Whiskey on Our Shoes a Contemporary New Adult Romance by Tonya Preece ➱ Book Tour with Guest Post, Deleted Scene and a Giveaway
When the attention-avoiding daughter of a celebrity couple and a Texas cowboy college student with his own troubles fall hard for each other, they must face their truths together or be torn apart by a media storm.
Whiskey on Our Shoes
by Tonya Preece
Genre: Contemporary New Adult Romance
Eva
dodges the fans, media, and gossip that follow her supermodel mom and
rock star family members by wearing disguises. After an aimless gap
year, she struggles to figure out what she wants from life. She moves
in with her famous guitar god brother in Austin while he recovers
from a drunken stage stunt accident and tries to stay sober. When a
hot Texas cowboy named Alex takes Eva by surprise, she risks her
safety and security of anonymity by letting him into her
unconventional life.
Alex
is captivated by Eva and promises to protect her privacy. Yet he has
a secret of his own—the fling he had with an older woman is fraught
with scandalous potential for him and now Eva. He broke free of that
mistake months ago, or so he thought. As things heat up with Eva, his
old flame returns and won’t leave him alone.
Just
when Alex thinks he has the reins on the situation, his ex teams up
with a gossip reporter hell-bent on invading Eva’s privacy. The
resulting exposé, with a sly spin on a recent encounter with his ex,
is Alex’s worst nightmare, and Eva’s unsure what to believe. Can
she face the world with Alex at her side or will she return into
hiding?
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Excerpt 3 (777 words): Eva’s POV, Ch. 15, pp. 54-56
Checking
that the wig hides all my blonde hair, I ask Mom, “Who am I today?”
Her
head whips around, and she gasps. “I almost forgot. How about…Bella?”
“Works
for me.” I slide on a pair of oversized sunglasses, and she puts on a floppy,
wide-brimmed hat.
She’s told me before how being spotted in public doesn’t concern her
unless there’s a chance of me getting drawn into the attention. On the few
occasions I’ve shown up in snapshots with the celebs in our family, I looked
slightly different each time, thanks to various disguises. And in those rare
photos, I’m in the background, facing away from the camera.
Managers and
salespeople create a subtle barrier between us and other shoppers, but my goal
is to be invisible to them as well. Not so easy when they give us the
royal treatment behind the scenes. I trust they won’t take pictures or video,
but a lot of my energy’s spent pretending to be someone else. I’m rusty at
avoiding curious stares. It’s more exhausting than I remembered.
As Mom browses from
display to display, I find it easier to stay engrossed in a game on my phone.
Staring at the screen, my face is shielded by the tresses of the brunette wig.
“Earth to Bella.” Mom
waves a hand in front of my eyes. “Isn’t it cute?”
I glance at the summer
dress she’s holding. “Yeah, it’s nice,” I say, and my gaze falls right back to
my phone. She must not notice my lack of excitement and moves on to another
dress, chattering non-stop.
“Ooh, Bella, check this
out.” “Hey, Bella, I could see you in this.” “Bella, do you like this dress?”
She won’t stop, and I have an absurd sense of not being me anymore. How
the hell should I know what Bella likes?
The next time Mom calls
me Bella, I wince and squeeze my eyes shut.
“Are you okay?” Mom
touches my arm.
“I’m not feeling well.”
I press my fingers to my temples.
She guides me into a
curtained dressing room. “Try not to puke or faint or anything.” She lingers by
the entry, eying me warily. “Are you good now?”
“I will be. You should
keep shopping. I just need a minute.” I sit on a bench in the small space.
“Maybe you’re
dehydrated. I’ll have someone bring you a drink.”
I close my eyes and
lean on the wall, craving the freedom I’ve enjoyed without Mom.
My heart sinks, though.
I love Mom, and I’ve missed her, but is this what Lor means when he talks about
me finding independence?
“Excuse me, miss, are
you Bella?” someone says.
I open the curtain.
There’s a lady, mid-twenties, offering me a bottle of water. Grateful, I take
it, and she has an eager, starstruck look in her eyes.
“It must be cool to
hang out with Sloane Silver, huh? How do you know her?”
“She’s a friend of my
mom’s.” I take a long, cold drink.
“Wow, where’re you
from?”
Cornered, I mutter the
first thing to pop into my head. “I’m from Budapest.”
Her eyebrows rise,
probably from disbelief since I don’t have an accent.
Oops. I stand.
Time to leave.
The lady moves aside,
and Mom’s standing there, the color drained from her face. She stares in my
direction, her eyes glazed over.
I approach her. “What’s
wrong?”
She startles and snaps
out of whatever made her look like she’d seen a ghost. “Oh, nothing.” Her gaze
flits to the lady. “We’re good here. Thanks for your help.”
The lady makes herself
scarce as Mom shoos me back into the dressing room and closes the curtain.
“Eva, what made you
think of…that place?” Mom whispers.
“What place? Oh,
Budapest?” I shrug. “It came to mind because of the postcard. The one in Lor’s
living room.” I note the clenching of her jaw as she turns away. “Does the
postcard mean something? When I asked Lor, he wouldn’t say.”
“If he didn’t tell you,
it must be private.” She faces me again, with a tight smile. “You’ve hardly
shopped for yourself today, and I want to buy you something. Try these
on.” She hangs the dresses she’s holding on a hook in the dressing room.
I absentmindedly flip
through them, waiting for her to leave before I strip.
“Ev—Bella,” she
whispers. “Why are you checking price tags?”
I shrug. “I guess it
helps me decide if something’s worth it or not.”
“Worth it?” She
eyes me, head to toe, like I’m a stranger. And I do feel strange. Maybe she
doesn’t know me anymore. Do I even know myself?
