It’s here! The release of Peak and Thrust today means the official end to… *one more time folks, with feeling*… the “Peak and Thrust 12 Day Sneak Peek Event!” It’s been a long haul and I, for one, am glad to be rolling this 18 wheeler into Point: Destination… Ok, I apologize. Apparently my sub-conscience has been enjoying a “Smokey and the Bandit” marathon without inviting my conscience to join in. Well, I hope there was lots of buttered popcorn involved and everybody brought protection.

Now, aren’t you going to miss my quirky sense of humor? Good thing you can find a ton of it in Peak and Thrust… that’s it, folks, final plug. I’m all plugged out but please let my publisher know that I plugged well and with heart. *winks*

As my blog readership has soared this week, I wanted to end this on a particularly memorable note. But how?

I decided to give you a memory. Raw, uncut and something I’d rather forget but know I never will.

During the worst of my times at Auburn University, I skipped classes. A lot of classes. As in almost all. I’m the kid who was never in detention in school, never got a failing grade on a report card, got nothing but gold stars from my teachers. Yeah, I was that annoying kid. However annoying it was though, it was me. It was as much a part of who I was as anything else. I never, ever wanted to fail people. Seeing disappointment in a person’s face was paramount to a punch in the gut for me… Yeah, I guess you could say I was messed up even then but didn’t know it.

Anyhow, I was skipping classes. One of the worst days of that whole experience was also one of my gutsiest I must say. See if you agree…

I had signed up for an Accounting class in my sophomore year. I was pre-engineering but needed the class to meet some requirement or other. In January, I went to the first day of class. We had assigned seating. I was assigned the very first seat on the very first row. I couldn’t have been more noticeable.

The next time I stepped into that class was three months later, on the day of the final. I walked in there and sat my screwed up ass down in my front row seat and took that test the disgusted and rather galled professor handed me. There were whispers. Why the hell wouldn’t there be whispers?

For two and half hours I sat in that class and tried my hardest to pass that final. Never mind the fact that I had missed all the tests, all the assignments, everything of the class. I was determined to pass that last test.

I didn’t. Even after weeks of reading cover to cover that Accounting text book, putting terms to memory, doing every exercise that book gave me, I didn’t pass.

Come on, I didn’t deserve to. I know that.

But I tried. Even though my mind and my co-conspirator of a body wouldn’t let me sit through a single class any more, even though I was drowning in denial, embarrassment and self-hatred, I walked into that classroom on that last day and took that damned test.

What does that say about me? It certainly speaks as to how messed up I was at the time. It absolutely proves that I can be an arrogant bitch on occasion. But I’d like to think that it also shows how I never, ever let go of hope. I dragged that dried up kernel of hope in with me that final day and plopped it up on that desk in front of me.

Gall or guts? It’s your call. To me, it’s simply one of the worst days and best days of my life. Talk about ironic, huh?

Ready for your “final” sneak peek?


Chapter Eleven: Of Trellises and Beady-Eyed Rats and Endings


 “Her neck crooked to the side as she looked up at Laird like a dog facing off against a yodeler. “You don’t look like one of them,” Philana accused slowly.” (page 160)


Hmm… a bit of a mystery I’ve left you with, huh? I hope it’s just enough of a tickler to welcome Peak and Thrust into your library as you have so graciously welcomed me and my craziness into your lives these past twelve days.

Until next time…

Chloe Stowe

Peak and Thrust available today at Amazon, AllRomance Ebooks and through my publisher:

 http://www.ravenousromance.com/m/m/peak-and-thrust.php

 
Good morning and welcome to Iron Bowl Saturday here at the “Peak and Thrust 12 Day Sneak Peek Event!” Yes, college football is the name of the game here in the southeast today. Alabama versus Auburn. “Roll Tide!” vs. “War Eagle!” I’ve grown up with this football rivalry being the basis of all things “sport” in Alabama. Even now as I’ve lived in Florida for 9 years, Iron Bowl Saturday still has a certain electricity in the air, a certain zing that has all your school loyalties abuzz.

Auburn University.

Talk about a conundrum in my life.

Back in my high school days, back when mental illness was just something you read about Zelda Fitzgerald having, I won an academic scholarship to Auburn. Talk about being proud. I had always been the kind of kid who studied damned hard all the time. I wasn’t exactly a nerd. My “peeps” were the jocks and I never stepped foot into a science fair, a debating arena or a math competition… just because I was in classes with all those science fair, debating, math aficionados did not stereotype me as a nerd. Nope. Not at all.

Anyhow, I won the scholarship to Auburn, moved down to the Plains in the fall of my 18th year and had literally lost my mind by the spring of my 20th.

Good times.

I don’t blame Auburn. That would be silly. I would have lost it no matter what great campus I was on. But…

I have nightmares.

Every single night for the last 20 years.

School nightmares of failure and insanity, of fear and of lies. And where do you think my beautiful mind locates all these night terrors? You guessed it. Auburn.

So as I sit here watching the Iron Bowl this afternoon, I will cheer for Auburn. I will cheer for them on behalf of that 18 year old girl who was so proud of earning her scholarship, for the girl who was so proud to be an Auburn Tiger.

The bad stuff I’ll leave for my dreams tonight.

Now, on to your sneak peek of the day…

 
Chapter Nine: Playing Chicken with God

“An hour later, as one man slept protectively tucked up against the chest of the other on a now damp bed, words of love were whispered and one heart was lost irretrievably to another.” (page 122)

 
I wish every one of you a terrific Thanksgiving Saturday! Only two more days until Peak and Thrust premieres. The butterflies in my gut are already getting a little nauseous… with that lovely visual I will leave you all with a “War Eagle!”

Until tomorrow…

Chloe Stowe