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#BookBlitz–> Letters to Nowhere by Julie Cross

Book & Author Details:

    
Series Title: Letters To Nowhere Series Julie Cross
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

From the International Bestselling Author of the Tempest Series…

Set in the tough world of Elite Gymnastics…

How many dreams can you chase at once?


Even with bad boy, TJ, disrupting their morning workouts, Karen and Stevie’s daily battles with each other are sure to bring both of them closer to a national title at next month’s championships. It’s the kind of feud that creates winning results.


Until a fall from the uneven bars shakes Karen’s rock-solid confidence. Not only does she balk every time she so much as attempts a routine, she’s also facing all this without much support from Jordan. After receiving some bad news, Jordan’s reluctance to listen to reason causes Karen so much frustration she begins to avoid him, needing space
to deal with her own issues. He needs someone to force him to make the right choice, he needs his dad to intervene and Karen knows this, but is torn between her loyalty to Jordan and her concern for her coach’s son. Even though both paths lead to the same person—Jordan—it feels like she’s choosing between two different people.


And then there’s the growing tension between TJ and Stevie. They’re obviously on the verge of either ripping each other’s heads off or ripping each other’s clothes off. It’s hard for either Jordan or Karen to tell where those two are headed. Tension is building from every possible outlet and there’s bound to be an explosion of some kind in the very near future.


Excerpt:

“So…you were a
gymnast?”
            He was silent for several seconds and then shook with
laughter. “Yeah, I was. Nice transition, by the way.”
            “I can only take so much at once, you know?”
            “Believe me, I know.” He jumped to his feet, grinning
down at me before sticking out a hand to help me up. “Bet you can’t throw a
triple back off the end of the tumble track?”
            “And you can?” The tumble track was a long
trampoline—eighty feet to be exact—that landed into the foam pit. It helped
with training tumbling runs for floor routines.
            Jordan kicked off his shoes and socks, emptied his
pockets onto the mats beside the tumble track, and then took off his
long-sleeved white uniform shirt. He stood at the end of the trampoline wearing
only his khaki pants and a leather belt. “Let me warm up with a double first,
okay?”
            “You’re not going to kill yourself, are you?” I asked
wearily. “At least stretch out a little.”
            “Stretching is for wimps, Karen.” With that he took off
at a run, then jumped into his round-off, which was a little slow and sloppy,
plus he didn’t even do a back handspring first. Coach Bentley would never let
me train a triple back from just a round-off. If I did that, I’d never be able
to actually perform it on the floor. Not that I planned on adding triple backs
to my floor choreography anytime soon.
            Despite the rusty lead-up skills, Jordan managed to fling
himself pretty high in the air, and with stuntman-like air sense, he found his
way around the double flip. I clapped loudly, then attempted to whistle with my
fingers in my mouth, but quickly decided that wasn’t a good idea, considering
the fact that he was topless. At least he wore pants today instead of just
boxers.
            He walked over to me after climbing out of the pit and
fake-fell onto the carpet. “I’m so out of shape. No triples today.”
            I jumped to my feet, the rush of adrenaline I had earlier
returning. “I’ll give it a shot for both of us.”
            “Wait…have you done these before?” he asked.
            “Um, technically no.”
            He grabbed my ankle, causing me to fall over. “Don’t do
it. You’ll get hurt before the first meet and it’ll be my fault.”
            My skin warmed in the places he touched, causing goose
bumps to spread everywhere. I got up again and laughed at him. “I’m not going
to get hurt. I’m safe and boring, remember? You said so yourself the other day.”
            “Well, you were
safe and boring. Maybe you aren’t anymore,” he conceded. “I take it back. Karen
Campbell is a wild-ass risk taker. She should be riding a Harley through
downtown St. Louis.”
            I hopped onto the end of the tumble track, grinning down
at him. “Jordan Bentley is a great big ass-kisser with the cardiovascular
endurance of a ninety-year-old man.”
            He glared at me. “I had no idea you were such a
vindictive person. Go ahead and hurt yourself then. Fine with me.”
            My head was already wrapping itself around the idea of
yet another new skill. This one was more fun and less practical, but why the
hell not? Seriously. In a last attempt at safe training, I called over my
shoulder to Jordan, “Yank me out if I end up doing the ostrich in the sand move.”
            “I’ll think about it.”
            I took off and lunged into my round-off back handspring,
before setting myself up high enough for the triple back. Halfway through the
second flip, I got a little lost and was totally shocked to end up feet first
in the foam pit. Jordan had jumped up, cheering loudly. “That was awesome! So
awesome!”
            “Karen!” a loud voice boomed from across the gym. “What
the hell are you doing?”
            I crawled out of the pit, landing on the mat beside
Jordan. Coach Bentley and several of his staff were heading our way.
            “What’s going on?” he snapped at Jordan, who had already
reached for his shirt and was buttoning it up. “I asked you to take Karen
home.”
            Jordan scowled at him. “Try checking your cell phone once
in a while, Dad. Glad I wasn’t choking or in great need of a guardian to sign
off on medical procedures.”
            “His car broke down,” I said.
            Coach Bentley turned to me, eyes narrowing. “You know the
rules, Karen. Nobody trains skills without a coach in the gym. What were you
thinking? And triple backs?”
            I shrunk back, not sure how to react. Bentley had never
yelled at me before. Stacey was right behind him, arms crossed, glaring at me.
“This is something I expect from the little girls.”
            “This is something I expect from my irresponsible son,”
Bentley said, “but not from you.”
            The six or eight other coaches stayed back, watching this
exchange from a distance. Coach Bentley strode over to the pit bar and yanked
down my chart, which had already been marked up quite a bit in the last two
days. My heart pounded, not knowing what was coming.
            “We’re taking layout Jaegers off the bar training program
for now. I thought you were mature enough to understand how to weigh the risk
versus reward, but I guess I was wrong.”
            “Come on, Dad,” Jordan argued. “She was just playing
around.”

