Title: Why Can’t I Be You
Author: Allie Larkin
Publisher: Plume
Release date: February 26, 2013
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Age Group: Adult
Tour organized by: AToMR Tours
WHY CAN’T I BE YOU takes its name from a 1987 hit song from English rock band The Cure. All her life, Jenny Shaw toed the line, striving to be the perfect colleague, girlfriend, and daughter – a path that has led her to an unhappy (though successful) career, a failed relationship, and all-but-severed family ties. On her way to the airport for her first business trip, she is unceremoniously dumped by the man she thought she would one day marry. In her haze of shock and confusion, she responds to the wrong name when Myra Aberly, organizer of Seattle ’s Mt. Si class of 1999’s thirteenth high-school reunion, shouts “Jessie!” across the hotel lobby.
In an instant, Jenny Shaw becomes Jessie Morgan, a woman to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance. She is immediately embraced by Jessie’s warm circle of friends – and gains a possible love interest. But when Jenny becomes more and more curious about Jessie’s history, she uncovers a trail of secrets, pain and deceit that inspires her to uncover the truth that will heal her own painful past.
Excerpt
The shuttle pulled up to a roundabout in front of
the Salish
Lodge. It looked familiar, and I thought for a
second that
maybe I’d been there before. Maybe on a summer
vacation, back
when my parents were still together, back when I was
too young
to really remember. But the guy from the couple
started humming
a familiar song slightly off-key. I shuddered
involuntarily and realized
we were at the same lodge they used as the Great
Northern
Hotel on Twin Peaks.
I used to stay up late watching Twin Peaks by myself
on the
little color TV my dad bought me for my eighth
birthday as a ploy
to win my affections after the divorce. My mother
said it wasn’t
good for me, that my television watching should be
monitored and
I was too young to watch unsupervised. But my dad
said, “It’s not
hooked up to the cable. Honestly, Marie! What’s the
worst she can
watch?”
He helped me set it up in my room, teaching me how
to angle
the silver arms of the antenna to get good
reception, before my
mother’s dirty looks and heavy sighs drove him out
of the house
again. I started watching Twin Peaks because
everyone in my class
was talking about it, even though it was on past my
bedtime and
way over my head. I would sit with my nose almost
pressed to the
screen, a blanket over me and the TV, so I could
keep the volume
low and the light from flickering under my door.
Face-to-face with
dead Laura Palmer and Killer BOB, I held my own hand
for comfort,
squeezing until my fingers went numb. I slept with
the lights
on until I turned eleven.
About the
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