Deleted Scene
This was from a pre-pandemic
version in which Eva’s brother Lor is dying of liver disease and multiple
sclerosis. I cut this scene and changed Lor’s struggle to be that he was
recovering from a drunken stage stunt, rather than facing imminent death,
because of a literary agent’s reply to a query. She said it was too depressing
during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, and I had to agree. The deleted
scene was at the point in the story when Eva and Alex’s relationship was on the
rocks.
Around
the time I consider calling Alex, Lor gets ill. Like really ill—with
pneumonia.
Dr. B comes to see him and makes
suggestions for new levels of palliative care.
“I’m sorry, Eva,” he says before he
leaves. “But I don’t think he’s got much longer.”
And I know, in my heart, he’s right.
So, I spend as much time with Lor as possible, guiltily trying to make up for
the times I wasn’t here and should’ve been.
He sleeps a lot, doped up on meds for
pain and infection control.
On Thursday, I call Nadine. “There’s a
lot going on right now,” I tell her vaguely. “I won’t be able to volunteer
today or tomorrow.”
“Take whatever time you need,” she
says. She doesn’t press for an explanation, which is good because I can’t bring
myself to tell her that, on top of the bad publicity I’ve been dealing with,
Lor is literally about to die.
I don’t leave his side for more than a
few minutes at a time for bathroom breaks.
“Thank you for sticking around, Eva,”
he says, his speech halting and labored. “I know the truth about Mom was hard.
Have you talked to her?”
“No,” I answer quietly. I wanted to
call her last night, to update her on Lor’s condition, but Jojo said Mom had
told her, “Don’t call me until it’s over. I don’t want to hear about, know
about, or be part of the sad, lingering process.” I thought to myself, what a monster. She’s missing the last
opportunity to see her firstborn child. The last chance to tell him she loves
him. And she’s missing it because it would make her uncomfortable. How selfish.
“Do you want me to call her?” I ask
Lor. “Maybe she’d want to say goodbye after all.”
“We already said our goodbyes that day
she left here in March.” He traces the scar on my hand. “You know, the day this
happened, I wasn’t even supposed to be in charge of you. I wouldn’t have been
drinking otherwise, but Mom dropped you off with me so she could go hook up
with God knows who.”
“Really?” My stomach turns. “Well,
that tracks with what I know of her now. But I never held it against you, you
know?”
“I know. You’re a good person that
way.” He smiles weakly.
Then, knowing I’ll never get another
chance to, I ask, “What was it that you wanted from your father?”
He takes a long time to answer. His
eyes are closed, and I check for the millionth time to make sure he’s
breathing. He is. And he finally says, “I wanted him to be a father to me. That’s all. You’re lucky, Eva. You’ve got two
father figures who love you.”
“Counting you, I’ve had three. I love
you, Lor.”
“I love you too, little sis.” He
squeezes my hand, closes his eyes, and a minute later, takes his last, ragged
breath. And just like that, Lor is … gone. Free. No longer in pain.
But my heart rips apart from missing
him already. Missing his smile. His laugh and everything that could have been.
I drop my head down, forehead resting on our clasped hands, and shed way more
tears than I expected to. I’ve had lots of time to get used to the idea of him
dying, but it hurts like hell anyway.
Whiskey on Our Shoes Playlist
1. Welcome
to the Jungle by Guns N’ Roses
2. That
Something by With Confidence
3. Out
of Nowhere Girl by Luke Bryan
4. I’ll
Be Your Small Town by Cole Swindell
5. Think
of You by Mayday Parade
6. Dopamine
by With Confidence
7. Tennessee
Whiskey by Chris Stapleton
8. Whiskey
Glasses by Morgan Wallan
9. Fly
by Sleeping With Sirens
Tonya Preece writes romance and contemporary young adult fiction and incorporates music into all her books in one way or another. She lives near Austin, TX where she’s a small business manager for a forensic engineering firm. She and her husband enjoy traveling, live music, wine, and spoiling their fur babies.
As an active SCBWI member since 2015, Tonya has volunteered for several conferences and has served as a critique group facilitator. She joined the Writer’s League of Texas and The Author’s Guild in 2021. She served as the 2022 WriteOnCon Financial Administrator and Critique Boutique Coordinator.
Tonya’s 2022 debut, Whiskey on Our Shoes, was selected for the 2019 #WriteMentor program. One of her YA novels, CLOSER TO THE FLAME, earned her a 2020 scholarship/mentorship with Austin SCBWI and was a finalist at the 2018 Houston SCBWI conference.
An avid consumer of written stories, Tonya reads and/or listens to an average of 75 books a year. Some of her favorite YA authors include Jeff Zentner, Julie Buxbaum, Sarah Dessen, and Robin Benway. In adult romance – Kate Clayborn, Christina Lauren, Helena Hunting, Emily Henry, and Abby Jimenez. Series she tries to keep up to date on: Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum. Recent mainstream faves are Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Five Fun Facts about Tonya that aren’t reading or writing related:
1. She volunteers at a local food pantry, where she’s enjoyed serving weekly since 2017.
2. Her travel bucket list includes Italy, Ireland, and Bora Bora. Australia would be awesome, too!
3. She loves ziplining, indoor skydiving, and rollercoasters.
4. She’s a fan of bands like With Confidence, Broadside, All Time Low, State Champs, Sleeping with Sirens, and As It Is.
5. 5. In her free time, she can be found indulging a jigsaw puzzle habit and/or binging shows like Outer Banks, Never Have I Ever, Downton Abbey, Bridgerton, Good Girls, Veronica Mars, and iZombie.
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