This Virtual Book Tour is presented by Bewitching Book Tours.
You can get to the entire tour schedule by clicking HERE.
Welcome to The Wormhole and my day on the tour!
It is with great pleasure that I present
Chosen and the author, Denise Grover Swank!
Denise Grover Swank began writing her first novel in the fourth grade, stopping at page seventy on her wide ruled spiral notebook. She continued writing in high school and attempted several novels in her twenties before life got in the way. In the fall of 2009, she participated in National Novel Writing Month, which led her to completing her first novel, a book which shall be eternally chained to a pillar in her external hard drive. Denise released her first published book in July, 2011, a southern mystery titled Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes. Denise lives in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. She has six children, two dogs, and an overactive imagination. You can find out more about Denise and her other books at www.denisegroverswank.com and you can connect with her on Twitter.
And now an excerpt for your reading pleasure:
(from Chapter 1):
When she smiled, Will almost lost his composure. Her face completely changed, catching him off guard. After watching her for twenty-four hours, this was the first time he had seen her smile. She was attractive enough, lean but with curves in the right places, and long brown hair she pulled back in a ponytail. Looking at her now, he lost himself in her deep, dark brown eyes. But when she smiled, the tension in her face fell away, leaving an ethereal beauty he didn’t expect.
“Who were those guys?” he asked, trying to refocus.
Her smile disappeared. “No one you want to know.”
“What do they want?”
If possible, her face became even harder. “We need to get you back to the motel.”
“Don’t you want to call the police?” He had no intention of calling the police, but it sounded like the right thing to say.
“No.”
Getting information out of her was trickier than he hoped. “What are you going to do now?”
She turned to look at him, the loose strands of long brown hair dancing in the breeze around her face. She looked wild and ruthless. “Look, we can take care of ourselves.”
This turn of events had completely changed his plans. Of course, nothing about this job was what he expected. They never told him she had a kid and he’d complained bitterly when he found out. He didn’t do kids. He was explicit about that. But the group who hired him said they didn’t care about the kid. They wanted her and raised their offer. It was hard to refuse. Somewhere along the path of their self-destructive course he thought of a Plan B, which was much better than his original plan. Maybe things were turning his way. “Let me help you.”
She pulled up to a stop sign at the four-lane highway. “No, thanks, we’re good.”
“We can trust him,” a small voice in the back said.
She looked up sharply and spun around to look at the kid in the back.
Will turned, too. The boy looked like a cherub out of one of those Renaissance paintings he had studied back in his college art appreciation class. Short blond curls framed his face of pale skin with rosy cheeks. Big blue eyes with long dark eyelashes. Will thought the kid’s beauty was wasted on his gender.
“We can trust him,” the boy repeated.
She turned to look out the windshield and hung both of her arms over the steering wheel. “Are you sure?” she asked, staring straight ahead.
“Yes.”
She rested her chin on her hands and closed her eyes. He decided she must be trying to figure out how to deal with this change of events. Personally, Will thought it was going too far on the permissive parenting scale letting a preschooler make a decision like that, but hey, it worked in his favor. He sure wasn’t going to protest.
“Okay,” she finally said, sitting up. “I need to leave town. They know we’re here so we’ve got to leave as soon as we can.”
“Who exactly are they?” Will asked. As far as he knew, he was the only one on this job. He’d be pissed if they hired someone else as backup.
“You don’t need to know that,” she said, turning at the corner. “How do you plan on helping us?”
“I can help you leave town.”
“Why would you do that?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked behind for signs of the SUV.
Will had seen the damage. The SUV wasn’t going anywhere. Where the hell had she learned a move like that?
He gave her his rugged, bad boy smirk and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.”
“Do better than that,” she snorted.
He liked that she wasn’t easily snowed, even if it made his job more difficult.
“Let’s just say I’m hoping to get lucky, and maybe if I’m nice enough, I will.” He gave her a slow, lazy smile as he leaned against the door, crossing his arms.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t count on it.”
“Don’t crush a man’s hopes. Just wait and see. I might grow on you.”
Raising her eyebrows, she twisted her lips into a wry smile. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
I hope you enjoyed learning about Denise Grover Swank and reading a piece of this great story!
You can read my review HERE.
Thanks for stopping by The Wormhole!
Happy Reading!
