Secrets of a (Somewhat) Sunny Girl by Karen Booth
Release Date: October 16, 2018
Publisher: Karen Booth
Genre: Romantic Women’s Fiction
Book Synopsis
With divorce and infidelity hanging from nearly every branch of her family tree, Katherine Fuller sees no point in marriage. Boyfriends? Sure. Sex? Of course. Wedding vows? No, thanks. Still, when her younger sister Amy gets engaged, Katherine gathers all the enthusiasm she can. She won’t let Amy down. She’s done enough of that for a lifetime.
As the sisters embark on wedding plans, Katherine’s college love resurfaces. It nearly killed Katherine to part from sexy Irish musician Eamon more than a decade ago, but falling under his spell a second time forces her to confront everything she hid from him. The secrets surrounding her mother’s death are still fresh and raw in her mind, but one has haunted her more than the others. She can’t bear to tell anyone, especially not Amy. It could ruin far more than a wedding. It might destroy a sister’s love forever.
Link: https://karenbooth.net/secrets-of-a-somewhat-sunny-girl
About Karen Booth:
Karen Booth is a midwestern girl transplanted in the South, raised on ‘80s music, Judy Blume, and the films of John Hughes. An early preoccupation with rock ‘n’ roll led her to spend her 20s working her way from intern to executive in the music industry. She traded late nights for early mornings when she became a mom, and once the kids were old enough to hop on a school bus, she started writing contemporary romance and women’s fiction. Karen has been a finalist for RT Magazine’s Series Romance of the Year, RT Magazine’s Gold Seal of Excellence, and the National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award (NERFA). Her books have been translated into sixteen different languages.
Exclusive Excerpt:
Katherine and Irish musician Eamon had a super-steamy relationship 11 years ago that ended abruptly when she returned to the U.S. to help with her alcoholic father. Now he’s resurfaced in her life and wants to try again, but Katherine isn’t sure.
Eamon rose from his seat, leaned down and planted his palm flat against the side of my neck. His thumb rested in the indentation before my ear, fingers curled at my nape. “I never stopped wanting you, Katherine. I never stopped wanting this.” His eyelids were heavy, and I knew exactly what that meant. A single glance at his lips and I could feel how soft they were before they landed on mine.
I wasn’t prepared, however, for the way we both so fully surrendered to the kiss. His lips were like heaven, and I’d been away from them for far too long. I craned my neck and dropped my napkin to have more of him, clutching his shoulders and pulling him down. He dropped to his knees. We drove our shoulders into each other, the opposite of a tug of war, like we were trying to see if one of us could possibly get closer. He angled his head and took the kiss deeper. We weren’t just hungry for each other. We were starving. Like neither of us had eaten. Ever. For a moment I was back in Ireland, young and feeling free. For a moment, I felt like me.
We wrenched our lips from each other as if we’d been glued together. Our foreheads rested against each other, both of us breathless and restless. I would’ve kept my eyes closed forever and just relived that feeling if I didn’t want to see the things his face could tell me.
“After that kiss, I’d be an idiot if I said I didn’t want to explore this.” I had to lighten the mood. It was my defense mechanism. My impulse when I was overwhelmed.
Eamon laughed quietly and dropped back, sitting on his heels. “I would do anything to take you in that bed right now.”
So do it. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you to.” I bit down on my lower lip, hard, just to tell myself that this was really happening. My breath picked up again. My pulse throbbed in my throat.
He shook his head, his hands gathered in his lap almost as if he was praying. “I can’t do it. This second chance means too much to me. I feel like it’ll ruin everything if we sleep together.”
I supposed somebody had to be the responsible adult in the room, but it was still a total letdown. “So then what?”
“We finish breakfast and I send you on your way. You have my cell number. If you want this, you call me. And if you don’t, then don’t.”
“Well, why wouldn’t I want it?” Was there something he wasn’t telling me?
“I don’t know the circumstances of your life, Katherine. I want this, but I can’t just barge in and tell you I think we should pick up where we were more than a decade ago. Call me if you’re serious. We can spend a few weeks talking on the phone, getting reacquainted, and I’ll see you when I come back to New York. By that point, we should have a pretty good idea of whether or not this will work. And if not, at least we had the chance to reconnect.”
“That’s it?”
He nodded emphatically. “That’s it. I don’t want to mess with fate.”