Title: Against the Wall
Release date: February 2nd, 2016
Author: Jill Sorenson
Loveswept
About the book:
Fans of Katie McGarry, Simone Elkeles, and Tammara Webber will love Against the Wall! As teenagers, they fell for each other despite the odds. But now that Eric and Meghan are all grown up, they’re reunited by fierce passion and dangerous secrets.
Eric Hernandez is the bad boy of every schoolgirl’s fantasies—and every mother’s nightmares. But after serving time for manslaughter, he’s ready to turn his life around. He just needs a chance to prove himself as a professional tattoo artist. The one thing that keeps him going is the memory of the innocent beauty he loved and left behind.
Meghan Young’s world isn’t as perfect as it looks. The preacher’s daughter is living a lie, especially now that Eric is back. Tougher, harder, and sexier than ever, he might be the only person she can trust. But there’s no telling what he’ll do to protect her if he learns the truth, and that’s a risk Meghan won’t let him take. And yet, back in the arms of the troubled boy with the artist’s soul, Meghan can’t help surrendering to the man he’s become.
Eric Hernandez is the bad boy of every schoolgirl’s fantasies—and every mother’s nightmares. But after serving time for manslaughter, he’s ready to turn his life around. He just needs a chance to prove himself as a professional tattoo artist. The one thing that keeps him going is the memory of the innocent beauty he loved and left behind.
Meghan Young’s world isn’t as perfect as it looks. The preacher’s daughter is living a lie, especially now that Eric is back. Tougher, harder, and sexier than ever, he might be the only person she can trust. But there’s no telling what he’ll do to protect her if he learns the truth, and that’s a risk Meghan won’t let him take. And yet, back in the arms of the troubled boy with the artist’s soul, Meghan can’t help surrendering to the man he’s become.
Excerpt
I
didn’t want a party.
I’ve been out three
months, living in the court-mandated halfway house in Chino Hills. I did thirty
months of hard time and I’ll be on parole for another thirteen—if I stay out of
trouble.
Easier said than done.
Today is my first day back
in Chula Vista, the border town where I was born. It’s the only place I’ve ever
called home. The only place I’ve ever been, besides
Mexico. And prison. I’m still down for my barrio, Castle Park. I can hold my
head high on these streets. I’ll probably die on these streets.
I told April not to make a
big deal out of my homecoming, but I can see the decorations as soon as Jenny
opens the door. Pink fucking balloons, like my prison release is a baby shower.
I gave birth to a violent criminal record. Congrats!
Jenny is my niece, the
daughter of my dead brother, Raul. She’s eight years old and cute as hell. I’ve
only seen her a few times since I got locked up. April brought her to visit on
my twenty-third birthday, about nine months ago. My eyes feel funny when I look
at her.
She doesn’t hug me or say
a word. She just smiles shyly, revealing a gummy gap between her front teeth.
It reminds me of Chucho, one of my cellmates. He had missing teeth and a goofy
smile that lit up his tattooed face.
“I’m looking for a little
girl named Jenny,” I say. “She’s about this tall.” I hold my palm at my side,
indicating a shorter kid.
“I’m Jenny,” she says,
giggling.
“You can’t be! You’re too
big.”
She steps aside to let me
in. I set my backpack by the door. I took the bus from Chino Hills to the Chula
Vista transit station and walked the last six blocks to the house. April is
standing a few feet away next to her husband. She’s already crying.
Jee-sus.
How am I supposed to hold
it together when she’s falling apart? I clear my throat and focus on Jenny
again. She’s wearing a green dress. Her dark, shiny hair has pink ribbons in
it. She’s the spitting image of her mother. Pretty and sweet, untainted by my
brother’s bad blood.
I crouch down and remove a
hastily wrapped present from my backpack. “I’m sorry I missed your birthday.”
Birthdays, plural. I’d
missed three of them.
It’s just one of those balero cup toys, the kind with the ball on a string, but Jenny
acts like it’s the best gift ever. Her delighted expression makes my eyes burn
again. I have to take a deep breath to recover.
“What do you say?” April
prompts.
“Thank you,” Jenny says, a
dimple appearing in her cheek.
I straighten to greet
April next. Her face is rounder, her body lush in a new way. She’s wearing a
flowery top that clings to her breasts but hangs like a drape over her middle.
When she steps forward to embrace me, her stomach bumps into mine.
“You’ve gained some
weight,” I say in Spanish, a kinder language for pointing out such things.
She releases me with a
laugh, wiping the tears from her eyes. Then she rests a hand on the gentle
slope of her belly. She’s always been beautiful. Her pregnancy accentuates her
best qualities, giving her softer features and fuller breasts.
Noah steps forward and
slides his arm around her. His big hand covers hers, protective. He’s noticed
my appraisal of his wife’s new curves, but he’s too pleased with the proof of
his virility to glare at me.
He’s okay, for a cop.
Officer Young spoke on my
behalf at the sentencing hearing. If he hadn’t, the judge might have slapped me
with ten years, the maximum for manslaughter. Instead I got the minimum, minus
six months.
I’m lucky to be out. Lucky
to be alive.
“Looks like you’ve been
busy,” I say to Noah. I shake his hand and pat him on the back, as if he’s
accomplished this feat on his own. He laughs and April rolls her eyes at us.
I’m grinning from ear to ear, happy for them both.
“We’re due in August,”
April says.
“Boy or a girl?”
“We don’t know. We want it
to be a surprise.”
A surprise. Like this
party. In addition to pink balloons, the living room is decorated with pale
blue streamers and a handmade sign that says welcome home, eric.
But this isn’t my home, and it never will be. It’s Noah’s home, and April’s and
Jenny’s.
And . . . Meghan’s.
I realize that I’m
searching the background for her. My smile slips and my chest tightens with
unease.
Meghan won’t be happy to
see me. The last time I saw her, when she’d visited the jail where I was
processed, I said a lot of nasty things to her. I said she was an easy lay,
that I’d had better, that I didn’t care about her.
Lies.
Noah doesn’t seem mad at
me for disrespecting his little sister, so I’m assuming she didn’t share the
details of our breakup. Or maybe he’s so high on baby-making with his hot wife
that he can’t be brought down. They look great together, like a perfect family
from a TV show. Except that April and Jenny are of Mexican heritage, same as
me.
I feel a mild sort of
resentment over the situation: Tall, handsome white guy—a gang unit cop, no
less—swoops in and snaps up one of the nicest, most beautiful girls from the
hood. Then I remember that I fucked his sister. And probably broke her heart,
if only for a few brief weeks during an already tumultuous time.
“Meghan’s not here yet,”
April says, as if she can read my thoughts.
I shrug it off. “I said I
didn’t want a party.”
“This isn’t a party. It’s
just us.”
About the author:
Jill Sorenson is the
RITA-nominated author of more than a dozen romantic-suspense novels. She has a
degree in literature and writing from California State University. Her books
have been selected as Red-Hot Reads byCosmopolitan magazine, and
have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library
Journal. Sorenson currently lives in the San Diego area with her family.
She’s a soccer mom who loves nature, coffee, reading, Twitter, and reality TV.
Giveaway
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Review
I've had the pleasure to read this amazing debut a few months ago. Do you want to read my opinion? Click here and see my review.
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