29 May 2014

Before He Was Famous by Becky Wicks





Book Info
Title: Before He Was Famous
Author: Beck Wicks
Release Date: May 29, 2014

Goodreads Link:

Before He Was Famous Blurb
Falling in love with your best friend isn’t always a great idea, especially when he’s Noah Lockton - the sexiest, most famous new talent on the planet. When 21-year-old small-town photographer Chloe Campbell is offered the chance of a lifetime – to join her celebrity childhood friend Noah on tour as an exclusive blogger for a New York magazine – she’s certain both have put what happened four years ago behind them. But his eyes still burn; his voice is still a jackhammer to her heartstrings; all his songs are about her. Is it possible that that night still haunts them both?
The music industry is a machine, spinning hype and rumors as much as his records. It’s not just Noah’s girlfriends who’ve got it in for Chloe (there’s no stopping the Twitter-obsessed, cat-loving pop-star Courtney Lentini for starters). Pretty soon, the jealousy and media frenzy surrounding these so-called-friends takes a life-changing turn and it seems making love means making enemies at every turn. When tragedy threatens to pull the final curtain on their relationship, both Chloe and Noah must make a choice. As much as this world leaves them starstruck, is living their dream really worth living without each other?
A story of lifelong friendships, love and hope, set in a world of celebrity, fame and social media gone very, very wrong.


Author Bio
Becky Wicks is a HarperCollins author going indie! Itchy feet has led her to live and work all over the world since leaving England at age 21, including NYC, Sydney, Bali, South America and Dubai. Right now she’s scribbling the second book in the HotFlush series in Vietnam, and will soon be in Vancouver if any hot Canadian men want to make her a cup of tea?
Becky has also written three funny travel books about her time in Dubai, Bali and South America (HarperCollins). Her first book, Burqalicious - The Dubai Diaries, her second book, Balilicious - The Bali Diaries and her third, Latinalicious -The South America Diaries are out now as ebooks.
Becky has also written a comedy romance with author Sarah Alderson under the name Lola Salt, called The Extraordinary Life of Lara Craft (not Croft) which should raise a giggle or two... think Bridget Jones if Jackie Collins had written it!
Follow her on twitter at bex_wicks and her blog www.beckywicks.com

Author Links:
Twitter: bex_wicks

Excerpts – Pick one

Excerpt 1. Chloe.
Let me guess. When you say the name Noah Lockton, you see him standing with one of a hundred guitars around his neck, glistening with sweat in the glare of the stage lights.
You see him grinning, maybe on a pap shot, maybe snapped on a red carpet, smiling at you from the middle of a magazine. You see him in the spotlight; hot in more ways than one, right?
You see shouting headlines, hear the shrieks of infatuated fans, visualize the vacuous presenters buffing up his ego on all those TV channels and him batting away compliments like they're bees. You see bulbs flashing, neon flickering, videos playing on loop everywhere. They're in the gym, on the seatback screens of airplanes; in your Facebook sidebar when you're messaging your friends.
You hear his music, obviously. How could you not? It's everywhere. His voice is everywhere. You know the stats. Noah Lockton. Twenty-three. Five-foot-eleven, messy brown curls and steel-gray eyes. Pisces. You think you know him, this superstar, guitar-playing rock star.
But there are some things you don't know about Noah Lockton.
You don't know how proud he was that time, to have made me a cake out of Lego, mud and toothpaste. How when he was eight, he sat up in the tree house for three whole days after Prairie died. I was freaking out that if the dog fell down from heaven no one else would be as close to the sky to catch him. Noah just didn't want anyone else to see him cry. So we sat up there together, neither of us saying a word. Just holding hands.
You don't know how crazy he made me, teaching me guitar till my fingers bled. How we perfected the art of burping the entire first Britney Spears single together after four cans of Diet Coke and convinced a radio station to put us on air.
You don't know how his arms felt wrapped around me when my world came crashing down; how I clung to the feeling of him inside me, filling me up; bringing me back to life again when all I could feel otherwise was numb.
You don't know how we avoid the subject now.
When we were kids, his dad said his eyes were so shiny in all my photos because of all the stars inside them.
Noah was always going to shine.
He was always going to be mine.
But sometimes even I forget the way things were before he was famous.


