Girls Love Travis Walker: excerpt, guest post and giveaway
We hope everyone is having a wonderful Saturday. We are today's stop on the Girls Love Travis Walker Blog Tour, hosted by Reading Addiction Book Tours. We have a Guest Post written by author Anne Pfeffer and an excerpt. There is also a tour-wide giveaway to enter. Have a great weekend!
Girls Love Travis Walker by Anne Pfeffer
New Adult Contemporary
Paperback/eBook, 323 pages
Date Published: 3/15/13
Purchase: Amazon
To nineteen-year-old high school dropout Travis Walker, women are like snowflakes-- each one different, but beautiful in her own way.He can charm any girl he meets, and yet down deep he fears he'll always be a loser like his jailbird father. As the landlady threatens to evict him and his sick mother, Travis takes a job he hates and spends his evenings picking up girls at a nearby night spot.When he enlists in a teen program at the local fire station, he finds out he’s amazing at it. Then he meets the smoking hot Kat Summers, enlists Kat’s friend Zoey to help him woo her, and falls in love for the first time ever.But he keeps the details of his life secret. His girl will never love him back if she knows the truth about him….
Only fifteen minutes since I’d entered the halls of Perdido High School and already the beady eye of authority was upon me. I hadn’t even done anything wrong.
Yet.
“Travis!” Ms. Valenzuela called out to me from the door of the guidance office. Although she was getting old, maybe into her early forties, she hadn’t let herself go. She had great legs, which were hidden today by her lime green pants.
“Yo.” I loped over and unleashed a grin that combined sincere remorse for my failings with my irresistible charm.
She pursed her lips. “Don’t start with me, Travis.”
I led the way to her office and took my usual chair while she sat at the desk across from me. “New picture,” I said, nodding to the updated photo of her two daughters. “Kelsi and … Julianne, right?”
She struggled to keep back a smile. “Yes, Travis. Those are their names.”
“Fifth and seventh grade, right?”
“Yes, Travis.” Now she was smiling for sure.
Maybe it was my blue-green eyes, or maybe my granite abs, but I could always get women to smile at me.
Ms. Valenzuela opened my folder. “Six more absences since your last visit to my office. Plus numerous missed homework assignments. You’re this close to suspension.” She held up her thumb and index finger a millimeter apart.
“I have to work, Ms. Val,” I said. “Gotta get ahead, you know.” I had a promising position as a bus boy at Jake’s Burgers.
“How many hours are you working these days?”
“As many as I can get, whenever I can get ‘em.”
“You can’t cut back?” She knew she couldn’t push me that hard. My family’s sudden move to Los Angeles in November of my junior year, coupled with my erratic attendance at Perdido High, had screwed up my graduation credits. With all my former classmates in college, I was starting my senior year, again, at age nineteen.
“I can’t get weekend shifts at Jake’s,” I told Ms.Val.
She didn’t like me working there, but she should just be glad I wasn’t following in the path of my father, who knocked over a convenience mart a year ago and ended up in prison for armed robbery. Mom had gone to visit him, but I refused. He could rot there for all I cared.
“You’ve got one school year left to graduate. I want to see you get that high school diploma, Travis. Or a GED at least.” Between her fingers, she rolled a pen. It was the cheap kind the school district bought that wrote for about five minutes before it crapped out on you.
“Yeah, well, we’re about to get evicted,” I said, “so that’s kind of rearranged my priorities.”
by Anne Pfeffer
What to Expect When You Read
Girls Love Travis Walker
Readers often tell me my books surprised them. They say there was a lot more there than they’d expected, a lot more story and emotion. I don’t set out to make my books unpredictable or unusual, but that’s how they seem to end up. Fortunately, most people (or the ones who write letters and reviews, anyway) are happily surprised. But because I’d like you to know what you’re getting, I thought I’d try to explain this book a little and tell you what early readers are saying.
To understand Girls Love Travis Walker, think of Will Smith’s film The Pursuit of Happyness (a man struggling to keep his family off the streets), combined with a classic romance novel (boy meets, loses, and gets girl), combined with a main character like Tim Riggins (pictured above) in Friday Night Lights (off-the-charts-gorgeous bad boy with a heart of gold.)
It is not a lighter-than-air romance, but rather an absorbing, heart-warming and, I hope, sexy read about a serious subject. My book is about first love and second chances. It will make you cry, but in a good way.
To my thrilled amazement, the book has won some awards. On June 1, 2013, the Indie Reader Discovery Awards announced Girls Love Travis Walker as its Third Place Winner in the Fiction Category, putting it among the top six books honored in that competition. (www.indiereaderdiscoveryawards.com) It was also named a Finalist in New Fiction in the 2013 National Indie Excellence Awards.
But what really makes me happy is that some who hesitated to read the book at first were glad when they did. According to a couple of readers, “The book touched on subjects that I never thought I would find myself reading. …[but] I found myself engrossed in Travis Walker’s story and I just could not get enough.” http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/621290112
“I loved Travis…. My heart broke for the things he went through, things I definitely wasn't expecting.” http://amzn.to/18Oj8o4
Others noted that it changed the way they saw their lives:
“[It] is one of those rare gems that … causes you to take a long, hard look at your prejudices and preconceptions of the world around you…” http://amzn.to/11furiG
“This … sweet, tender read…. made me look at my life and reminded me that even if I don’t have everything, it is still more than what others may have.” http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/556279751
I’m glad readers are finding they can relate to the plot and the characters. In this story, Travis is not just trying to keep his home. He’s also looking to find himself. I hope you give it a try and love it!
To my thrilled amazement, the book has won some awards. On June 1, 2013, the Indie Reader Discovery Awards announced Girls Love Travis Walker as its Third Place Winner in the Fiction Category, putting it among the top six books honored in that competition. (www.indiereaderdiscoveryawards.com) It was also named a Finalist in New Fiction in the 2013 National Indie Excellence Awards.
But what really makes me happy is that some who hesitated to read the book at first were glad when they did. According to a couple of readers, “The book touched on subjects that I never thought I would find myself reading. …[but] I found myself engrossed in Travis Walker’s story and I just could not get enough.” http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/621290112
“I loved Travis…. My heart broke for the things he went through, things I definitely wasn't expecting.” http://amzn.to/18Oj8o4
Others noted that it changed the way they saw their lives:
“[It] is one of those rare gems that … causes you to take a long, hard look at your prejudices and preconceptions of the world around you…” http://amzn.to/11furiG
“This … sweet, tender read…. made me look at my life and reminded me that even if I don’t have everything, it is still more than what others may have.” http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/556279751
I’m glad readers are finding they can relate to the plot and the characters. In this story, Travis is not just trying to keep his home. He’s also looking to find himself. I hope you give it a try and love it!
About the author:
Anne Pfeffer is the author of Any Other Night and The Wedding Cake Girl. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Contact links: Website | Twitter @AnnePfeffer1
The remaining tour stops:
July 7 - Brooke Blogs
July 8 - Read, Review, Love
July 9 - Paulete's Papers
July 10 - Just A Booklover
July 11 - Busy Mom Book Reviews
July 12 - RABT Reviews
Giveaway:
There is a tour-wide giveaway of a $25 Amazon Gift Card.
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