From New York Times bestselling author Samantha Young comes a story of friendship, identity, and acceptance that will break your heart—and make it whole again. Grab your copy of THE IMPOSSIBLE VASTNESS OF US today!
About THE IMPOSSIBLE VASTNESS OF US:
“I know how to watch my back. I’m the only one that ever has.”
India Maxwell hasn’t just moved across the country—she’s plummeted to the bottom rung of the social ladder. It’s taken years to cover the mess of her home life with a veneer of popularity. Now she’s living in one of Boston’s wealthiest neighborhoods with her mom’s fiancé and his daughter, Eloise. Thanks to her soon-to-be stepsister’s clique of friends, including Eloise’s gorgeous, arrogant boyfriend Finn, India feels like the one thing she hoped never to be seen as again: trash.
But India’s not alone in struggling to control the secrets of her past. Eloise and Finn, the school’s golden couple, aren’t all they seem to be. In fact, everyone’s life is infinitely more complex than it first appears. And as India grows closer to Finn and befriends Eloise, threatening the facades that hold them together, what’s left are truths that are brutal, beautiful, and big enough to change them forever…
EXCERPT:
“India, I’m not using her. I mean, I am, but it’s not like that. Eloise is getting what she wants out of this relationship, as well.”
“Like what?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You are using her.”
“I’m not.” His chair screeched as he pulled it closer so our knees touched. His dark eyes moved over my face and I sucked in my breath at the open appreciation I saw there. “I’m not using her…but we are in a relationship together. I guess it just never occurred to me that I might actually meet someone in high school. Someone I…”
That feeling in my chest, that thick, hot feeling, threatened to overwhelm me at all the things he wasn’t saying. “Finn, Eloise is going to be my family.”
He looked so forlorn it took everything within me not to reach for him.
“What is it you’re hiding?”
“I can’t tell you. Please, just trust me.”
Hurt and frustration swept through me in equal measure but I tamped it down. It wasn’t my place to demand his secrets.
My frustration was suddenly mirrored in his eyes as he looked up at me. “I wish things were different.”
But they weren’t different. And yet they were the same, history repeating itself. I cared about someone and they didn’t care enough about me back to be honest about what was really going on.
I didn’t know if I was angry at Finn or just angry that nothing ever seemed to be easy for me. Everything was always a fight.
It felt like I lived in a constant clusterfuck.
I gave a huff of laughter. “Story of my life.” I shook my head, grabbed up my bag and, unable to look at him, said, “Thank you for your help tonight.”
“You’re not leaving without me.”
His protectiveness confused and pissed me off even more. “I’m not? Funny, it looks like that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
His familiar scowl was back in place at my sarcasm. “You’re also not going home alone after what happened here. I’ll give you a ride.”
“Finn.” I slumped, suddenly feeling exhausted. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Sadness flittered through his eyes before he managed a carefully blank expression. “I think I can handle driving you home.”
Still a trembling mess after everything that had happened, I gave in and followed Finn out to his car.
The tension that we’d shared before was nothing compared to how it was now. Now that Finn had in a roundabout way admitted he liked me and I’d realized that what I was feeling for him was attraction, the tension could not be mistaken for anything else but sexual.
I’d never felt anything like it before—it was the most frustrating, scary and exhilarating feeling in the world.
When we eventually pulled up outside the house, the guilt washed over me. I shouldn’t be feeling this way about Eloise’s boyfriend and he certainly shouldn’t be feeling this way about me.
I felt like we were to blame for the whole thing but I didn’t know why.
I hadn’t asked the universe to make Finn like me.
And I had definitely not intended to like him in return.
“India,” he said just as I moved to get out of his car. “I’ve never really cared what anybody thought of me before…but I really don’t want you to think I’m a bad person.”
I stared into his beautiful eyes. “I can’t imagine ever thinking you’re a bad person. I meant it earlier…thank you for coming for me tonight. I’ll never forget it.”
“This feels weirdly like a goodbye,” he said with a bitter twist to his gorgeous lips.
“Maybe it is. I guess we’re both just a complication the other doesn’t need.”
Slowly, so slowly my heart had time to increase in hard, steady thumps, Finn slid his hand over the center console between us and stroked his thumb along the side of my hand. I felt that simple touch in every nerve, my body reacting to it in a way it never had to the touches and deep kisses that had come before it.
I stared at our hands for a moment, wondering how different my life could be if Finn wasn’t Eloise’s boyfriend, if we’d just met as strangers at school, felt the inexplicable bond between us and were free to do something about it.
Suddenly very aware of how long I’d been sitting outside the house in his car, I fumbled for the door handle. “See you around, Finn.”
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About Samantha Young:
Samantha Young is the
New York Times,
USA Today and
Wall Street Journal bestselling author of adult contemporary romances, including the
On Dublin Street series and
Hero, as well as the New Adult duology
Into the Deep and
Out of the Shallows.
