Title: A Song
for Julia
Author: Charles
Sheehan-Miles
Release date: December
15, 2012
Genre: Contemporary
Romance
Age Group:
New Adult
Event organized by:
AToMR Tours
Buy Links:
Amazon / Kobo / Barnes & Noble / Apple
Book Description:
Everyone
should have something to rebel against.
Crank
Wilson left his South Boston home at sixteen to start a punk band and burn out
his rage at the world. Six years later, he's still at odds with his father, a
Boston cop, and doesn't ever speak to his mother. The only relationship that
really matters is with his younger brother, but watching out for Sean can be a
full-time job.
The
one thing Crank wants in life is to be left the hell alone to write his music
and drive his band to success.
Julia
Thompson left a secret behind in Beijing that exploded into scandal in
Washington, DC, threatening her father's career and dominating her family's
life. Now, in her senior year at Harvard, she's haunted by a voice from her
past and refuses to ever lose control of her emotions again, especially when it
comes to a guy.
When Julia and Crank meet
at an anti-war protest in Washington in the fall of 2002, the connection
between them is so powerful it threatens to tear everything apart.
Giveaway:
(1)
eBook copy of A SONG FOR JULIA. Mobi and epub formats are available. Open
International.
About the Author
Charles Sheehan-Miles has
been a soldier, computer programmer, short-order cook and non-profit executive.
He is the author of several books, including the indie bestsellers Just
Remember to Breathe and Republic: A Novel of America's Future.
Author social media links:
Excerpt - Suburban Princess (Crank)
October
26, 2002
Maybe it’s just me. But I would have thought that a girl at
the center of the biggest anti-war protest since the Vietnam War might not have
had such a gigantic stick up her ass.
But no … there she was, her mouth moving, and I didn’t
understand a word. To be fair, she was wicked hot, even if she did dress like a
librarian; she wore a floral knee-length skirt that hugged her thighs and a
pastel colored sweater with what looked like a thousand bangles and bracelets
running up her right wrist. Her eyes were a striking pale blue, framed with
dark brownish-blonde hair. She had this schoolgirl look about her that made me
want to lick the back of her neck. It was the hostile stream of words out of
her sexy little mouth that caused me to step back, both irritated and
defensive.
“What was that?” I asked, hoping to get the torrent of words
to just stop.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I grinned.
“What I said was, you guys can’t set up here just yet. Mark
Tashburn is about to go on … then there’s a fifteen-minute break. You guys can
set up after that.”
I rolled my eyes. “And we go on at the end of the fifteen
minutes?”
She smiled, her face relaxing a little. I don’t think she
liked me that much. Her smile looked fake. Those ice cold eyes? Her smile never
reached that far. I wondered what a genuine smile from her would look like.
“That’s right,” she replied.
“That won’t work,” I said. “Takes longer to set up than
fifteen minutes.”
She sighed. “And why, exactly, are we just finding this out
now?”
“Hey, not my fault. I don’t know who organized the time
schedule on this thing, but it’s a complete mess. If you want us playing in 30
minutes, we needed to start setting up an hour ago. Takes time to set up the
equipment and tune up.”
She huffed a little and said, “Fine. Just … try not to
distract the audience too much.”
Jesus, whatever. She came running up the moment we’d started
to carry equipment on stage. Not like the crowd was paying attention anyway,
there must be a hundred thousand people out there. Bunch of hippies and peace
freaks and what looked to be effing soccer moms. For the hundredth time, I
asked myself how the hell I’d gotten roped into playing at an anti-war protest.
Of course, this was the biggest venue we’d ever played. But
seriously, so far, the speakers had been a series of retreads from the 1960s.
If that didn’t show how disconnected this thing was from reality, I didn’t know
what did.
Whatever. This was Serena’s deal. She was big in the
anti-war politics. And what Serena was into, the band did. We didn’t have a
manager, but she was the closest to it. She sang with me and played rhythm
guitar and had a magic sense for what music would work and what wouldn’t.
We rushed to get set up without alarming the natives or
hippies. Finished in record time, no thanks to the princess who was off to the
side of the stage with a clipboard, directing people here and there.
So, between the setup, tune up, and start, I had about
fifteen seconds to take a breath and then launched into the first licks. The
college kids in the audience started to groove on it right away, but the senior
citizens and soccer moms … and holy shit, there was a lot of them … stared up
at us as if the stage had been swept with radioactive contamination. I gave the
guitar and vocals just an extra twinge for them, blasting out the raunchiest
original version of the lyrics to our song “Fuck the War” rather than the extra
special sensitive studio lyrics we’d ended up releasing.
