Blurb
Sound is an abstract concept for most people. We spend our lives blocking out the static in order to focus on what we believe is important. But what if, when the clarity fades into silence, it's the obscure background noise that you would give anything to hold on to?
Blurb
I've always been a fighter. With parents who barely managed to stay out of jail and two little brothers who narrowly avoided foster care, I became skilled at dodging the punches life threw at me. Growing up, I didn’t have anything I could call my own, but from the moment I met Eliza Reynolds, she was always mine. I became utterly addicted to her and the escape from reality we provided each other. Throughout the years, she had boyfriends and I had girlfriends, but there wasn't a single night that I didn’t hear her voice.
You see, meeting the love of my life at age thirteen was never part of my plan. However, neither was gradually going deaf at the age of twenty-one.
They both happened anyway.
Now, I'm on the ropes during the toughest battles of my life.
Fighting for my career.
Fighting the impending silence.
Fighting for her.
Every night, just before falling asleep, she sighs as a final conscious breath leaves her.
I think that's the sound I'll miss the most.
5
Fighting Doodle Stars
Review by Natasha Gentile
So as
most of you know I’m in love with Aly Martinez.
I am actually more in love with her stories.
I am constantly very scared as to what is to come out of her brilliant mind. So very scared, but then again I’m so very
excited. She didn’t let me down with
this one. I was honored
to be her beta for this book. I will say that
the only thing that I actually told her was OMG… OMG… Teaser for this… This line
rocks. I'm not sure that I was the best beta, but I
loved every second of it. It’s not often
that I get to reread the book to review and I have to say that I loved it even
more the second time. Here is my journey
with Till and Doodle. Oops I mean Eliza!
When
we first meet Till Page he is the ripe old age of 13. He was having the worst day ever, he's from the wrong side of the tracks, his family's
always scrapping to get by. He’s looking
for refuge; he’s looking to get away from reality; just for a little
while. Little did he know that when he
climbed into that window in an abandoned building that's when he was going to go
down for the count.
When I was thirteen years old, I met Till Page in a condemned
apartment one building over from my own.
I immediately recognized him from school. It had been hard not to-he’d been gorgeous
even as a boy. It was long before he
found the gym or his tattered clothing came back in style. Back then, he was just a scrawny kid with
shaggy hair and a wicked grin.
So
imagine if you may, a 13 year old girl, escaping her own reality sitting in a
room all by herself, with her parents too busy for her. She's always
listening to them argue about money. She goes to this little paradise just to
draw. Just her and her sketchpad and a few
colored pencils. This oasis that she
built for herself to block out the real world, and in crawls...Till Page. I’ve been a thirteen-year-old girl and the
only thing that crawled into my window was a mountain of ants!
I didn’t know it then, but he had never been more right. After that, there weren’t many tomorrows that
I didn’t see Till Page.
So that
chance encounter started them on a friendship that no one knew about. It was theirs and theirs alone. For the next three years every day they would
meet in their secret oasis and talk about the future. Three years actually, three years that their
friendship was only in that little room, until the day Eliza decided to go on a
date.
Suddenly, a pair of unfamiliar, hazel eyes caught my
attention. Oh, I knew every single curve
on his ridiculously attractive face. I’d
drawn each on of them more times than I cared to admit. But inside this building, I didn’t know those
eyes from the man on the moon.
So what
is it going to take for Till to finally admit his love for Eliza? You see what you don’t know is that Till,
well he’s a little Alpha in training. He
worries about everyone that he loves, his top priorities are his brothers and
of course his Doodle.
She had always been beautiful.
Even at thirteen, her deep, ink-blue eyes had captivated me. Her shoulder-length, brown hair was perfectly
straight, but she nervously played with the ends so often that it had formed a
permanent curl in the front. Her fair
skin had a sprinkle of freckles I could map out from memory alone. And her body…Jesus, her body had been made
for me. She was naturally thin but a
small curve rounded her hips. Those
curves taunted my hands on a daily basis.
I was at least a foot taller than she was and probably had her by almost
a hundred pounds, but inside, she was the strong one.
We
are brought into their love. We see them
falling so deeply and wholeheartedly in love with each other, their
circumstances just making their love and bond stronger. You are yelling at your kindle, yelling at
him, just tell her, just tell her you love her, just do it. Put her and yourself out of that misery. You deserve happiness also. You’re holding your breathe and your eyes are
reading faster than you could think possible, because you know that once they
actually accept that they love each other, well then it’ll be all ok right?