            I shook my head at him, not wanting any help with this.
It was already bad enough. “I’m sorry,” I said with a sigh, then left them to
go and grab my stuff from the locker room. 



–Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/return-to-sender-letters-to-nowhere-part-2

Purchase Return to You (Letters to Nowhere Part 3):
–Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H84TNBS/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B00H84TNBS&link_code=as3&tag=njksworofboo-20

5 Facts About Letters to Nowhere

1) Since I started writing the book,
I’ve envisioned my main character, Karen, as a red-headed McKaylaMaroney even
though I tried my best not to picture her as anyone specific.


2) I’ve been around the world of competitive gymnastics for at least 15 years
and therefore have depicted elite level gymnastics as true-to-life as possible
in this book.


3) The romance in LtN is not your typical “insta-love” or “fall
in love then break up” format. This will please some and disappoint
others.


4) My main character, Karen, has just lost both her parents in a tragic car
accident prior to the book’s opening however, I don’t consider this a typical
book about death either because there are so many other elements intertwined
and Karen is a fighter, she’s constantly driven by one goal or another. It’s
about rising up after a fall.

5) LtN is truly the book of my heart because I wanted, for so long, to find a
way to combine by two greatest passions – YA Literature and Gymnastics. 


AUTHOR BIO:

Julie Cross is the International Bestselling author of the Tempest series, a young adult science fiction trilogy which includes Tempest, Vortex, and the final installment, Timestorm (St. Martin’s Press). She’s also the author of Letters to Nowhere (8/13), a mature young adult romance set in the world of elite gymnastics, as well as several forthcoming young adult and new adult novels with publishers like Entangled, Sourcebooks, HarperCollins, and St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books.


Julie lives in Central Illinois with her husband and three children. She’s a former gymnast, longtime gymnastics fan, coach, and former Gymnastics  Program Director with the YMCA. She’s a lover of books, devouring several novels a week, especially in the young adult and new adult genres. Outside of her reading and writing credibility’s, Julie Cross is a committed–but not talented–long distance runner, creator of imaginary beach vacations, Midwest bipolar weather survivor, expired CPR certification card holder, as well as a ponytail and gym shoe addict. You can find her online via twitter, her personal website, email, facebook, Goodreads, or co-moderating the YAwriters section of reddit.


Follow the Author:

Letters to Nowhere (Letters to Nowhere Part 1) is only  0.99c on Amazon for a limited time!
Buying Now and ENjoy! 🙂


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