The Shadow Realm

Title: Going Under

Author: S. Walden

Publication Date: 14th March 2013

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary

Synopsis:

Brooke Wright has only two goals her senior year at Charity Run High School: stay out of trouble and learn to forgive herself for the past. Forgiveness proves elusive, and trouble finds her anyway when she discovers a secret club at school connected to the death of her best friend. She learns that swim team members participate in a “Fantasy Slut League,” scoring points for their sexual acts with unsuspecting girls.

Brooke, wracked with guilt over her friend’s death, decides to infiltrate the league by becoming one of the “unsuspecting girls,” and exact revenge on the boys who stole away her best friend. An unexpected romance complicates her plans, and her dogged pursuit of justice turns her reckless as she underestimates just how far the boys will go to keep their sex club a secret.

(This is a New Adult fiction book with mature themes. It contains graphic sex and language and an explicit description of sexual violence. Please take the content warning seriously.)

Buy links:

Amazon / B&N / Smashwords / Createspace (paperback) / Kobo

About S. Walden

S. Walden used to teach English before making the best decision of her life by becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Georgia with her very supportive husband who prefers physics textbooks over fiction and has a difficult time understanding why her characters must have personality flaws. She is wary of small children, so she has a Westie instead. Her dreams include raising chickens and owning and operating a beachside inn on the Gulf Coast (chickens included). When she's not writing, she's thinking about it.

She loves her fans and loves to hear from them. Email her at swaldenauthor@hotmail.com and follow her blog at http://swaldenauthor.blogspot.com where you can get up-to-date information on her current projects.

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All About Ryan

“Ryan, why are you so gorgeous and strange?”

My sister told me she laughed her butt off at that part in the book—the part where Brooke gets drunk. I wanted it to be silly and lighthearted to take away from some of the heaviness in the novel. I mean, good grief. If the entire novel were like Chapter 20, who on earth would read it??

But back to gorgeous and strange Ryan. It’s official. The ladies love him, and many of you were a little mad you didn’t get more of him in the book. In my defense, I will say that Going Under was not meant to be primarily a romance. In fact, I purposely wrote the romance as a side item. This did not make for completely happy fans. You were semi-happy, but not all-the-way happy. ☺ So here’s me making it up to you. I’m giving you a little inside information on our leading man that hopefully will allow you to forgive me in some way for not featuring him on every page. xo

Full name: Ryan James Foster

Born: September 27 in Raleigh, North Carolina at WakeMed

Astrological Sign: Libra

Stats: 6’2”; 180 lbs; brown hair; blue eyes

Favorite food: Steak fajitas

Favorite music: The Smashing Pumpkins, specifically their Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness album. (His older cousin turned him on to ‘90s alternative rock.)

Favorite TV show: Game of Thrones

Activities: surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding (he’s really hot when he snowboards), swimming, making out with Brooke

Favorite book: The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Favorite movie: Snatch (Hey, what do you want me to say?)

College degree: B.S. Business Finance

Current job: Finance manager for a chain of local skateboard and skateboard supplies stores in Chapel Hill, NC

Idiotic move in college: Hosted a “hurricane party” at a friend’s place half a mile from the beach. These are popular parties during hurricane season in Wilmington, NC, and they really piss off the local authorities. No one was hurt, but a lot of college students got wasted and then naked. Ryan only got partially naked.

Biggest regret about Brooke: Not getting out of the car. He drove to NC State to see Brooke her freshmen year. He sat in the car in front of her dorm. He waited for hours and finally saw her walking towards the dorm entrance. And he wanted to go to her, but he was afraid. So he watched her swipe her key card, open the door, and disappear from view. He wouldn’t see her again for two years.

Sweetest Moment: Marrying Brooke. Simple. No fuss. A courthouse. The important people. A beautiful woman in a little white dress. Saying “I do.” And the next installment in their great big adventure.

Random Stuff:

~Broke his arm three times when he was in elementary school and middle school.

~Had braces twice: once in fourth grade and then again in seventh because he never wore his retainer.

~Played center forward in soccer until he messed up his knee.

~Pledged a fraternity in college and then quit.

~Turned down a make-out session with a girl in his freshmen composition class. Told her he was already committed to someone else.

~Became inseparable friends with Alyssa from philosophy. She was the only one who could stomach his incessant talk about Brooke.

~Wears one contact in his right eye to give him monovision (one eye sees distance and one eye reads up close).

~Does pushups every day.

~Tried vegetarianism for a week at the insistence of his friend, Charlie. Missed his steak fajitas too much to commit for life.

~Wants to give Brooke babies as soon as possible.

Okay fans. If that didn’t placate you, I will be collecting questions about Ryan during the tour that I will answer at the end. You have to email me at swaldenauthor@hotmail.com to ask a question (please limit them to two), and I will post all the questions and answers by June 9. Sound good?

Excerpt

I had no business getting all dolled up for Ryan. I was supposed to be focused on Cal, but somehow he became just some guy in the background, out of focus and unimportant in my life. I thought I heard Beth screaming from a far off place, asking me what the hell I was doing, but I ignored her. She couldn’t control my life. I’d get to Cal when I got to him. She had to understand that.

I studied myself in the full-length mirror. I’d never looked prettier for work. I thought I looked like a Barbie doll, my hair pulled up high on my head in a ponytail, locks curled and tumbling in flirty waves from the elastic band. I pumped up the eye factor with heavy mascara. I wanted to go for an Edie Sedgwick look—all ‘60s glam. I even ironed my uniform, a typical diner waitress outfit. Blue shirtdress that hit just above my knees. I slipped on my Keds and grabbed my apron.

I planned to knock his socks off.

. . . I approached him after counting to twenty. I didn’t want to seem too eager.

“Hi,” I said. I felt bright and bubbly and on top of the world.

“Hello.”

I placed my hand on my hip and popped it out. “Come here often?” I couldn’t resist.

“Once. The waitress was cute, but she’s got nothing on you,” Ryan said.

Damn right she doesn’t. I went Edie Sedgwick for you, buddy.

“God, you look gorgeous,” he said.

Oh, those heart flutters. I wanted to feel those heart flutters forever.

“I’m in an ugly uniform,” I said, looking down at my outfit. I smoothed my apron on my stomach.

“Not ugly at all. Sexy more like.”

I blushed, and this time he saw. I couldn’t conceal it under the glare of the restaurant lights.

“Hungry?” I asked, and pulled out my order pad.

“What would you recommend?”

“Honestly? I’ve only eaten the turkey sandwich. It was all right,” I confessed.

“Don’t you get to eat for free?” Ryan asked.

“Are you kidding? A little bit of a discount, sure, but nothing for free,” I said. “And anyway, I’m so tired after work, I don’t want to stick around and eat. I want to go home.”

“I can understand that,” he said. He looked over the menu. “Well, I guess I’ll try this steak sandwich.”

“A man who eats manly meat,” I said. “I like it.”

“Manly meat, huh?” he asked, chuckling.

“Sure. Didn’t you know steak was the manliest of meats?”

“Making a note of it,” Ryan said.

I nodded. “And to drink?”

“A Cherry Coke,” he said.

“Now that’s a little girly, but I’ll let it slide.”

“Well, I really ordered it for you,” Ryan said. “See, I thought you could bring it over here along with two straws. You could sit across from me, and we could drink it together.”