Every Little Thing, the second book in her new
Hart’s Boardwalk series, will be published by Berkley in March 2017. Before turning to contemporary fiction, she wrote several young adult paranormal and fantasy series, including the amazon bestselling
Tale of Lunarmorte trilogy. Samantha’s debut YA contemporary novel
The Impossible Vastness of Us will be published by Harlequin TEEN in ebook& hardback June 2017
Samantha has been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award 2012 for Best Author and Best Romance for
On Dublin Street, Best Romance 2014 for
Before Jamaica Lane, and Best Romance 2015 for
Hero.
On Dublin Street, a #1 bestseller in Germany, was the Bronze Award Winner in the LeserPreis German Readers Choice Awards for Best Romance 2013,
Before Jamaica Lane the Gold Medal Winner for the LeserPreis German Readers Choice Awards for Best Romance 2014 and
Echoes of Scotland Street the Bronze Medal Winner for the LeserPreis German Readers Choice Awards for Best Romance 2015.
Samantha is currently published in 30 countries and is a #1 international bestselling author.
EXCERPT:
A flash of blonde hair to his left caught his attention as he ran through the dark forest. His target—Trainee #429745—was close, but then he knew that already. His god powers were strongest in darkness, and his hearing, smell, even sight were amplified when night disadvantaged other hunters. He could hear her labored breaths echoing in his ears, could smell the lemony scent of her skin in his nostrils, but seeing the flash of long blonde hair had surprised him.
He hadn’t looked at her picture before he’d left Olympus for this hunt. He’d memorized her trainee number, read through her file and made mental notes of her trainers’ mostly average comments about her hand-to-hand combat and warfare skills. Had questioned the stupid guards she’d overpowered at the gates of Olympus when she’d fled, and who were now suffering their own just fates. And he’d located the portal she’d used outside the gates to cross into this forest in the human realm. But he’d purposefully not looked at her image.
Putting a face to a number gave his prey a human quality he didn’t need to concern himself with. His orders from Zeus were clear: “She failed her last Siren test and ran. Hunt her down and bring her back to me.” It was not Erebus’s place to question Zeus’s command. The King of the Gods could have ordered Erebus to kill the trainee—which he’d done in the past and would do again when called upon because it was his duty—but Zeus hadn’t. That made Erebus’s job this time a helluva lot easier, and for that he was thankful.
But that flash of blonde...
He’d seen it somewhere before. Or hair like it. Not a white blonde. Not a honey blonde. Not even a multicolored blonde like many of the Sirens sported on Olympus. This hair had been a golden blonde so bright it had looked like a gilded waterfall in the darkness of the forest when she’d whipped past him through the trees.
Not important.
What she looked like had no impact on his current assignment. Clearing his mind, he shifted direction and picked up his speed, heading toward the flash of blonde he’d seen. Her labored breaths grew louder. Her scent stronger. Ahead, that golden blonde flashed again, whipping behind her as she turned to look into the dark forest at her back then angled forward again and ran faster.
ABOUT ELISABETH NAUGHTON:
Elisabeth Naughton is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. From Elisabeth: “I was never one of those people who knew they wanted to be an author at the age of six. I didn’t have imaginary friends. I didn’t write stories in my journal or entertain my relatives by firelight after Thanksgiving dinner. For the most part, I was just a normal, everyday kid. I liked to read, but I wasn’t exceptional at it. And when my teachers complimented me on my writing abilities, I brushed them off. I did, however, always have a penchant for the unique and absurd. And as my mother told me all throughout my childhood, I should have been an actress—I was a drama queen before my time.
“Years ago, my husband bought me Scarlett: The Sequel to Gone With The Wind. If you ever saw the book, you know it’s a long one. I sat and read that thing from cover to cover, and dreamed of one day being a writer. But I didn’t actually try my hand at writing until years later when I quit my teaching job to stay home with my kids. And my husband? After that week of reading where I neglected him and everything else until I finished Scarlett, he vowed never to buy me another book again. Little did he know I’d one day end up sitting at a keyboard all day drafting my own stories.
“My writing journey has not been easy. I didn’t just sit down one day, decide I was going to write a book and voila! sell my very first attempt. As most authors will probably agree, the path to publication is filled with hours of work, pulling all-nighters I thought I’d given up in college, sacrifices, rejections, but a love I discovered along the way I just can’t live without. Instead of a big, thick book to read by lamplight (I do read much smaller ones when I get the chance), I’ve traded in my reading obsession for a laptop. And I’ve never been happier.
“I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a wonderful family and fabulous husband who put up with my writing—and obsessive personality—even when life is chaotic. More than once my kids have been late to swimming or baseball because I needed just five more minutes to finish a scene. Their support and encouragement mean the world to me. I also have amazing friends and a support network I couldn’t survive without. So to all of you out there who have encouraged me along the way, sent me emails and fan letters, phone calls and congratulations, I just want to say, thank you. You make this whole writing gig that much more enjoyable. I truly wouldn’t be here without you.”
