull on your band tee shirt and turn up the volume - it's time to meet your new favourite band.
Excerpt
JJ Keswick was even more gorgeous up close, in
a completely unfair kind of way. Everything about him was exactly like the
fairy tales, teen rom-coms and auto-tuned pop songs promised it would be, right
down to the halo of light from the window on the stairs that made his
fashionably messy blond hair glitter like freshly polished gold.
“Hi,” he said, his cupid’s bow mouth tilting
into an annoyingly alluring crooked smile.
“Are you lost?” Jessica asked him, her dinner
plate eyes betraying the careful coolness of her tone.
“Maybe,” he replied, his smile flickering into
a full-blown wicked grin as he pushed his sunglasses up into his hair.
His eyes gave him away, as they do with most
people. Up close, I could see that they were a couple of shades darker than I
had expected. They were not summer sky blue. Instead, they were like the last
gasp of a winter afternoon, inky, conflicted and streaked with darkness. The
bags under his eyes looked like bruises, and he seemed paler, smaller somehow
as he stepped into the room.
“Can we help you?” I asked him, forcing my
politest smile onto my face.
“I’m here to audition,” he said, shoving his
hands into the pockets of his never-gonna-have-kids
skinny jeans.
“You?” Ash laughed, shaking her head. “But
you’re JJ Keswick!”
“At least ninety percent of the time,” he
replied, his shrug indicating that her surprise was not unexpected.
“No offence, JJ, but this isn’t a joke,”
Jessica began as she put her bass down. “We’re a real band, we’re good and
we’re looking for someone who will take this seriously.”
“How do you know I won’t take this seriously?”
he asked her, something like fire stirring in his steady gaze.
“Because you never take anything seriously,” I
pointed out, unease battling with curiosity right in the pit of my stomach.
“Well, looking this good doesn’t happen by
accident,” he said, turning to me with a small, knowing smile on his face.
He did look perfect for the part he seemed so
intent on playing. Those jeans could have been stolen from the wardrobe of a dozen
different rock stars, the kind of musicians that caused extreme adoration in
all who saw them. They hung low, exposing a strip of skin across his stomach
and hinting at what looked like a tattoo across his hipbone. The spindly,
delicate lines dipped below his waistband in an inescapably tantalizing way.
The tee shirt he was wearing was surprisingly simple, a white v-neck with the
sleeves rolled up to display his lightly muscled, tanned arms.
I could feel his eyes on me, watching me
watching him. Something about his presence made my stomach twist, as if the
radiance of his appearance did nothing but illuminate everything that was just
average about me.
Jessica crossed the room, pinching me as she
did. I glanced down at her, the curiosity in her expression matching my own. We
had nothing to lose by letting him embarrass himself, I supposed.
“Fine,” I sighed, shrugging out of my guitar.
“Give it your best shot.”
I could feel Dylan and Ash’s disbelieving
stares as I sat back down, but they didn’t argue. They made their way back to
the table, throwing glances over their shoulders at JJ. He nodded once before
pulling his phone from his pocket. He turned to the docking station, his shirt
riding up as he leaned over. Ash elbowed me, winking and blowing kisses behind
his back. I rolled my eyes at her, folded my arms and focused my gaze on a spot
on the wall behind JJ’s head.
The beat of his chosen song filled the room as
he turned back to face us with a silver hip flask in his hand that he had
seemingly produced out of thin air. He kept his eyes on me as he took a quick
sip before tucking the flask into his back pocket.
I vaguely recognized the song—a radio friendly
pop song with lyrics that were much darker than the slickly produced track
suggested. As it turns out, JJ Keswick was just full of surprises.
He didn’t just sing the song, he owned it, the
whisky tainted rasp of his voice rising and falling perfectly in line with the
backing track. He didn’t miss a beat, didn’t falter, his gold tipped eyelashes
fluttering against his flushed cheeks as if he had spent years seducing people
with his voice alone.
I could tell that I wasn’t the only one that
had been caught off guard by him. Jessica had gone completely still, her eyes
impossibly wide and fixed on JJ. Ash had slumped a little in her chair, gaze
half lidded and glossed lips parted ever so slightly, utterly disarmed. Even
Dylan was making something that could have been an expression, the corners of
his mouth at least two millimeters higher than usual.
The spell was broken as soon as the track faded
out. JJ grinned at us, his confidence blinding. He knew he was good, just like
he knew he was gorgeous, his talent mirrored in our stunned expressions like
the flawless reflection he no doubt spent hours preening over.
“Well, that was . . .” Jessica began, looking
at me as if hoping I was still coherent enough to string together an adequate
response.
I was overwhelmed by how good he had been. He
was the best singer I’d heard in a long time. Listening to him had lulled me
into a new daydream—Daydream Three, where the half-empty rooms of Daydream Two
were replaced with arenas full to the brim with screaming fans, each of us
bathed in the glow of a thousand camera flashes as JJ dazzled everyone with all
the swagger and seduction that came naturally to the greatest frontmen.
