Hi, lovelies!! It gives me great pleasure today to host Patrick Jones and his new book, “Things Changed,” here on FAB!! For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.
Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with Patrick and to increase your chances of winning!!
Thanks for stopping by!! Wishing you all lots of good luck in this fabulous giveaway!!
Things Changed
by Patrick Jones
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GENRE: Young Adult Fiction
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BOOK BLURB:
Johanna and Paul have a passionate, yet volatile relationship. Shy Johanna knows no amount of passion can wipe out the verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. She finds the courage to walk away to have her own future.
Bret is a social outcast, but an intense relationship with Kylee makes him believe that dreams can come true. Bret's world crashes down when Kylee cheats with one of Bret's friends leading to a disastrous prom night confrontation.
Bret and Johanna, home from their first year of college, meet and find an instant attraction. Their chemistry is undeniable, but shadows from the past threaten the present when Paul re-enter Johanna's life and Bret's home life turns upside down. Can two broken-hearted people break the grip of the past and find happiness?
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EXCERPT TWO:
She betrayed me, she broke my heart, and betrayed me again. I forgave her, yet I can’t forget her. She used to call her overbearing, overly successful mother the Shadowcaster, but Kylee plays that role in my life. All of my relationships ruined by her shadow. From Becca Levy in my high school senior year through a series of short-lived romances with theater girls during my college freshman year, I can’t seem to get it right after being treated so wrong. Or did I have it so good that nothing can compare to Kylee? It’s because of her—her dad, actually—that I know old Dylan songs like “Visions of Johanna.” With this girl Johanna, maybe there’s a chance. I recall telling Alex that guys who are fives don’t get girls who are tens since I understood the awful arithmetic of animal attraction. This girl’s a safe seven. She doesn’t have Kylee’s beauty or perfect dancer’s body, then again, few do. But if she’s reading Howl, she’s got some smarts and hipness even without rainbow ribbons in her hair and piercings in her nose like Kylee sported this morning in the picture I saw of her on Instagram. Kylee’s gone from Michigan, but she’s got a handcuff on my heart, or maybe she’s an addiction. Maybe I need Kylee Edmunds like my dad needs cheap whiskey.
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GUEST POST:
My Favorite Scene in This Book…
Since Things Changed is a romance, my favorite scene, and the most important scene in the book, is when the two characters (Johanna and Bret) meet for the first time. The meeting place is odd – the hallway of a county courthouse – and the reason they are they even odder. Johanna is there with her ex-boyfriend (Paul) who is in trouble for making threats against his current girlfriend, while Bret is there because he has driven his father to the courthouse where his dad is to be sentenced to jail for an accident he caused while driving drunk. So, neither are in a good place as they sit in the hallway across from each other.
Johanna is reading – no surprise since her nickname in high school was “Books” – when she notices a guy across the hallway looking at her, but not in a creepy way. She is unnerved and flattered at the same time. She buries herself in her book when she hears the guy speak to her which ends the chapter. You see all of this from Johanna’s first-person point of view. But the next chapter starts with Bret telling the story. Bret comments on the book she is reading (Howl by Allen Ginsberg) and engages her in conversation. All the time he is feeling nervous and way out of his comfort zone, but he forges ahead.
My name’s Bret, like the writer, Bret Harte, or retired wrestler, Bret Hart. It depends if you prefer sonnets or suplexes.”
“Would a poetry slam be both?” she asks.
I laugh, then she smiles bright enough to light up the dim hallway filled with troubled souls.
“Maybe your name is anonymous,” I say.
She pauses like she’s wondering why this weird lanky guy is bothering her. “Johanna.”
After more flirting between them, Bret gives Johanna his phone number and Twitter handle. He invites Johanna to check out his band’s videos on YouTube and to visit him at his place of work (Goodwill, where he also buys all his clothes). As they part, Bret comments how Johanna looked at him with intensity and interest, when he only expected rejection because that is what he used to from girls. And heartbreak. While his ex-Kylee is not in his life like Paul is with Johanna, Kylee is very much alive in Bret’s thoughts. He’s not over her. When Johanna doesn’t run screaming the other way when she learns that Paul has been abusing another girlfriend, like he had abused her, the reader realizes that Johanna’s not over Paul either.
Thus, the first scene introduces the characters and their connection to each other. It gets the story moving, but also reveals the theme of how difficult it is to love in the present when you’ve been broken by love in the past. The rest of the book, which is told in alternating first-person chapters by Johanna and Bret, shows the two of them coming together, and breaking apart, during one fateful summer.
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AUTHOR BIO:
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From Flint MI but now residing in Minneapolis MN, Jones is the author of over fifty novels for teens. His working with teens in correctional facilities and alternative schools has informed his works such as the Unbarred and The Alternative series. While he published his book in 1992 and this first novel in 2004, his initial publication was for a professional wrestling magazine when he was only eight years old.
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CONNECT WITH PATRICK:
Website:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TearCollector
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/PatrickJonesYA
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/connectingya
Goodreads Author Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/86346.Patrick_Jones
Amazon Author Page:
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AMAZON BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon US Kindle eBook:
Amazon US Paperback:
Amazon CA Kindle eBook:
https://www.amazon.ca/Things-Changed-Patrick-Jones-ebook/dp/B0BHHN9BKC
Amazon CA Paperback:
https://www.amazon.ca/Things-Changed-Patrick-Jones/dp/1958901059
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
Patrick will be awarding a $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner’s Choice!!!) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just helps pay for all those fabulous community outreach projects and awesome giveaways on here**
This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions. Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
Sorry to be late - I am here now and appreciate you posting two excerpts and my guest post, plus showing off that great cover.
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