Friday 4 March 2016

BOOK BLITZ & GIVEAWAY - PEARL BY DEIDRE RIORDAN HALL

Title: Pearl 
Author: Deirdre Riordan Hall 
Published by: Skyscape
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Publication date: March 1st 2016

BLURB supplied by Xpresso Book Tours
Run fast and run far, unless you’re fearless. Unless you’re courageous. I’m not, but I’d like to be.
Pearl Jaeger is seventeen and homeless after drugs, poverty, and addiction unraveled the life she shared with JJ, her formerly glamorous rock star mother.
This moment of happiness is fleeting; someone will take it from me.
When tragedy brings a chance to start over at an elite boarding school, she doesn’t hesitate. Yet the only salvation comes from an art teacher as troubled as Pearl, and she faces the stark reality that what she thought she wanted isn’t straightforward.
I trace the outline of my reflection in a window. I am no more than a replica of my mother. This is not the self-portrait I want to paint.
Through the friendships she forms at school—especially with Grant, a boy who shows Pearl what it means to trust and forgive—she begins to see a path not defined by her past. But when confronted with the decision to be courageous or to take the easy way forged by her mother’s failures, which direction will Pearl choose?

PURCHASE LINKS
Amazon 

EXCERPT
From Chapter Two


Sweat and tears intermingle on my mother’s face, and a cut bleeds slowly from the side of her eye.
“Pearl, we gotta get out of here.”
I’ve heard this before. We’ve had to leave abruptly from other situations: lousy boyfriends, landlords she owed rent to, roommates she’d stolen from, and the police.
As the stream of blood reaches her T-shirt, she clutches her side. Her face crumples in agony. “I think I have a broken rib. He hit me with his guitar.”
Everything about this is wrong. I want to wish it all away—go somewhere simple, clean, and faraway, like Antarctica. I’d prefer the cold to the fevered flush of fear running through me. I get to my feet and grab a pair of stretch pants from the floor. I help her into them. As she leans on me, we slowly make our way to the door. In the hall, she falls against the door frame of the bathroom.
“Come on, Mom, let’s go.” She probably needs an ambulance, but who knows how much crack—and whatever else—she has in her system, so I dare not get the police involved. We’ve gone that route, and I don’t want to see her arrested again.
“Wait. Get my purse and some clothing. Pack me a bag. No, never mind. I’ll do it,” she says hoarsely. She gets to her hands and knees and crawls back to her room.
“Mom, come on, let’s just go. I can come back for whatever you need later.” I grip my hands together, my fingers blanching as I hold on tight.
“I have to get a few things,” she whimpers.
“I’ll get them. Tell me what you need,” I say insistently, my vision starting to blur.
She shakes her head, continuing. She wants to get the crack pipe and other drug paraphernalia she has hidden in her room. This scenario is uncomfortably familiar.
I shift from foot to foot. My stomach clenches with anxiety. What if Darren comes back?
Part of me fears what other damage he might do, but the bitter part is that if he comes back with drugs, she’ll do them instead of getting medical attention.
“Mom, let’s go.”
She must have used the bed to pull herself up and stand, because she emerges, staggering on her feet, dragging a duffel bag. “Why don’t you grab some clothes too?”
I scoot past her and stuff a couple of outfits, underwear, and Vogue into my backpack. I scrounged whatever I could this past month, saving every penny, even the ones I found on the ground, to get the latest issue, my lone extravagance. “Ready?” I say when I step back into the hall.
She nods. Step-by-step, we make our way down two of the three flights. She droops on the top of the last one.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
During her teens, Deirdre Riordan Hall traveled throughout the United States and Europe, developing a love for stories and a desire to connect with worlds—imagined or real—on the page. She has written Sugar, To the Sea, Surfaced, and the Follow Your Bliss series. When not spending time with her family, writing, or traveling, Hall is at the beach, pretending to be a mermaid.


AUTHOR LINKS

***GIVEAWAY***
This is a Blitz Wide International Giveaway
The Prize = 3 x print copies of Pearl
Here is the LINK




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