“Thanks for coming in,” I said, slipping into
customer service mode. “We’ll let you know.”
He clearly wasn’t prepared for that response,
and the mask of confidence cracked at the edges of his faltering grin.
Review
Sometimes we grow up faster than the rest of the world is
ready for. In Jack & JJ’s case that’s what happened to them.
Everyone loves JJ. Everyone wants to be with JJ. He’s that
guy when you were in high school that you hoped everyday would just notice you
once. You hoped he would finally see you and then, like lightening, would be
struck with an epiphany that you were made for him. Yeah, so everyone wished
that of JJ.
Jack is a creative, lanky, musical genius with the greatest
friends in the whole world. He too loves JJ, but Jack falls in love with the
other JJ… to understand what I mean you have to read the book.
This is more than a high school romance. It’s about building
a future, deciding who’s going to be a part of it, and owning that. It’s
realizing that sometimes we need to walk away from the comfort, and brave the
brash world. The unknown is terrifying, but sometimes when your hand is
clutching someone you love, it’s not as crippling. Sometimes, it gives you
wings and you get to fly over all the broken parts.
This is a gorgeous tale. I love how it made me feel when it
ended. I love how I know I’ll never forget it.
Author Bio
Victoria Kinnaird
is 28 years old and lives in Glasgow, Scotland. She graduated from the
University of Strathclyde in 2009 with a Bachelor of the Arts degree in
Journalism, Creative Writing and English Lit. Victoria has been writing since
she was 15 years old. She loves rock music, and 11 of her tattoos are related
to bands that she loves!
Victoria's debut novel "The Red Sun Rises" was released in September 2013 by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing. The groundbreaking novel, which was praised for featuring an all male teen love triangle, became an Amazon international bestseller on release day. The couple at the heart of the story, Eren and Corbijn, were nominated for the Young Adult and Teen Reader's Book Couple of the Year award in 2013 and were the only gay couple to be featured.
"The Red Sun Rises" was the first book in The Red Sun Rises Trilogy. The second book in the series, "The Red Sun Rises: Fire and Ash" was released in March 2014 and went on to win The Kindle Hub's Best YA LGBT Book award in 2014. "(Birth) Day of the Dead" a standalone novella from The Red Sun Rises universe, was released on November 1st 2014.
The last book in the series, "The Red Sun Rises: Seven Letters" was released by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing in March 2015. The book went on to become an international bestseller, hitting #1 on Amazon UK's YA LGBT chart on release day.
Victoria's next release will be "Fake It", a YA rock and roll romance and the first book in a new series called "The Keswick Chronicles".
The characters from "Fake It" made their first appearance in "The One and Only", a short story featured in Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly's Fractured Fairy Tales Anthology. The anthology was released on December 3rd, 2014. "Fake It" will be released on January 23rd 2016.
Victoria's debut novel "The Red Sun Rises" was released in September 2013 by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing. The groundbreaking novel, which was praised for featuring an all male teen love triangle, became an Amazon international bestseller on release day. The couple at the heart of the story, Eren and Corbijn, were nominated for the Young Adult and Teen Reader's Book Couple of the Year award in 2013 and were the only gay couple to be featured.
"The Red Sun Rises" was the first book in The Red Sun Rises Trilogy. The second book in the series, "The Red Sun Rises: Fire and Ash" was released in March 2014 and went on to win The Kindle Hub's Best YA LGBT Book award in 2014. "(Birth) Day of the Dead" a standalone novella from The Red Sun Rises universe, was released on November 1st 2014.
The last book in the series, "The Red Sun Rises: Seven Letters" was released by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing in March 2015. The book went on to become an international bestseller, hitting #1 on Amazon UK's YA LGBT chart on release day.
Victoria's next release will be "Fake It", a YA rock and roll romance and the first book in a new series called "The Keswick Chronicles".
The characters from "Fake It" made their first appearance in "The One and Only", a short story featured in Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly's Fractured Fairy Tales Anthology. The anthology was released on December 3rd, 2014. "Fake It" will be released on January 23rd 2016.
Twitter: www.twitter.com/v_kinnaird
Website: www.victoriakinnaird.com
Giveaway
Victoria Kinnaird will goft someone with a hell of a lot of books
You'll win this ebook Fake It! AND Her entire Red Sun Rises Series (3 ebooks)
THAT'S FOUR BOOKS!
Simply enter the rafflecopter below!
Contest will end on February 2nd.
WInner will be contacted via email so be sure to check your email.
Thank you & Good luck!
I went to an all girls school so I didn't meet anyone in school but I did have a huge crush on I guy I used to see every morning on my way to school.
ReplyDeleteNo real crushes at school, but I did like Keanu Reeves if that counts :)
ReplyDelete