“There is no way I could ever leave you, Till. I.
Love. You,” I breathed, moving closer. It could have been an innocent and friendly
declaration of love.
But, once again, it absolutely wasn’t.
That was all it took; his mouth crashed against mine. Finally, those sculpted lips that had haunted
my dreams-both day and night-moved against mine. It was needy and frantic.
Oh. My.
God. This is what I’m talking
about. This is the love that they both
feel. This is what 3 years of friendship
does. You fall in love with your best
friend, you fall in love with someone who knows all your secrets, you fall in
love with someone who knows your dreams.
This should be it. Except this is
Aly Martinez we are talking about. I
should have known not to let my heart rejoice.
Because just like she filled it, she then turned around and gutted
me. Not only me, but Eliza and
Till. Why couldn’t she just let them be??
What you
don’t know is that Till is fighting; he is fighting for his brothers, he is
fighting for himself, he is fighting for Eliza, he is fighting to stay within
the reality that he has made for himself.
But when push comes to shove can he really allow himself to be with the one that
has been there with him through every step that he took? But can he actually see himself without his
Doodle?
“I’ve been fighting for years to keep us inside the safety of my
comfort zone, but during that time, everything changed. You changed, the world changed, our situation
changed, our desires changed. But I
wasn’t willing to change with them. I’m
sorry. I’m an idiot.”
Boom,
just like that he’s claimed her. Like he
always knew he would, because Eliza- she doesn’t care that they live paycheck to
paycheck, she doesn’t care that he comes with his brothers as a package deal,
she doesn’t care about anything but him.
No matter how bad the fight will be.
The one thing she knows is that she will be in his corner each and every
time, but will he hear her or will he be fighting the silence?
Fighting Silence
*Excerpt*
"That
wasn't yours to take away," he exploded into the otherwise silent night.
His words echoed off the surrounding buildings, each wave slicing me to the
quick all over again. "That was our
place. Not yours." His voice cracked right alongside my heart.
"Yeah,
well, there was a lot of stuff that wasn't yours to take either." I held
his gaze, desperately trying to be strong, but as his eyes grew wide, I
whimpered.
His long
legs strode forward, stopping only inches away from me. He was crowding me, but
he still leaned in closer to my face. "There is nothing in this world that
was ever more mine than you," he stated. Though it was the absolute truth,
I wished with all my heart that it were a lie.
"Till,"
I cried, swiping the tears from my eyes.
"Why!"
he shouted, causing his muscles to tense under the force. "Goddamn it! I
needed that place."
Porch
lights flashed on from the surrounding apartments, illuminating not only the
dark but also my rage.
I shoved
my hands into his chest. "What about what I needed? You left! I waited in
that fucking apartment for weeks."
He didn't
budge, but my bare feet slipped, sending me toward the ground. Impossibly fast,
Till's hand snaked out and caught my arm. I didn't let his chivalrous gesture
douse my fire. I had six months’ worth of words to say to the man I was
irrevocably in love with.
"You
took what you wanted. Then you left me."
"Doodle,"
he whispered.
I had
been perilously close to the edge of insanity, and with one single word, he’d
pushed me over.
I lost it
completely.
Pounding
my fists against his chest, I screamed at the top of my lungs, "It's
Eliza! My name is fucking Eliza! Not Doodle!" I spun to march away, but
Till's arms folded around me, lifting me off my feet to restrain me.
I was
miniscule compared to him. There was no use in fighting, but I still kicked my
legs, irrationally desperate to get away from him—but only because I knew I
couldn't keep him for forever.
"Stop
it!" he growled into my ear. "I know your Goddamn name—probably
better than I know my own."
About the Author
Born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, Aly Martinez is a stay-at-home mom to four crazy kids under the age of five, including a set of twins. Currently living in South Carolina, she passes what little free time she has reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a glass of wine at her side.
After some encouragement from her friends, Aly decided to add “Author” to her ever-growing list of job titles. Five books later, she shows no signs of slowing. So grab a glass of Chardonnay, or a bottle if you’re hanging out with Aly, and join her aboard the crazy train she calls life.
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