Excerpt 2. Chloe.

Madeline places her glasses back on her nose, studying me seriously. 'I see it in Noah, the way he looks at you. Chloe, I've seen that look in a man's eyes. It's more than desire for your body. It's the secret world you've built together in spite of all of this - that's what he can't lose. You're his normality. You're a part of him, and he is a part of you. That's what makes this frightening, but that's what makes it right.'
I can't help it now, I'm biting my cheeks, holding my breath to stop from crying. She hit a nerve. Actually, she pretty much battered it black and blue. I feel my chin wobble and I cover my face as Madeline walks over, places a hand on my shoulder, brushes back my bangs. 'I'm sorry,' she says, but I shake my head, squeeze her hand.
No one's ever sat me down and hammered this into me before. No one's ever laid it all bare, exactly what I could lose, because no one knows what we did. But he's my best friend. I sent him away four years ago to keep us safe, not just because I felt guilty.
That night my dad died I sobbed and sobbed as he did the same into my hair, my skin, my mouth and that was the first time in my life I think I really ever, truly appreciated Noah; not just as my friend and a guy I'd just made crazy, passionate love to, but as a necessity in my world. In that moment he was everything I had and could never lose; my sun, my moon, my star, a rock, a chest in which I could store every single secret and trust implicitly with the key.
'I can't lose him,' I say.
'Chloe, my darling girl, how can you lose what you've never had?' she replies.



Excerpt 3. Noah.

'Noah!' she yells again. 'You have to spin for aunt Madeline, remember?'
It feels like so long since I saw Chloe laughing and something lifts from my shoulders almost instantly. Aunt Mads told us she and her boyfriend danced and span in the rain on the deck of a ship once, just because she'd seen it in a movie and always wanted to do it. Then, when it rained, she dragged us to her yard in The Bronx and we all span around till we were soaked and hysterical, doing stupid high kicks on the grass.
I can't take my eyes off her as she spins and spins and spins. And I feel it hit me. It smacks me hard; the thought that Chloe is the most beautiful creature I've ever seen, right here, right now, spinning like a figurine in a silver snow-globe.
She bounds up to me, giddy and still laughing. Raindrops are careening down her cheeks and her eyes are huge now. 'Come fly with me, Peter,' she breathes, reaching for the hand that isn't clasped around the umbrella. 'Or are you too grown up for that now?'
The wind picks up and clutches at her dress. I reach out instinctively to her face, run a thumb along her cheek, swiping at raindrops. 'You're drunk,' I whisper, but even as she frowns and rolls her eyes at me I have to smile because I see her; the kid who held my hand when my dog died, who gave names to the snails in her yard, who made me jump about her bedroom carpet like it was an ocean full of islands.
I see the seventeen-year-old who clung to me when her dad died. The secrets we left in the branches; the way our desperate lips searched frantically for some modicum of sense as we let our minds go out the window and fucked with more passion, more heart than I've ever experienced with anyone else in my life; even if she was drunk, even if we were grieving. It doesn't change what it meant to me.
Fuck. She's amazing. I love her. Why the hell did I let her go back to Cooper? Why the hell did I not just tell her sooner? Would it even have made a difference?
She's tugging on my arm and I realize I haven't spoken yet. 'Chloe...' I start. But the flash strikes us like lightning. I'd know it anywhere and it has nothing to do with the weather.
'Paparazzi,' we say in sync, and I grab her hand, pull her with me as we both break into a run.


Giveaway Info:    

10 eCopies of Before He Was Famous
a Rafflecopter giveaway

No comments:

Post a Comment