I don’t want to mislead you. Morbid Obesity isn’t a punk
band, more alternative rock, with a bit of an edge. I’m the edge. To date, our
most popular song was “Fuck the War,” which we released on an EP a few months
back. It’s a love song about my mom and dad, but you’ve got to listen to the
lyrics to get that. I put a lot of emotion into it when I was writing it and
when I performed it.
It was a perfect day to be on stage and outdoors: cool, but
not cold. The sky was clear and cloudless, an occasional breeze wafting across
the stage, a hundred thousand people of all shapes, sizes and colors spread
across the frickin’ National Mall. I’d never seen anything like it.
I was on the second round of the chorus when I looked to the
right of the stage and saw Miss Princess. She was grooving on the music. Moving
just slightly, her lips were parted in a way that caught my breath. Pouty lips.
Kissable lips. I had to laugh at myself a bit. So not my type. Well, except
that she was female and kind of hot. Still, not my type.
Back in high school, some freak accident of the Boston
Public School system sent a group of rich kids from Back Bay to South Boston
High. That was a laugh. It only lasted a year, though I don’t know if that’s
because they got the zoning reversed, or the parents just yanked their kids
from the public schools. This girl reminded me of some of those kids.
Imperious. Superior. Some of them looked at the rats like me as if we were
future criminals.
I wonder if that’s why she was turning me on so much?
It made me want to tease her a little, so when I launched
into the second verse, I sang right to her, and her alone. I was on the second
verse when she met my eyes. I held them. Her eyes, so distant and blue, were
arresting. She noticed I was singing to her and froze in place, a deer caught
in the headlights. I love it when girls react that way. Showed she was human.
If we’d been back home in Boston, I’d have grabbed her and pulled her on the
stage, but that wouldn’t go over with this audience.
After a second though, she met my eyes and gave a sly grin,
as if to say ‘I know what you’re up to.’
I grinned back, belting out the lyrics. The bass and drums in this song were
powerful and demanded that the body dance. I broke off eye contact and took off
across the stage, threw myself into the solo, screaming out the lyrics at the crescendo,
and then I brought the song to a crashing halt.
Despite the shock of the soccer moms and lobbyists in the
crowd, the college kids loved it and screamed for more. Suburban Princess
applauded, a mysterious grin on her face. I wanted to know her a lot better.
That wasn’t going to happen. This was an anti-war protest,
not a meet and greet. As soon as the song finished, we started breaking down
the stage and golden girl jumped up to the microphone and shouted, “Give it up
for Morbid Obesity and their hit “Fuck the War”!” I paused what I was doing to
check her out while she was at the microphone.
The crowd went nuts again, which was nice. Hearing the name
of my song on those lips was even nicer. But five seconds later, she was
introducing the next round of speakers, a bunch of broken down Vietnam and Gulf
War vets who had been dredged up by the organizers of this parade to give it
some credibility.
Mark and I dragged most of the equipment off the stage,
while Pathin broke down the drums, and Serena pulled the extra monitors and
wiring apart. As I stepped off the stage for the last time, the suburban
princess met me at the bottom of the stairs. I stumbled down the last step and
ended up less than six inches away from her, looking down into those fantastic
eyes.
“You guys were pretty good,” she said, her head tilted back,
eyes on mine. “Thanks for doing this.”
I shrugged and grinned. “It was fun.” Pretty good? That’s
it? Jesus, she was close. I could smell her perfume, a faint, pretty smell.
“So …” she said, looking me in the eyes.
Awkward.
“How long is this thing gonna go?” I asked.
“Half a dozen more speakers, then they march around the
White House. Maybe another hour.”
Mark walked up just as she was answering the question. Our
bass player, Mark, is a big guy, who might have been a football player in an
alternate universe where football players smoked too much pot and hung out with
the bugs in the Pit in Harvard Square. His eyes widened when I opened my stupid
mouth again.
“So, after it’s over, want to grab some lunch?”
For just a second her smile faltered, and she looked …
almost angry. I know I’m not exactly wearing frickin’ tweed, but I’m not a bad
guy, no need to be offended.
“Come on,” I said, “it’s just lunch. I won’t do anything too
offensive.”
Mark spoke in a sarcastic tone, “I don’t think she’s your
type, Crank.”
She closed her mouth, eyes darting to Mark. Her eyes
narrowed, and her lips set in a thin line. It looked like she wanted to hit
him. This girl was volatile. I liked that. “Sure,” she said. “Where?”
I shrugged. “Um … I don’t know the area.”
She looked thoughtful for just a second. “Georgia Brown’s at
15th and K Street. They’ve got outdoor seating. See you there … four o’clock?”
Yes! Was it me, or had she moved closer to me?
Mark let out a chuckle and walked away.
“All right, see you at four,” I said, looking at her eyes
one more time.
I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.
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